Student Loan: Loan Magician

March 11th, 2021 by dayat No comments »

Loans, loans, loans that’s what everyone is talking about, on internet, on radio, on, television in news we see advertisement for loans everyday, everywhere. “You want to buy a hat, a cat, a house, a car, you can get a loan”. “Getting loan was never easier”. “Live life the way you want”. These are all the sentences that are clouding the media nowadays. And of course this has increased the ratio of people borrowing loans from banks and other lending organizations. A number of people are making their dreams come true due to these loans, which was otherwise impossible. You can get loans for multiple things like for starting a business, purchasing a house, or getting a car so on and so for. You can simply apply for the loan, buy your desired object and keep on paying small installments for years without even noticing it. Instead of waiting for long years of tough work to buy a house or establish a business of your own you can get some help from one of the diverse kinds of loans and benefit yourself from this golden opportunity.

Fantasies, dreams have no end. But in order to actualize them you need enough resources, now you have several opportunities to do what you always wanted. For different reasons or things you have varied kinds of loans. Be careful about the interest rates and other specifications of a loan. That will help you in generating the best results financially. You can get loan on really low rates if you play safe, I mean pay your installments on time and if you manage to pay it before time that would be more than good that will drag you in the line of good borrower, which will be very useful if ever in future you need to get the loan again. Unsecured loans are the most fascinating and tempting loan kind that has ever come across my knowledge. You are at minimum risk especially you are simply free from any possibility of repossession of your home or any other asset.

Whereas on the other hand the creditors are at high risk by giving you an unsecured loan as they provide you loan just on the assessment of your income and repayment capacity and therefore the monthly installments are a bit higher and the repayment duration is also shorter as compared to secured loans. But for everything you have to pay a price, there is nothing free and of course you are getting money without giving any of your owned possession’s guarantees, which is a very big thing? This doesn’t stop here; you have other benefits too of unsecured loans that can’t be overlooked. First you can find a number of companies who are offering unsecured loans and thus get it on a very competitive rate. As for an unsecured loan you are not to provide a number of documents with the loan application the process of the approval are much faster than that of secured loans. It can be obtained in the time span of as short as 72 hours.

Besides this there are other loans you can think of like secured loans but of course you should be dead sure that you’ll pay the loan before the deadline, as for secured loans you have to put any of your asset as a guarantee to bank, there are cheap home improvement loans, house buying loans, small and big business loans, personal loans, bad credit loans, pay day loans, car loans etc… there are just few things to keep in mind while applying or before applying a loan such as the interest rate, type of rate (fixed or variable), terms and conditions (repayment time in months or years), deposit (down payment), associated fees (broker, origination, prepayment etc.), insurance required by the lender. For best financial results see all the terms and conditions and be crystal clear about the things and then apply. This will give you ample tendency to work out your way out victoriously.

Loans are never (most of the times) an effectual, result-oriented solution for your long term monetary needs! Taking loans is becoming a fashion, I think more then 50% of advertisement on media is directly or indirectly about loans. But frankly speaking I believe loans are not more than debt traps. There are so many alluring names as payday loans; cash advance loans, check advance loans, post-dated check loans or deferred deposit check loans. But beware! Don’t charmed by such attractive offers, think twice about borrowing a loan before you go ahead with this and honestly realize, do you really need a loan? Is it inevitable? Is this loan for frivolous, like a holiday? Or for something real serious an urgent need, Can you borrow money by a more traditional way, I mean from a relative, maybe a part-time job or you can think of selling an asset. Try to convince your creditors for some more time to pay your bills. Find out what they will charge you for that service – as a late charge, an additional finance charge or a higher interest rate. Don’t put your foot into a trap yourself if you can avoid it.

Did you ever think why you drag your self in to a situation where you are left with no money and need loan desperately? Strive to mend this; if you are a lavish spender and you always spend more than you earn then it is a terrible practice. To overcome this condition, if you opt for a payday loan, it will be a “chancy solution”. Payday loan companies often take the advantages of your need and lead you in debt ensnare. Try to make a more realistic and practical budget, and figure out your monthly and daily expenses. Avoid superfluous purchases even undersized every day items. Their costs add up and may become a huge amount at times that makes real big difference. Also, put aside some savings, even small amounts will do to avoid borrowing for emergencies, unexpected expenses or other such instances. I know it’s simply impossible to write your requirements in black and white and consume money according to that but one should make a strict line that you are not spending more than this and this is only for your own advantage.

Check out if you can go for overdraft protection on your checking account? If you are a regular most or all of the funds in your account user so then if you make a mistake in your checking (or savings) account ledger or records, overdraft protection can assist in protecting you from further credit problems. Do find out the terms of overdraft protection. Want any help or working out a debt repayment plan with creditors or developing a budget, contact your local consumer credit counseling service. Almost in every state there are non-profit groups that offer credit guidance to consumers. These services are available at very little or no cost. Don’t forget to check with your employer, credit union or housing authority for no- or low-cost credit counseling programs. If you decide that a payday loan is inevitable, borrow only as much as you can afford to pay with your next paycheck and still have enough to make it to the next payday.

While taking a loan it’s never only the interest rate to take care of it’s only a part, there are a whole lot of other inevitable expenses that makes it really, really expensive. The rate on a payday loan may be 500% per year or even more. Borrowing 200 dollar for 2 weeks at 500% will cost you 38.36 dollar. Just compare this to borrowing 200 dollar for 2 weeks at 36% (2.76 dollar) or 12% (.92 dollar). Suppose if this loan is refinanced four times, the cost difference increases dramatically! In actuality, it will cost you nearly 200 dollar to borrow 200 dollar for ten weeks. Gosh! It’s a lot. Besides the insurance rate there are also arrangement fees and prepayment penalties to consider. And many ‘no fee’ credit lines have a pre-payment penalty. This is the way broker and lenders make their money. Do work out the total cost of your loan before committing? Compare the APR and the finance charge (which includes loan fees, interest and other types of credit costs) of credit offers to get the lowest cost.

Borrowing loans can be helpful when you are having temporary cash flow crisis or are facing a financial emergency and need money on a short-term basis. Don’t rely on loan or don’t make long-term planning depending on loans only. If you already have one loan outstanding, then you should avoid taking out another such loan. Also think about the aggravations if you can’t be able to repay the loan at specific date to the payday lender!! I hope you are getting my point. Now this was what I call a bird’s eye view about the loans advantages and disadvantages. But if still you are not satisfied and wants to dig in more to know minute details about different types of loans, I’ll give you some info about it as after all you are the best judge for your own problems and needs. Doesn’t matter what someone says it’s always you who know what you need to do?

I have already given you a transparent idea about secured and unsecured loans. Now else than this there are home loans, bad credit loan, bad credit auto loan, personal loan, debt consolidation, payday loan, mortgage loan, auto loan, student consolidation loan, business loan, home equity loan and pay day advance. See you can get loan for anything and everything. There are so many different kinds of flexible and non-flexible loans that help you to keep going ahead in life.
Loan products.

Pay day loan.

Hmmm…! The dead line of paying the installment of a credit card is coming near. And still didn’t get your pay. Well laugh your worries away. The payday loan will help you to pay on time. After you get your salary you can pay off your payday loan, but don’t make it a habit? For short-term loan this is the best sort of loan you can go for.

Home loan.

Everyone either he is a prince or a commoner want to own a home of his own, in old days people use to work whole their lives to buy their own house. But in this struggle the best boom period of life flies away. Now enjoy your life to the fullest, get a home loan and build the house of your dreams and live in it like a king. You can buy, build or renovate a house by acquiring various types of loans that suits you the most. There are mostly three kinds of it:

o You already own a house and want to renovate it. You can get a loan for renovating your house by putting your house for collateral security to the bank for the loan.

o Secondly you have a plot and want to build your house on it. Then again the place will be the collateral security and you’ll be provided loan to build the structure of the house on it.

o The third type is that you neither have a house nor a plot and you want to buy a house in that case you will get the loan to build your house but the house will be on bank’s name till you pay the loan fully.
Else than this there are different rules and flexibilities for diverse home loans. Like:

o The mark-up rate will vary for a salaried person or a businessman. It can start from 11% for a salaried person and 12% for a businessman though different banks and other companies may differ from this rate.

o For construction, purchase & balance transfer you can have 3 to 20 years times to pay back the loan.

o For renovation it can be from 2-20 years.

o For home purchase you can get the amount of loan that can vary from – 0.5M to 20M.

o Whereas for home renovation approximate loan can be form – 0.5M to 7M.

o For home construction you can get up to – 0.5M to 10M.
This could be the approximate loan to value ratio you can get for these different home loans.

o For Home Purchase – 80:20 for salaried employees, businessmen and self-employed professionals who maybe in the business for five years and 75:25 for businessmen and self-employed professionals who can be in the business for last 3 Years.

o For Home Construction – 70:30 for salaried employees, 70:30 for businessmen and self-employed professionals who maybe doing business for last five years and 65:35 for businessmen and self-employed professionals who are in the business for last three years.

o For Home Equity- 70:30 for salaried employees, 70:30 for businessmen and self-employed professionals who can be in the business for last five years and 65:35 for businessmen and self-employed professionals who are in the business for last three years.

o For Balance Transfer Facility – 80:20.

Car loan.

Car is not luxury anymore it’s a necessity; you are handicap without a car. If you cannot afford a car with your salary and trying desperately to save some money for buying a car but unfortunately every month something new comes up to eat up all your savings then get a car loan and make your life easy and you can use your savings in paying the installment of your loan every month. For car loans the rules are almost same as house loans. The payment will vary with the difference of new or used car, car model or price.

Bad credit car loan.

What Investors Should AboutKnow Commercial Real Estate Loans

March 11th, 2021 by dayat No comments »

Your commercial real estate transaction does not close unless the loan is approved. You can also improve the cash flow if the interest rate for the loan is low. So the more you know about commercial loans, the better decision you can make about your commercial real estate investment.

Loan Qualification: Most of you have applied for a residential loan and are familiar with the process. You provide to the lender with:

W2′s and/or tax returns so it can verify your income,
Bank and/or brokerage statements so it can verify your liquid assets and down payment.
In general the more personal income you make the higher loan amount you qualify. You could even borrow 95% of the purchase price for 1-unit principal residence with sufficient income.

For commercial loan, the loan amount a lender will approve is based primarily on the net operating income (NOI) of the property, not your personal income. This is the fundamental difference between residential and commercial loan qualification. Therefore, if you buy a vacant commercial building, you will have difficult time getting the loan approved since the property has no rental income. However, if you

Occupy at least 51% of the space for your business; you can apply for SBA loan.
Have sufficient income from another commercial property used as cross collateral; there are lenders out there that want your business.
Loan to Value: Commercial lenders tend to be more conservative about the loan to value (LTV). Lenders will only loan you the amount such that the ratio of NOI to mortgage payment for the loan, called Debt Coverage Ratio (DCR) or Debt Service Ratio (DSR) must be at least 1.25 or higher. This means the NOI has to be at least 25% more than the mortgage payment. In other words, the loan amount is such that you will have positive cash flow equal to at least 25% of the mortgage payment. So, if you purchase a property with low cap rate, you will need a higher down payment to meet lender’s DCR. For example, properties in California with 5% cap often require 50% or more down payment. To make the matter more complicated, some lenders advertise 1.25% DCR but underwrite the loan with interest rate 2%-3% higher than the note rate! Since the financial meltdown of 2007, most commercial lenders prefer keeping the LTV at 70% or less. Higher LTV is possible for high-quality properties with strong national tenants, e.g. Walgreens or in the areas that the lenders are very familiar and comfortable with. However, you will rarely see higher than 75% LTV. Commercial real estate is intended for the elite group of investors so there is no such thing as 100% financing.

Interest Rate: The interest for commercial is dependent on various factors below:

Loan term: The rate is lower for the shorter 5 years fixed rate than the 10 years fixed rate. It’s very hard to get a loan with fixed rate longer than 10 years unless the property has a long term lease with a credit tenant, e.g. Walgreens. Most lenders offer 20-25 years amortization. Some credit unions use 30 years amortization. For single-tenant properties, lenders may use 10-15 years amortization.
Tenant credit rating: The interest rate for a drugstore occupied by Walgreens is much lower than one with HyVee Drugstore since Walgreens has much stronger S&P rating.
Property type: The interest rate for a single tenant night club building will be higher than multi-tenant retail strip because the risk is higher. When the night club building is foreclosed, it’s much harder to sell or rent it compared to the multi-tenant retail strip. The rate for apartment is lower than shopping strip. To the lenders, everyone needs a roof over their head no matter what, so the rate is lower for apartments.
Age of the property: Loan for newer property will have lower rate than dilapidated one. To the lender the risk factor for older properties is higher, so the rate is higher.
Area: If the property is located in a growing area like Dallas suburbs, the rate would be lower than a similar property located in the rural declining area of Arkansas. This is another reason you should study demographic data of the area before you buy the property.
Your credit history: Similarly to residential loan, if you have good credit history, your rate is lower.
Loan amount: In residential mortgage, if you borrow less money, i.e. a conforming loan, your interest rate will be the lowest. When you borrow more money, i.e. a jumbo or super jumbo loan, your rate will be higher. In commercial mortgage, the reverse is true! If you borrow $200K loan your rate could be 8%. But if you borrow $3M, your rate could be only 4.5%! In a sense, it’s like getting a lower price when you buy an item in large volume at Costco.
The lenders you apply the loan with. Each lender has its own rates. There could be a significant difference in the interest rates. Hard money lenders often have highest interest rates. So you should work with someone specialized on commercial loans to shop for the lowest rates.
Prepayment flexibility: If you want to have the flexibility to prepay the loan then you will have to pay a higher rate. If you agree to keep the loan for the term of the loan, then the rate is lower.
Commercial loans are exempt from various consumers’ laws intended for residential loans. Some lenders use “360/365″ rule in computing mortgage interest. With this rule, the interest rate is based on 360 days a year. However, the interest payment is based on 365 days in a year. In other words, you have to pay an extra 5 days (6 days on leap year) of interest per year. As a result, your actual interest payment is higher than the rate stated in the loan documents because the effective interest rate is higher.

Prepayment Penalty: In residential loan, prepayment penalty is often an option. If you don’t want it, you pay higher rate. Most commercial loans have prepayment penalty. The prepayment penalty amount is reduced or stepped down every year. For example on a 5 year fixed rate loan, the prepayment penalty for the first year is 5% of the balance. It’s reduced to 4% and then 3%, 2%, 1% for 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th year respectively. For conduit loans, the prepayment amount is huge as you have to pay for the interest between the note rate and the equivalent US Treasure rate for the whole loan balance for the remaining term of the loan. This prepayment penalty is called defeasance or yield maintenance.

Loan Fees: In residential mortgage, lenders may offer you a “no points, no costs” option if you pay a higher rate. Such an option is not available in commercial mortgage. You will have to pay between ½ to 1 point loan fee, appraisal cost, environment assessment report fee, and processing/underwriting fee. A lender normally issues to the borrower a Letter of Interest (LOI) if it is interested in lending you the money. The LOI states the loan amount, interest rate, loan term and fees. Once the borrower pays about $5000 for loan application fees for third party reports (appraisal, phase I, survey), the lender starts underwriting the loan. It orders its own appraisal using its own pre-approved MAI (Member of Appraisal Institute) appraisers. If the lender approves the loan and you do not accept it, then the lender keeps all the fees.

Loan Types: While there are various commercial loan types, most investors often encounter 3 main types of commercial loans:

1. Small Business Administration or SBA loan. This is a government guaranteed loan intended for owner-occupied properties. When you occupy 51% or more of the space in the building (gas station or hotel is considered an owner-occupied property), you are qualified for this program. The key benefit is you can borrow up to 90% of purchased price.

2. Portfolio loan. This is the type of commercial loans in which the lenders use their own money and keep on its balance sheet until maturity. Lenders are often more flexible because it’s their money. For example East West Bank, US Bank and some life insurance companies are portfolio lenders. These lenders require the borrowers to provide a personal guaranty for the payment of the loans. And thus these loans are recourse loans.

3. Conduit loan or CMBS (Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities) loan. This was a very popular commercial loan program prior to the 2007 recession where its market size was over $225 Billion in 2007. It was down to just a few Billion in 2009 and is making a comeback with issuance of almost $100 Billion in 2015. Many individual loans of different sizes, at different locations are pooled together, rated from Triple-A (Investment grade) to B (Junk) and then sold to investors over the world as bonds. Therefore it’s not possible to prepay the loan because it’s already part of a bond. These are the characteristics of conduit loans:

The rate is often lower. It is often around 1.2% over the 5 or 10 year US Treasury rates compared to 1.85-3% over the 5 or 10 year US Treasury rates for portfolio loan. Some CMBS loans have interest only payments. Since the rate is lower and borrowers are required to pay interest only, the LTV can be over 75%. Low rates and high LTV are the key advantage of conduit loan.

Conduit lenders only consider big loan amount, e.g. at least $2M.

Lenders require borrower to form a single-asset entity, e.g. Limited Liability Company (LLC) to take title to the property. This is intended to shield the property from other the borrower’s liabilities.

The loans are non-recourse which means the property is the only collateral for the loan and the borrowers do not have to sign personal guaranty. And so these loans are popular among investment firms, REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust), TIC (Tenants in Common) companies that invest in commercial real estate using funds pooled from various investors.

If the borrower later wants to sell the property before the loan matures, the new buyer must assume the loan as the seller cannot pay off the loan. This makes it harder to sell the property because the buyer needs to come up with a significant amount of cash for the difference between the purchase price and loan balance. Furthermore, the lender/loan servicer could reject the loan assumption application for various reasons as there are no strong incentives for it to do so. The loan servicer can also impose new conditions to loan assumption approval, e.g. increase reserve amount by several hundred thousand dollars. If you are a 1031-exchange buyer, you may want to think twice about buying a property with loan assumptions. Should the lender reject your loan assumption application, you may end up not qualifying for the 1031 exchange and be liable for paying capital gain. This is the hidden cost of conduit loan.

Even when you are allowed to prepay the loan, it costs an arm and a leg if you want to prepay the loan. The prepayment penalty is often called Defeasance or Yield Maintenance. Basically you have to pay the difference in interest between the note rate of your loan and the applicable US Treasury rate for the remaining years of the loan! This amount is often so high that the seller normally requires the buyer to assume the loan. You can compute the defeasance from www.defeasewithease.com website. Besides the defeasance, you also have to pay 1% loan assumption fee. This is another hidden cost of conduit loan.
Conduit loan may be the loan for you if you intend to keep the loan for the life of the loan that you agree to at the beginning. Otherwise it could be very costly due to its payoff inflexibility.

Lenders Coverage Area: Commercial lenders would do business in areas they are familiar with or have local offices. For example East West Bank will only consider properties in California. Many commercial lenders don’t lend to out-of-state investors.

Lenders Coverage Property Types: Most commercial lenders would only consider certain types of properties they are familiar with. For example Chase would do apartments and owner-occupied office buildings but not retail properties or gas stations. Westford Financial specializes on church financing. Comerica concentrates on owner-occupied properties.

Lenders Escrow Accounts: Most lenders require borrowers to pay 1/12 of property taxes each month. Some lenders require borrowers to have repairs and/or TI (Tenants Improvement) reserve account to make sure the borrowers have sufficient funds to cover major repairs or leasing expenses should existing tenants not renew the leases.

Conclusion: Commercial loans are a lot more complex and difficult to obtain with loan approvals more unpredictable than residential loans. As an investor, it is in your best interest to employ a professional commercial loan broker to assist with your commercial loan needs. By doing so, you will vastly improve your chances of paying lower interest rates, avoid potential pitfalls and improve your chance on getting the loan approved.

David V. Tran is the Chief Investment Advisor at Transmercial, a comm