Understanding real estate and mortgage terminology is of utmost importance when buying a home. The vocabulary will become second nature the more you are involved in real estate transactions. For the pros and loan officers, it’s daily language.

This is a quick reference of mortgage dictionary words. Sit down and read each description and become familiar with the words. Then, in a few weeks, you can “talk the talk” and be familiar with the meaning of each word.

Escrow Account: A financial account, separate from an operating account, maintained by a title company for the benefit of the parties to a real estate transaction.

Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA): Also know as “Fannie Mae,” a tax-paying corporation created by Congress that purchases and sells conventional residential mortgages, as well as those insured by FHA or guaranteed by VA. This institution, which provides funds for one in seven mortgages, makes money more available and more affordable.

Fixed Rate Mortgage: Interest rate is constant for the entire term of the loan.

Floating Rate: An interest rate that is not guaranteed. One that can change as the “market” changes. You can choose to float your rate, instead of lock your rate.

Foreclosure: A legal procedure in which property securing the debt is sold by the lender to pay the defaulting borrower’s debt.

Housing Expenses-To-Income Ratio: The ratio, expressed as a percentage, which results when a borrower’s housing expenses are divided by his/her net effective income (FHA/VA loans) or gross monthly income (conventional loans).

Index: the interest rate to which changes in an adjustable-rate mortgage are pegged.

Impound: The portion of a borrower’s monthly payments held by the lender to pay taxes, hazard insurance and mortgage insurance.

Interest Rate: The percentage a borrower pays to borrow money. On adjustable-rate loans, index plus margin equals adjusted interest rate.

Lien: A monetary claim against a property, which usually needs to be settled before the buyer can take title.

Loan Application Fee: A lender’s fee, usually ranging from $75 to $300, which the buyer must pay when applying for a mortgage.

Lock-In: A lender’s promise to guarantee an interest rate or points for a set period during the qualifying process.

Margin: The amount added to an index to determine future interest rates on adjustable-rate mortgages.

Market Rate: The average rate charged by lenders for conventional, fixed-rate loans.

Mortgage: A legal document that pledges a property to the lender as security for payment of debt.

Mortgage Insurance: Money paid to insure the mortgage when the down payment is less than 20 percent.

Negative amortization: An increase in the outstanding balance of a loan created when the payment isn’t large enough to cover the interest charged.

Note: A legal document obligating a borrower to repay a loan at a stated interest rate during a specified period of time. The mortgage note is secured by a mortgage.

Owner’s Title Insurance Policy: Insurance to protect the buyer against loss arising from dispute over ownership of property. The owner’s guarantee that the property is free and clear of any unknown defects. You will receive a copy of this policy before closing, and again at closing.

Pre-Qualification: A determination of how much money a prospective home buyer will be eligible to borrow before a loan application is made. Many real estate professionals will ask buyers for a pre-qualification or pre-approval letter to accompany an offer.

Understanding these terms will give you an advantage when applying for a loan. Just study them and you’ll understand the lingo.

Helena Biasatti Hill is a Dallas real estate broker and a contributor to the Flower Mound Home Showcase.

The six-figure book advance, like the New York Times bestseller, is the object of many a writer’s fantasy. Whether it’s also a realistic goal is something else again.

*Can you really get a six-figure book advance?*

When Susan Page wrote *The Shortest Distance Between You and a Published Book* in 1997, she included the following list of the qualities that you and your book have to have if you’re going to get a six-figure advance.

1. Your book is on a topic of wide general interest that could excite a large number of readers.
2. Your book has a distinctive angle and makes an original contribution to its field.
3. You have substantial credentials to write on this topic OR you have a co-author who does, OR you can get an extremely famous, well-credentialed person to write a foreword for you.
4. You have prepared an extraordinary proposal and are working with a competent editor already.
5. You have a show-stopping title.
6. You secure the services of a well-known, experienced agent who believes the book can earn such an advance.
7. You are both willing and able to promote your book on radio and TV and in print.

This is not a mix-and-match list. You have to have *all* of those things to get the big advance, unless you are an international celebrity or a best-selling author.

Page’s aim was to deflate unrealistic expectations. Her book aims to get you into print, not necessarily to get you rich. Most authors do not get rich from their books. Most publishers don’t get rich either. Book publishing is an industry in which there is very little profit. If authors get rich, it’s usually because having a book lets them sell expensive services and book high-paying speaking gigs.

*You can get a six-figure advance, but it will cost you.*

And I don’t mean the $197 price tag on Susan Harrow’s new e-book, Get a Six-Figure Book Advance. A $200 investment is nothing if it gets you a $200,000 return. Using the proposal template/software included with her $197 e-book, you’ll be able to produce the kind of proposal that will have publishers in hot pursuitbut getting the advance requires a whole lot more than just buying the book or even having all the right elements in your proposal.

*If you want a six-figure book advance, you’re going to have to work for it.*

Susan Harrow, jokingly known as a “de-motivational coach,” doesn’t try to pretend otherwise. In her August 4th teleclass, co-hosted by ghostwriter Mahesh Grossman of the Authors Team, she made it clear just how much work goes into getting a six-figure advance, and how long and hard you have to keep working *after* you get the money.

*How advances work*

In order to persuade publishers to pay you $100,000 or more before your book is published, you have to convince them that your book will sell at least 100,000 copies. (Your royalty will be about $1/book for a trade paperback, possibly as much as $3/book for a hardcover, so you do the math.) And since books don’t sell themselves, what you’re really saying to the publisher is that *you* can sell those 100,000 copies.

Yes, a publisher that invests that much money in you will also invest more in the production and marketing of your book than in someone who gets a smaller advance, but when you get right down to it, no one really buys a book because of its publisher. And your book won’t sell just because it’s a good book. People rarely buy non-fiction books for the quality of the writing. They buy for the quality of the informationand in the mind of the public, that depends on the expertise and reputation of the author. It all comes back to you.

*How do you get readers to think of you as an expert?*

First, they have to know you exist. If you’re not already a celebrity, you’re going to have to become one, or at least put up a convincing show. If you don’t have legions of fans, you should at least have thousands of subscribers to your e-zine or blog, or a syndicated column in a newspaper. If you haven’t been on Oprah or The Today Show yet, radio interviews and local TV news programs are a good start.

*Getting into the public eye*

To get visible enough fast enough, you probably need a publicist, which means shelling out several thousand dollars. In order for media attention to do you any good, you have to look good and sound good every time you appear. That means getting professional media coaching before you start lining up interviews to make up for not being a celebrity. You need to arm yourself with a repertoire of sound bites for all occasions and rehearse until you can spout them in your sleep.

That doesn’t just take money, it takes time. It takes *work*. And no one can do it for you, either, because you, as the author, have to be the one in the limelight.

*Editing is essential for a killer proposal.*

Media coaches and publicists aren’t the only team members you’ll have to enlist if you want a six-figure advance and a book that justifies it. The services of a professional editor are essential for both your proposal and your finished book. In fact, you might just want to hire a ghostwriter and get it over with, because you’re probably going to be too busy marketing to write.

That’s more money spent in advance of getting your advance.

*Post-publication publicity*

You’re not through yet, either. Now that you’ve gotten enough media attention for yourself to impress a publisher, you have to do it over again for your book. You’re going to have to shell out a good-sized chunk of that advance on your own publicity efforts. More and more publishing houses assume that your advance *is* the marketing budget for the book, so they expect you to spend your own money on getting the book sold. (Tip: when mentioning this in your proposal, always make the offer contingent on the publisher matching the amount.) This expectation actually holds true regardless of the size of your advance, but the more money you want to get, the more money you have to spend.

*Six-figure advances are not for the faint of heart*

Writing a good book is the least of the challenges facing you when you set out to get a six-figure advance. Moreover, if you *don’t* earn out your advance by actually selling 100,000+ books, your chance of getting such a large advance again are nil. To succeed when the stakes are this high, you need to become an Olympic athlete of a book marketer. That can be hard to do if you have either a day job or a family, never mind both. And it’s almost impossible if you don’t have a substantial chunk of starting capital.

*Do you really need a six-figure book advance?*

For many authors, five figures is plenty, especially for a first book. Even if it loses money, that book will create the leverage the author needs to succeed in other aspects of her business. (That’s one reason self-publishing can be such a good option for business book authors.) Getting a smaller advance still takes work and costs money, but it’s a much more manageable goal for a first time author without fifty grand to invest in getting into the bookstores.

(c) 2005 Sallie Goetsch

About The Author

(c) 2005 Sallie Goetsch. You have permission to reprint and distribute these articles online, in whole or in part, free of charge, as long as you include complete attribution.

Author-izer and Collabowriter Sallie Goetsch started writing at the age four. She specializes in turning busy professionals into authors. Get free articles for your e-zine, newsletter, or website from http://authorizer.fileslinger.com or e-mail authorizer@fileslinger.com to ask about custom web content.

authorizer@fileslinger.com

When collecting Japanese netsuke most of the true antique netsuke, as against lots of modern copies, will normally have two connecting cord holes (known as himotoshi), but one will be much larger than the other!
The netsuke was a handling piece, that was on a cord to a compartment (Sagemono), often this was an inro (a case of several compartments), that was kept closed by a corded bead (ojime) between the inro and the netsuke. The kimono had no pockets so the inro was worn hanging from the kimono sash (obi); the netsuke was then, pushed up under the sash, thus trapping and holding the Sagemono in place.

The reason for the larger hole in the netsuke was that once the cord had been threaded through the inro (or Sagemono) and ojime (the netsuke would then have been threaded on last) it was possible to completely hide the one and only cord knot inside the larger hole.

So the way the smaller hole connected to the larger hole was very well formed providing a smooth curved link that was easy to thread the cord through. Often the larger hole was hollowed out even more, under the surface, in order to provide plenty of space for the knot.

The Manju, often used instead of a netsuke, also had plenty of space to hide the knot within the opening of the two sections.

In my personal view, although there are some very fine netsuke that relied on being threaded through a tail, or a leg, instead of having the usual himotoshi, there was then quite a disadvantage in use, as there was no longer anyway of concealing the cord knot.

Another important factor is the position of such himotoshi, they were always placed so that, as the cord hangs down, the netsuke carving is presented attractively and the right way up. But, these cord holes were also placed in such a way that they did not detract from any of the detailed carving.

Many of the poor quality later netsuke (these were never used, but were really made simply to cash in, on the increasing value of netsuke) are often easy to spot. When inspecting a netsuke if the two holes are of equal size and poorly formed (often these are just two drilled holes angled to meet each other) then you can be sure this is not a good netsuke!

Sadly one can no longer just rely on judging the himotoshi to identify a modern copy, as some now do have smaller and larger holes, especially the recent resin copies of netsuke.

The author has been a very keen Asian antique collector for many years helping to create ‘The Cohen collection’.

To view more articles with the photographs please use the following link: -
http://www.jncohen.net/antiques/articles.htm

http://www.jncohen.net/Cohen_collection/index.htm

Do you know someone that has been diagnosed with sleep apnea and you did not dare ask what it is exactly? Are you aware that a lot of people are unaware of being affected by this sleep disorder? Could you or someone close to you be suffering from this disorder? Let’s find out!

What is sleep apnea?

Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder that affects both the quality of sleep but also more importantly, the breathing process. While sleeping, the patient will stop breathing for periods of 10 seconds or longer which will wake him up as he is struggling to breathe. These absences of breathing are called “apneas”. Usually the patient is unaware of these struggling episodes.

Is there more than one kind of sleep apnea?

Did you know that there are two types of sleep apnea? The first is called OSA (obstructive sleep apnea) which is caused by relaxed soft tissue blocking the passage of air during sleep.

The second type of sleep apnea is called CSA (central sleep apnea) which is caused by irregular signals from the brain that affect the breathing process. In some cases, patients suffer from a combination of both types of sleep apnea.

What are the symptoms of sleep apnea?

The symptoms of sleep apnea are: suffering from excessive sleepiness during the day, having headaches in the morning, feeling irritable, being affected by mood changes, suffering from anxiety, being affected by depression, becoming forgetful, snoring loud and gasp for air, having restless sleep, having trouble to concentrate and even falling asleep during the day. Please note that these symptoms vary from one person to the next. Also be aware that the severity of the symptoms and the combination of symptoms vary from one patient to the next.

A bit of history

Did you know that the first case of sleep apnea that was diagnosed happened only in 1965? This is a bit odd when you consider that so many people are affected by this sleep disorder. At first, only people suffering from certain health conditions such as congestive heart failure were diagnosed with sleep apnea. It was also noticed that problems related to sleep apnea happened following surgery particularly in people that are overweight, obese or had short necks. It was later on proven that while they were noticed in these particular cases, sleep apnea does not only affect people suffering from these conditions or displaying these specific characteristics.

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA)

This type of sleep apnea seems more common in people that have a soft palate or other abnormalities such the ones related to the jaw, people who are obese or consume alcohol. Did you know that 2% of female and 4% of males diagnosed with a mild case of sleep apnea stop breathing at least ten times per hour?

To evaluate the severity of sleep apnea in a patient, the specialist will evaluate it by using the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI). If a patient has less than 5 apneas per hour, it is considered normal. If it is between 5 and 15 it is mild, if it is between 15 and 30 it is moderate and over 30 is considered severe.

Also, the approximate time for each apnea (breathing interruption) is usually about 10 seconds but in more severe cases, it can reach 60 seconds.

In certain cases, sleep apnea can be cause by an external situation such as an accident, family problems, heart problems and narcolepsy. It was also held responsible either partially or totally for SIDS also known as sudden infant death syndrome.

How can it be diagnosed?

Sleep apnea is evaluated in a sleep laboratory. The patient spends the night in this laboratory and is closely monitored by both a technician with visual instruments as well as various medical resources that will also verify the level of oxygen in the blood, the breathing pattern as well as the activity of the brain.

What are the available treatments?

Well, according to the severity of the sleep apnea, a single type of treatment may help while some cases may require a combination of treatments. The available treatments are: medication, avoid antidepressants or relaxants, avoid alcohol, change of diet, quit smoking, surgery to enlarge the airways, devices to keep the patient from sleeping on his back, special pillows, oral devices and the continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) which is a machine that uses a tube connected to a mask and sends continuous pressurized air to keep the airways open.

Can sleep apnea be fatal?

Sleep apnea can lead to death as it takes a huge toll on the body and affects other systems which can lead to fatal situations such as a heart attack, congestive heart failure, a stroke or the patient may fall asleep while driving for example and have a tragic accident.

It is important to know that while people between 65 and 100 years of age or that are overweigh are more susceptible to suffer from sleep apnea but it still can affect people that are not overweight, infants and children as well. That is why if you have any doubts concerning a close relative, a friend or even yourself, see a doctor as treated sleep apnea cannot only improve your quality of life but also give you the opportunity to live a long and happy life.

My husband has been diagnosed with sleep apnea a few years ago. He has followed certain treatments, such as surgery and CPAP and we believe that it has improved his quality of sleep which also allow him to lead a better life. If you wish to learn more about sleep apnea, I invite you to visit this site: http://sleep-apnea.findoutnow.org

While every college offers the path to higher education, there are facets that can make one school more suitable for a prospective student than another. Because of this, one must be prepared to do a good amount of research on several different colleges before making a final decision. Those who make their college choices based on facts rather than getting swept away by reputation will likely get more out of their education. They are more likely to finish what they start and therefore see the reward of their efforts in every aspect of their life. Those who graduate with a solid degree will always have more options than those who don’t.

For those in the workforce looking to return to school, college choices need a good amount of research as well. However, there are certain criteria to include that most non-working students don’t have to worry about. Many times, it is an online college that will become the top choice for a working adult. Because there are so many online education options, one must be prepared to know what to look for in a reputable online venue. This ensures that individuals invest their time wisely in getting the degree they need.

So many people that are concerned with improving their health over look the health of their liver. The liver is called LIVE -R for a reason. The liver is involved with digestion and assimilation. It processes nutrients to give life to your body and to repair diseased and damaged tissue. It removes toxins and eliminates pathogen from getting into the blood that flow to all of your body cells.

Over 27,000 people every year die from chronic liver diseases and Cirrhosis. People with diabetes have a high number of deaths from liver deterioration. Over 60,000 people die from liver failure. It is estimated that 9,000 die from Chronic Hepatitis C and over 12,000 from liver cancer. Over 25 million people create some form of liver and gallbladder disease every year.

Liver disease is the Seventh killer of American people.

Don’t dismiss the health of your liver as you layout your plans to improve your health. Most people have some from of liver weakness and don’t even know it until it too late. Why not learn what you can do to treat your liver right so it can give you good LIFE.

Here is a list of symptoms that you will have when your liver is not working like it should.

Frequent headache not related to stress, eyestrain, or shoulder muscle tension
Frequent menstrual problems
Blurry vision or red eyes
Constant bitter taste in mouth
Excessive anger, depression or moodiness
Tenderness in the liver area - just under your right rib cage
Acne, psoriasis, eczema, rashes, and other skin problems
Weakness in your muscles and joint areas

Any one of these symptoms can be an indication that you have liver weakness. If you have two - three of them for sure you have some liver weakness.

So what can you do if you feel that you have some liver weakness?

The first area to work on is to examine the types of fats and oils you eat and make the changes that will give you better liver health.

Saturated fats, such as found in butter, meat, lard, and other oils are highly susceptible to oxygen damage through the process called oxidation. When these fats are oxidized they become rancid and form free radicals.

But Saturated fats are not the only fats that can be oxidized. Even unsaturated fats, the good oils, can be oxidized. Still it is better to eat most of our fats unsaturated since saturated fats are associated with heart conditions.

All fats can become oxidize outside the body by using them to fry your food or inside your body though the natural oxidation processes.

Liver cells are highly susceptible to free radicals. These free radicals are destructive to liver cell walls and weaken the health of the liver over time.

Also, Scientists have found that 17% of the oxygen you breathe and have available in your body becomes a free radical. These free radicals, again, attack and destroy liver cells.

To counter eating free radicals and the free radicals that are created in your body, you need to take anti-oxidant supplements and eat fruits and vegetables. The yellow and red colored fruits and vegetables are the highest in anti-oxidants. Of course it is best to also limit eating fried food and not use oils that have been sitting around to long.

Rudy Silva is a Natural Nutritionist. To get the latest information and tips on liver health go to: http://www.liverdamageprevention.for–you.com

“101 Ways To Market Your Website” is the title of a book found at a cheap publisher’s outlet in town for about three quid and purchased out of interest.

So, we sat down with a cup of coffee and worked our way through the index, see what these people thought was useful, and if there was something new there.

Extraordinarily enough, in my past 10 years on the net, I’ve done EVERY SINGLE ONE of those!

EVERY single one. And some of them, I could have added another 12 chapters on top of what was in the book.

Question. If I actually really do know how to do that web thing so very thoroughly (and it appears that I actually really and practically do!), then why don’t I have 9 billion visitors per second?

The answer is simple.

EVERY ONE of these 101 ways TAKES IMMENSE INVESTMENT IN TIME - IF you’re going to do it right and get it to a point where it actually works well enough to really start generating that mysteriously elusive web traffic for your site.

Let’s just take a single one for example, the autoresponder, in all its glory.

Even if we leave out the time spent learning the software, soliciting ads, writing the content, if you really, REALLY did that thoroughly, with a number of multiple chained autoresponders with thousands or tens of thousands of subscribers on each one, the sign up pages, advertising the sign up pages, keeping the whole thing up to date and dealing with the correspondence this generates, the trouble shooting, unsubscriptions, and everything else, you would end up doing NOTHING ELSE ALL DAY - and have a full working week.

And that is just ONE item on a “101″ item list.

The same holds true for EVERYTHING.

To really build, use, police, update, enlarge and maintain a top class directory, a 40 hour working week by ONE SINGLE PERSON with their computer is taken up, just with that and ONLY that.

To run, police, advertise and expand a popular forum is yet the same again.

To produce an exciting, content rich, constantly up to date blog that brings in followers and sales, yup, it’s a full time task.

To produce, maintain, advertise and run a really good ezine does exactly the same again.

So does “article marketing” with its multiple submissions, updates, multiple directory listings, authors bios, and so forth.

And so does “newsgroup marketing” once again.

Want to try your hand at running a good affiliate programme?

How about keyword optimising each and every page of your website with content alignment, meta tags, robot instructions, and maintaining this with feedback on your listings in various search engines to keep in the top ten as the fashions change radically overnight?

Perhaps a multiple placement dedicated banner advertising campaign with feedback statistic adjustments?

Really get into Google adwords and maintain, track, fine tune and keep it perfectly up to date in response to your competitors and customers?

Same story, all over …

And so it goes on.

Here’s the deal.

All these things, I only did in order to support the business I’m actually SUPPOSED TO BE IN!

My 40 hour working week (well don’t make me laugh! but anyway, just for argument’s sake and to have a figure there) SHOULD theoretically be taken up by research and writing, as I’m a writer.

So what we have here is 101 ways to spend a full 40 hour week, plus your own job’s 40 hour week.

Shame we don’t live on Pluto, isn’t it. They have weeks that last centuries …

So what is ONE SINGLE PERSON trying to do web marketing supposed to do?

Well, and after ten years of beating myself up for not doing all those things “properly”, I think the following is of the essence.

No.1 is to understand that unless you have dedicated staff, there is no way on Earth you can do all of that yourself.

There simply isn’t enough time, even if we leave the steep learning curves and time spent trying to understand software and such quite out of it.

So what one has to do is to pick and choose from these 101 strategies the ones that are:

a) the easiest and fastest;

b) the ones that last the longest on autopilot;

c) the most natural to what you’re supposed to be doing in the first place (yeah that’s the original job/product/mission, remember that even still?)

If you like databases but abhor article writing, concentrate on building a good directory and forget about article submissions, for example.

We need to prune, prioritise and perfect only a very few of these 101 options, and stick to those.

That’s the only way to survive this.

It is to understand that you PHYSICALLY CANNOT do all that; that if you try, you can’t help but fail at everything (as then, NOTHING gets the attention it needs to actually bring results eventually!); and that you have to PICK AND CHOOSE which battles you’re going to fight.

Lastly, all that 101 traffic stuff has to be subjugated to the real reason we’re here, whatever that is, and must NEVER be allowed to get to a point where it is taking up more than 50% of your time.

So.

Go look at a list of these internet marketing devices.

Pick just those you are naturally attracted to, and just FORGET about all the rest.

Try and make those as good as you can, and build up your business to a point like that until you can hire staff and manpower to expand into some of the other traffic generating devices.

And in the meantime, take a deep breath, relax, and know that NO-ONE, not even someone with 8 tentacles instead of arms and who never sleeps, can actually do that myth and successfully implement “101 Ways To Advertise Your Website”.

Wisdom is a fine thing …

SFX

http://SilviaHartmann.com

Silvia Hartmann is the author of MindMillion and CEO of The StarFields Network. Take a GREAT course on wealth building and intelligence enhancing for FREE at http://StarFields.org/60.htm

You might think that deciding to refinance a mortgage requires
only a quick comparison of loan interest rates. Unfortunately,
that’s not really true. Refinancing is trickier than that!
Fortunately, three useful rules of thumb can often help you make
sense of refinancing opportunities.

Rule 1: Don’t Ignore Total Interest Costs

You really want to use refinancing as a way to reduce the total
interest cost you pay. While that sounds simple in principle, it
is sometimes difficult to do. The interest costs you pay are a
function of the interest rate, the loan balance, and the loan
term period.

When people refinance, they tend to focus solely on the loan
interest rate. But they often don’t pay as much attention to the
loan term or the loan balance.

When you use refinancing–even refinancing at a lower interest
rate–to increase your borrowing or to extend the time over
which you borrow, you often aren’t saving money.

Rule 2: Trade Expensive Money for Cheap Money

For refinancing to make economic sense, however, you do need to
swap higher interest rate debt for lower interest rate debt.
This calculation, however, is tricky. To make an
apples-to-apples comparison, you must look at the annual
percentage rate that will be charged on your new loan–this is
the best measure of the new loan’s interest rate cost–and then
compare this to the loan interest rate on your old loan.

You don’t want to compare interest rates on the two loans nor do
you want to compare annual percentage rates on the two loans.
Again, just to make this perfectly clear: You want to compare
the loan interest rate on the old loan to the annual percentage
rate on the new loan.

When the annual percentage rate on the new loan is lower than
the loan interest rate on the old loan, then you are truly
paying a lower interest rate.

Comparing annual percentage rates with loan interest rates seems
confusing at first. But note that you would pay only interest on
your old or current loan, so that’s all you need to look at in
terms of its costs. With a new loan, however, you would pay both
interest and any origination or closing cost fees. The annual
percentage rate wraps the interest rate charges and setup
charges, origination charges, and closing cost fees into one
interest rate-like number.

Rule 3: Don’t Lengthen the Repayment Period

Be careful that you don’t extend the length of time you borrow
by continually refinancing. For example, one common rule of
thumb states that every time interest rates drop by two
percentage points, you should refinance your mortgage. However,
there have been times in recent history when following this rule
would have had you refinancing your mortgage every few years.
This could mean that you would never get your mortgage paid off.
If you refinanced every few years, you would suddenly find
yourself still 30 years away from having your mortgage paid.

Many people believe that having few, if any, credit cards and not having any debt is good for their credit…and they’re all wrong!

Credit scores do not improve unless you have credit accounts with some debt accumulated, with all of the required monthly payments paid on time. While it is true that you may not want to pay interest on any debts you may have, it is far better for your overall credit to have some debt instead of no debt.

The best credit scores come from consumers with established credit accounts, with a small portion of the available credit line in use. Your credit report is updated monthly with payment information on these accounts. If you make all your required minimum monthly payments on time, your credit score will rise.

The shorter the amount of time you’ve had accounts open, the larger the balances are on open accounts and any late payments can combine to negatively impact your credit score. If your total debt-to-income ratio is more than one-third of your monthly income, you may not even qualify for a mortgage loan

Never having used any credit may result in a loan disqualification also, simply because there is no repayment information to base your creditworthiness on.

Your credit score will directly influence the availability of mortgage loans with acceptable rate. The closer your credit score slips toward subprime territory, the more interest and fees you’ll likely end up paying for your loan. The difference between a standard mortgage and a subprime mortgage can make the difference in hundreds of dollars a month tacked onto a mortgage payment.

How you use your credit today will determine the mortgage opportunities that are present tomorrow. Use your credit wisely and the sky’s the limit. Use it poorly and mortgage opportunities will pass you by.

© cashbuzz.com

John Campbell is the writer and editor of CashBuzz, A financial portal for the rest of us. Check out cashbuzz.com for the latest articles on money management and tips and tricks that can help improve your finances. This article may be reprinted on your Web site if the copyright, author information, and active link are included.

What do you mean, you don’t have a website for your small business? Now that the Internet age is well and truly upon us, small business owners who haven’t yet realised what a well-designed website could do for their business are getting harder and harder to find. If you’re one of them, though, read on to find out how starting your own website could help your small business grow.

A small business website widens your client base

And it doesn’t just increase it a little bit either - it increases it a lot! If your business currently gets most of its custom from pass-by trade, or from word of mouth, you could be amazed at the amount of new business your own website could bring you. When you get your website online, you’re no longer restricting yourself to your own local area: your small business website can be seen be people all over the world, and any one of them could become your next customer.

The internet has made world wide trade easier and more common than ever before. Unless your products are exceptionally large or heavy, it’s possible to ship them anywhere in the world relatively inexpensively, and thanks to online payment providers such as paypal and worldpay, you can accept payments from all over the world too. If you’re selling services it’s easier: you can communicate with your international clients by email, and send them your completed work the same way.

A small business website increases your marketing options.

Once you have your own small business website, a whole new world of marketing options will open up to you. Email campaigns, newsletters, pay per click advertising - all highly targeted methods of communicating with your potential clients. Not only is internet marketing relatively easy to do, it also tends to be cheaper than conventional marketing methods, which leaves you with more money to boost your small business in other ways.
Selling online with a small business website

Owning your own small business website also makes it possible to sell your goods and services online.

Adding an ecommerce solution to your website allows you to sell almost anything, and as shopping online becomes more and more popular, NOT providing online services could mean missing out on a large share of the market. Shopping online is popular with consumers because it’s easy: a few clicks of a mouse, and the product they’re looking for is delivered straight to their door. Why not make it easy for them to buy that product from you - through your small business website?

Amber McNaught is co-owner of Hot Igloo Productions Ltd. - the small business specialists. Hot Igloo offer a range of services to businesses, including website design, public relations, internet marketing, copywriting and more. Visit their website at: http://www.hotigloo.co.uk