Personal finance news - CNNMoney.com Updated : Life after a six-figure salary Happy new year and welcome to your new job. One that pays 30%, 50%, 70% less than your old one. Publ.Date : Fri, 02 Jan 2009 06:26:42 EST Macy's reports overcharging customers Some Macy's stores overcharged holiday shoppers who used debit cards to make purchases on one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Publ.Date : Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:27:22 EST Keeping wealth in the family Lisa and Bruce Brown are fortunate enough to have plenty of assets to protect. Foremost of these is their children: The Browns are the proud parents of four-year-old Emma, and they have another baby on the way. The Oakland couple also have considerable assets of the financial variety. Thanks to diligent saving and smart property investments, the Browns have a net worth of nearly $2 million. Publ.Date : Wed, 31 Dec 2008 13:09:06 EST Turn Affiliate Datafeed into RSS Amazon Associate Store

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Understand what home equity is and what you can do with it.

A homeowner, after a few years of regular repayments of a mortgage, will have paid a substantial amount towards the principal loan amount obtained for the purchase of the home. At its present market value of say $ 250,000, if one is left with $120,000 towards the principal amount, then $ 130,000 is the home equity held by the owner. With the interest rates low, it makes sense to use the home equity to consolidate credit card debts, other high interest loans, finance children’s education, make improvements to home and the like. Financial institutions offer loans against home equity and usually this is called second mortgage. 

As opposed to raising a loan against home equity, one can opt for refinance mortgage.  What this means is that the original loan is fully paid off against the old mortgage and a new mortgage is arranged. With home equity loan, it means that there will be, in effect, two mortgages running at the same time. With refinancing, a homeowner can save substantial amount of money, sometimes thousands of dollars. But one should bear in mind that this involves closing costs, penalties and other expenses. If the original mortgage is just 4 or 5 years and if the present mortgage rates are very low, it makes sense to go in for a refinancing as the long terms savings in interests are going to be very substantial. In this case a home equity loan doesn’t make sense, as the equity built on repayments would be very low as the repayments have been made just over 4 or 5 years only.  

One can take advantage of the tax benefits of both home equity loan and refinance mortgage and thus save money on interest. Please consult a tax advisor on the benefits that one can get by way of home equity loans or refinance mortgages.

In this website you can find links to various internet sources that give information on debt consolidation loans, home equity loans, car loans, mortgage loans, personal loans, credit cards and credit reports. Click through these links and understand the terms and conditions before applying for any of these loans, credit cards and credit reports.