Bad Credit Remortgage

A common question many people have is “How can I refinance my mortgage if I have bad credit?” The answer is a resounding yes, however the process is more cumbersome and somewhat different than for people with good credit.

Bad credit is an obstacle for more and more Americans during the current economic crisis. The good news is that bad credit doesn’t have to prevent you from being able to remortgage  your home.

Before you embark on your search to find a lender, you should explore the reasons you want to remortgage. For people with bad credit, the answer to this question should not be to get a “cash-out” refinance. Lenders are less likely to work with you if you are attempting to get cash out of your home. If the answer to this question is to take advantage of historically low interest rates and save money over the life of your loan, then you are on the right track and have a good chance of getting a remortgage.

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Endowment Policy Sales

There seems to be a bit of buzz in the financial world at the moment with people looking to sell their endowment policies. Given that endowment policies are financial instruments which have intrinsic worth then its hardly surprising that a market for endowment policy sales exists between willing buyers and sellers. Good old capitalism hasn't died yet. The truth is that at the moment, particularly in the UK, there are probably more people looking to sell their endowment policy than those on the buying side of the equation. In this article I'd like to take a look at exactly what an endowment policy is and the reasons for people wanting to sell them before their terms is up, who the buyers of those policies are, and alternative for those wondering whether they should sell their endowment policy.

Endowment policies were the flavour of the year back in the 1980's particularly in Britian. In the UK they had certain tax advantages and in a high inflation period with limited other investment options they made a lot of sense for those who had 25 years or more to go before retirement and a home to mortgage. The idea was simple - well simplish. The idea was that the home owner bought an endowment policy. The policy was in effect an interest-only mortgage secured against their home. The policy owner paid the interest only repayments - which were of course significantly lower than a traditional, repayment style mortgage which included capital as well as interest repayments. Meanwhile the capital raises by the mortgage was invested in the share market. Some endowment policies, know as unit endowment policies, are directly linked to the share market with unit prices fluctuating widely in line with the share markets ups and downs. The more conservative "profit endowments" were more a managed investements with the finance company attempting to smooth the bumps in stock market performance and giveing a more consistent income stream from the endowment policy.

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What are endowment policies?

Endowment policies are modifications of whole life. Like whole life, part of the premium goes to build up a cash value fund. An endowment policy generally has a higher premium than a whole life policy for the same amount of insurance because more of the premium is devoted to building cash value. The endowment is designed to terminate and pay out the cash amount at a designated time, such as after a prescribed number of years (for example, 20 year endowment, 30 year endowment) or at a specific age (for example, endowment at 60, endowment at 65).

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