The Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) Program is the governments program to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.
HAFA gives incentives to lenders, and homeowners to allow and complete a short sale or deed-in-lieu of foreclosure. If your Minnesota home or Minnesota mortgage is in jeopardy of default, follow the link below to see if you qualify for this government program.
Are you eligible? Use this tool to determine your eligibility; HAFA Questionaire
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Credit Score Tips for Future Home Buyers
With the help of some easy -- if often counterintuitive -- steps, you can improve and retain a healthy credit score even in today's fast-changing credit environment.
Here is one of the five step I will share:
Open More Credit Cards
For years, credit experts warned that opening new credit cards will hurt your credit score -- not to mention enable you to run up huge debts.
That's still true: The length of your credit history and new credit make up 15% and 10% of the FICO score, respectively. But with credit issuers lowering credit limits left and right these days, having too few credit cards puts a much more important credit-score component at risk: credit utilization, or how much of your available credit you're using.
Credit utilization makes up 30% of your score. "More cards mean more available credit and more options if an issuer decides they don't like you," says John Ulzheimer, president for educational services at Credit.com. Generally, having four or five credit cards is better than having just one or two, he says. Expanding your credit-card portfolio isn't something you should do tomorrow -- it's a strategy to be executed over time. If you have just two cards, now is the time to open a third. But wait at least six months or a year until you apply for a fourth.
Please call Dominic at 612-247-8322 to find out more about your credit or for information about how to qualify for a Minnesota Mortgage.
Here is one of the five step I will share:
Open More Credit Cards
For years, credit experts warned that opening new credit cards will hurt your credit score -- not to mention enable you to run up huge debts.
That's still true: The length of your credit history and new credit make up 15% and 10% of the FICO score, respectively. But with credit issuers lowering credit limits left and right these days, having too few credit cards puts a much more important credit-score component at risk: credit utilization, or how much of your available credit you're using.
Credit utilization makes up 30% of your score. "More cards mean more available credit and more options if an issuer decides they don't like you," says John Ulzheimer, president for educational services at Credit.com. Generally, having four or five credit cards is better than having just one or two, he says. Expanding your credit-card portfolio isn't something you should do tomorrow -- it's a strategy to be executed over time. If you have just two cards, now is the time to open a third. But wait at least six months or a year until you apply for a fourth.
Please call Dominic at 612-247-8322 to find out more about your credit or for information about how to qualify for a Minnesota Mortgage.
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