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should I lock or float my rate and something personal along with happy new year

DDA Mortgage • Dec 20, 2021

Should you lock in your interest rate when purchasing a home upfront?


it is a finite period of time when under contract to purchase a home and anything can happen with current events, tune in and learn more

something personal about me and wishing you a Happy New Year!



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By Didier Malagies 18 Mar, 2024
What if you refinanced your lower-rate first mortgage into a higher rate but consolidated all of your debt into one low payment. Getting rid of credit cards, car loans, installment loans, and student loans. What would your savings be a month and how much would you save? Then if property values were ever to plummet and rates came crashing down. Just go back to 2007 when we were able to refinance everyone on the HARP program. I just break things down to worse-case scenarios and how you can stay ahead of the game with your finances no matter what. I think it is time to get the house in order and save money, doesn't seem like food , medical or anything is going down but instead still going up Maybe everything we are told is not exactly correct tune in and learn https://www.ddamortgage.com/blog Didier Malagies nmls212566 DDA mortgage nmls#324329
By Didier Malagies 14 Mar, 2024
If a couple decides to dissolve their marriage, something that is often described as a “third character” in the proceedings is the couples’ home. Finding a way to divide a home can be financially and emotionally fraught. And it often takes on more significance than other items due to the home typically being a couple’s most valuable asset — and because of the complex emotions often intertwined with it. This is according to reporting at The New York Times , which discussed the mechanism of splitting a home with 88 different people who have experienced it. “For some, holding onto the property became a point of pride — proof that they could make it on their own,” the story states. “For others, shedding the space where a life fell apart felt like a metamorphosis. “Sometimes, the house became the center of a protracted dispute, a cudgel to exact revenge. Some blamed the house itself — maybe one that was too expensive or needed too much work — for the collapse of a fragile union.” Among a series of profiled people who shared the stories of dividing their home in a divorce, one was 69-year-old Ryder Sollmann Wyatt, who engaged in what is often referred to as a “gray divorce.” In 2020, long after she and her family moved into an 18th-century farmhouse that had been purchased by her grandfather some 80 years earlier, her husband suggested selling the estate to dissolve shared assets. “But Ms. Wyatt, who, as a child, had lived in a cottage on the property with her parents until she was 12, could not imagine a world without the family farm,” the story read. Eventually, her husband let her keep the house and collected half of the remaining marital assets. This kept the dispute out of court and highlights the emotional weight that can come from a longer marriage. Gray divorce has become increasingly common over the past 30 years. According to 2017 data compiled by the Pew Research Center , the rates of gray divorce have doubled since 1990. The reverse mortgage industry has taken notice, seeing seniors engaging in divorce as a potential path for business. When asked about divorce as a potential vehicle for reverse mortgage business in 2019, Christina Harmes Hika — now of Amerifund Home Loans — described how it could be useful in dividing up different assets. “I have helped clients structure their reverse mortgage as part of the divorce settlement so one can stay in the home and the other can get off of the existing mortgage and move on with their share of equity,” Harmes Hika said in 2019 . “Many times, it’s one spouse that is looking into a reverse so they can stay in the house and give their departing spouse their share of the equity, and they already have a figure they need to get as part of the settlement.” 
By Didier Malagies 12 Mar, 2024
Women face a series of challenges that add up to make retirement prospects “pretty bleak,” including issues such as gender pay inequality, longer life spans and a lack of savings based on U.S. Census Bureau data. But Cindy Hounsell, founder and president of the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement, said during an event hosted by CNBC that there are ways to adequately prepare. “The typical woman earns a lower salary than men: about 82 cents for every dollar, according to the Pew Research Center,” CNBC stated in its account of the event. “That gender wage gap, which has hardly improved in two decades, makes it harder to save for the future.” On top of this, a woman’s savings generally needs to go further than a man’s since a woman who retires at age 65 lives an average of 21 years longer — or nearly three years longer than men who retire at the same time — according to data from the Employee Benefits Security Administration. This often leads to women needing to make more difficult lifestyle concessions in later life, according to Marianela Collado, a certified financial planner and CEO of a financial advisory firm in Florida. Caregiving responsibilities also often fall on the shoulders of women, which could further compound the issues they face, based on data shared from the National Institute on Retirement Security. But there are proactive measures that can be taken. “For example, if women think they’re underpaid, they can sit down with their managers at work, inquire about opportunities for growth and find avenues for higher earning potential,” Collado explained during the event. “Show managers where you add value and try to get fair compensation, she added.” Auditing personal spending and taking advantage of employer offerings, such as a 401(k) match, could also make a difference for women saving for retirement, she added. According to 2023 reverse mortgage use trends based on Federal Housing Administration (FHA) data, single women were the biggest demographic served by the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) program in fiscal year 2023. They comprised 39.4% of all borrowers, while single men comprised only 20.8% of borrowers. About 35% of loans served multiple borrowers, likely in the form of married couples or cohabitating family members. Single women also outnumbered single men among reverse mortgage clients in 2022, based on similar data from one year earlier. Related 
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