Equity Release Schemes - Important Considerations
by Jerry Figueroa Lee
The issues surrounding pensions in the UK means many people face a considerable drop in income when they retire, with the real prospect of having to downsize to release equity from their homes to help supplement their pensions. However, many retired people who manage on a small pension and limited savings are also living in properties which, even with the recent house prices fall in some parts of the country, have soared in value. This has opened up the market to an alternative known either as Lifetime mortgages or equity release, which many are now finding an effective way of generating readily accessible capital from their home, enabling them to afford the life they want in retirement and do the things they want to do without the need to move.
An equity release scheme could mean the difference between a comfortable retirement and a constant worry about paying the bills. However it is not suitable for everyone, and serious consideration of the following would be recommended before reaching a final decision.
How Lifetime Mortgage Plans Work
All Lifetime mortgages work on the principle that they provide part of your home’s value in return for a share of the proceeds when you die, with the proceeds available to use for any purpose such as purchasing a new car, to pay for home improvements or a holiday, or simply to make daily life a little more comfortable.
The equity release in your home can be made available either as a lump sum, or as a monthly release, or a combination of both. Flexible features now make it possible to mix and match product features that satisfy the specific need.
How much you can borrow depends on the value of your home and your age - the older you are, the higher the percentage of your property’s value you can borrow. The Maximum lifetime mortgage available is generally 50% of the property value.
Equity release schemes can be complicated products and are now fully regulated in the UK by the Financial Services Authority, who themselves recommend getting independent financial advice before proceeding with a Lifetime mortgage.
Equity Release Plans - Pros and Cons
Pros
- They can provide a lump sum, a regular income or both.
- Money released is free of tax unless subsequently invested.
- You don’t have to move house or sell your home to unlock equity.
- It can be a way of cutting inheritance tax bills as the value of many properties means that IHT is no longer something only the rich have to pay.
- They can be used to pay for care bills without having to sell up at what can be a traumatic time.
- No interest payable while you are alive, so you will get a higher income for the same sized loan than with an interest-only mortgage or home income plan.
- Most loans are fixed-interest, so reducing risk.
- Plans are available to people as young as 55.
- The Financial Services Authority authorises and regulates providers of Lifetime mortgages.
Cons
- It is impossible to say how much will have to be repaid at the end - and how much will be left for your family.
- Interest rolls up against the original borrowing and reduces the amount available as an inheritance. Your family could end up with nothing from the sale proceeds even though the lump sum you were lent only seemed a fairly small proportion of the home’s value.
- You may not be able to get a top-up loan later.
Further points to consider when taking out a Lifetime Mortgage are -
1. An independent adviser will look at the overall picture, taking into account any effects equity release will have on any means tested benefits and tax allowance as in some cases you could risk losing some or all of it, or having to pay extra tax
2. Consider whether funds could be raised affordably from other sources.
3. Equity release plans can be a good way of cutting potential inheritance tax bills, but they will also reduce what your family will inherit. Instead of taking out a Lifetime mortgage, your children or other relatives may be happier to help you out finacially instead, so that the equity in the property is protected. They could then inherit the whole property.
4. Consider whether moving to a less expensive property might be a better way of releasing money tied up in your home.
5. Look for plans carrying the SHIP logo. SHIP is an industry body set up to promote safe equity release schemes. Members provide a number of guarantees which includes; The right to live in your property for life, The freedom to move to an alternative property without penalties and a no negative equity guarantee so that you can never owe more than the value of your home.
6. You may want to downsize in the future, or sell up completely to move into a care home or sheltered accommodation. Is an early repayment charge payable if you wish to transfer the mortgage to a new property or settle the loan before death.
7. Check the costs as schemes are becoming more competitive. A free valuation and a contribution towards the legal fee is not uncommon.
8. Check the impact on your tax allowance
9. If your house value falls or there is a rise in inflation what will happen?
10. Who will be responsible for maintaining the home?
11. The fees and charges for arranging the equity release.
12. What will happen if your circumstances change such as remarriage?
13. Once an equity release scheme has been set up, will others be able to take up residence in your home?
The Mortgage Warehouse is one of the UK’s leading online Mortgage Advisory Services and was co-founded by Jerry Figueroa-Lee in 1999 to provide impartial, independent mortgage advice on the Best Equity Release Schemes and Mortgage Rates available in the UK mortgage market.
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The Entrepreneurs Website Is An Essential Key to Success
by Totty100
The Entrepreneur Website — An Essential Key to Success
Most of today’s emerging entrepreneurs prefer to conduct their business online. Thanks to the internet, entrepreneurs can now reach different countries all over the world just to advertise and sell their products or services. If you want to become a successful internet entrepreneur, you must focus on your entrepreneur website. And why is that?
The foundation of an internet business is the website. Your success is dependent on the perception, feel, and look of your site. It is therefore very important to maximize your site’s effectiveness so that more subscribers are attracted to it and in turn boost your sales.
You must be able to have a squeeze page on your website. How will you do it? First and foremost, you must have a hosting account and domain. The domain should be in the hosting account. You can build your website by going to Microsoft FrontPage. This is a very easy thing to do so you will not encounter many problems. The form found in the squeeze page should match with the Autoresponder form. This way, personal information on the squeeze page can be captured correctly.
To catch the attention of internet users, your site must have a captivating headline. You can entice subscribers by giving them free bonus reports, newsletter, or even eBooks.
Some entrepreneurs put their photos on their site’s squeeze page. If you want to do the same, you must be extra careful as photos take up great file sizes. Your photo file should be reduced to a smaller size first so that it will not affect the boot up of the squeeze page. Waiting too long for a page to boot up will definitely discourage visitors.
Putting your photo is not a very good idea because some visitors are distracted by it and so they might miss some important information on the site. Sticking to text only on your squeeze page is the best way to load faster and provide all the information needed by the visitor.
If you can do these things to your website, you will not have many problems and not only that, more people will want to subscribe. Many entrepreneurs have started from scratch. Some of then even had to experience botched partnerships, failed businesses, bankruptcy, and heavy debts but despite the misfortunes, many entrepreneurs were able to survive. Now, they are earning thousands of profits every year.
Becoming a millionaire as an internet entrepreneur is not that hard. In fact, putting a physical business is harder than establishing an online business. However, both require hard work, dedication, and perseverance.
If you have the qualities and skills of an entrepreneur, you must try to establish your place on the web right now. Know your online business opportunities and start by creating an effective website.
As mentioned earlier, the entrepreneur website is one of the important keys to success. There is extreme competition among entrepreneurs online so you must be ready for it. Try to identify a market need that you have to meet and then answer that need by putting up an online business.
There are many resources that you can find online to help you out as you start your online business. You have to do some research so that your efforts will be rewarded when the right time comes. Being an entrepreneur is the best way to reach your dreams the soonest.
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Crisis or Opportunity? - Wealth Creation Tips in Recession
by Elizabeth Siebert
Crisis Or Opportunity?
While the current financial crisis is real, what it represents is up to you. The Chinese symbol for “crisis” is said to be made up of two individual characters which mean, in broad terms, “danger” and “opportunity”.
You can decide how you will respond to the current climate. Will you adopt a poverty consciousness and cut back to survive? Or, will you see the current state of play in the global economy as an opportunity to foster your entrepreneurial skills and build more prosperity?
The transferral of wealth currently taking place means there has never been a better time to launch a business in a market you identify as growing already or is predicted to grow into the future. The current climate represents the perfect storm of opportunity. However, it is up to you to decide whether you will capitalise on the market conditions. More millionaires were made out of the Great Depression than ever before.
If you believe the conditions represent all threat and no opportunity, you are right. If you believe they can assist you in creating wealth and prosperity, you are are also correct. As Warren Buffet put it, “Be fearful when others and greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.”
Take responsibility, set down your goals, identify opportunity and take confident action.
Survival Tip 1 : Take Responsibility
Accept that you are where you are because of decisions you have made. Sure, others may have had an influence and you may see circumstance as playing a role, but now is the time to acknowledge that you need to find a way forward. While you are thinking this through, remember - if you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you will keep getting what you’ve been getting. This is a time for creative thinking and practical steps. It is not someone else’s job to ‘rescue you’. For the longest time, I didn’t understand this (and many people fail to ever grasp this concept) your financial future is in your hands. Don’t out source it - it can be great fun creating wealth and freedom, but you must take responsibility.
Survival Tip 2: Set Your Goals
What needs to change? Where will you be in a month, six months, a year? When was the last time you thought about what you used to want for your life? Is that the life your are living? Or, is there something better out there for you? Do you need to pay off your debt? Or are you brave enough to think beyond this? Do you aspire to financial security? What are your goals? Think about this carefully, you get what you focus on.
Survival Tip 3: Identify Opportunity
There are a number of courses of action available to you.
Start Saving : Cut down on every luxury you can and make it a game. There are loads of suggestions available on the internet about how to save and live well. In the early stages, this might work. But, remember, having a ‘poverty consciousness’ will keep you poor. The best approach is to couple some sensible spending with investment in opportunities that will provide further income.
Work Harder : Think this through, will longer hours generate more wealth or just longer hours? While you are at it, ask yourself whether you have an ‘employee’ mentality or an ‘entrepreneur’s’ mindset. There is a big difference. If you believe that your only course is to work for someone else, then that’s the path you will choose. If, however, you can shift your beliefs just a little, you might find an entrepreneur buried in there just dying to get out. Will working harder enable you to achieve the goals you have set down above?
Work Smarter : There are hundreds of big and small opportunities out there to start creating wealth. Start seeking out and exploring opportunities. You should be aiming to create three to four income streams. Some, preferably all, of these will be passive or residual income opportunities. This might include anything from marketing someone else’s product on line through to share trading and property investment. Be judicious and do your homework. Starting as a click bank marketer can quickly lead to beginning your own business in a field that is growing. Follow not just your passion but growth patterns and strong evidence of market size and predicted growth. Again, will these opportunities (or a collection of them) provide sufficient wealth to realise your goals?
Survival Tip 4 : Take Action
Hemingway tells us, ‘Never mistake motion for action’. Things will not change for you unless you change your choices. This is not an exercise in positive thinking - although your beliefs will most certainly drive your actions - this is an exercise in behavioural change. You need to be ‘being’ different by making different choices, then you need to be ‘doing’ things differently to have different results. One of the most powerful methods for this is developing a daily practice. Assess your daily activities against your short, medium and long term goals. If your activities aren’t supporting the direction in which you have decided you want to go, then why are you spending time on them? If your activities aren’t generating health, wealth or happiness, reassess and recalibrate.
Elizabeth Siebert is a Master of Economics, international policy adviser, writer and entrepreneur. She is Director of Extraordinary Life Enterprises, a company that assists people all over the world to change their behaviour to create wealth and freedom. Go to: http://www.extraordinarylife.com.au
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Choose a Credit Card That Fits Your Credit Needs and Lifestyle!
by Stephanie Andrews
It may seem most credit cards have the same features and benefits, but there are important differences. Consumers should read the card offers carefully and apply only for the ones meeting their credit needs and lifestyle. By becoming familiar with basic card terms, you can save time, money and aggravation while taking full advantage of Intro APR offers, reward programs and other features and benefits.
First, analyze your credit needs and spending patterns, deciding what rewards you would like to receive for using the card. Second, learn key credit card terms so you may understand the offers available on the Internet and elsewhere. Finally, set criteria based on your own needs and compare offers from different issuers. Here are some basic terms that can help you manage your credit card affairs:
Annual Percentage Rate (APR)- If you tend to carry balances on your cards, you should look for the card with the lowest APR on purchases and the longest grace period.
The APR may be fixed or variable. A fixed APR remains constant because it is not linked to the Prime Rate or other economic indicators. Card issuers always reserve the right to raise (or lower) the APR, but they are required by law to send a written notice to card members at least 15 days prior to the new APR’s effective date.
Variable APRs are linked to the Prime Rate and may change more often. Credit card issuers usually determine variable rates by adding the Prime Rate to a certain percentage rate (for example, Prime Rate plus 9.99%). If we assume the Prime Rate to be 4.25%, then the APR would be 14.24% (4.25% plus 9.99%).
Be aware credit cards may have different APRs on purchases, balance transfers and cash advances. Cash advances have the highest APRs.
Intro APR - Introductory APR, also known as a promo or teaser rate, may apply to purchases and/or balance transfers. Intro APRs expire after the introductory period ends (usually 6 to 12 months), after which the Standard APR is used to calculate interest charges. Intro APRs almost never apply to cash advances.
Always remember to make at least the required minimum payment, or your Intro APR may be bumped up to the Standard or Default APR, which are generally much higher than the Intro APR.
Annual Fee - Most major credit cards come without an annual membership fee. Unless the card offers a value-added reward program, such as travel rewards, you should avoid cards with annual fees.
Credit Limit - Choose the card with a credit line that will satisfy your spending needs. Credit limit is usually assigned when your application is reviewed based on your creditworthiness and other factors, such as total annual income. Many issuers advertise credit lines of up to $100,000. The key word here is “up to”; not all applicants (in fact very few) qualify for such high credit lines.
Grace Period - This is the interest-free period between the purchase and the billing date. If you pay your balances in full each month, your cost of borrowing for that period is zero. Most credit cards have grace periods ranging from 20 to 25 days. After the grace period ends, your balances will start incurring interest charges.
Generally, grace periods do not apply to cash advances where interest charges start accumulating on the first day of the transaction.
Worldwide Acceptance - Most major credit card companies such as Visa®, Master Card®, Discover®, and American Express® are accepted around the world. However Visa is more widely accepted overseas than Master Card, Discover or American Express®; so if you are a true world traveler you may want to carry more than one credit card for additional “security” and convenience.
Rewards -Choose the reward program based on your own interests and needs. The most popular reward programs are cash back and travel rewards.
Cash back cards, such as the Discover Card, accumulate points which can be redeemed as cash or used to purchase discounted products or services.
Travel reward cards earn points towards travel-related services such as airline tickets, hotel accommodations or car rentals; other reward programs allow you to accumulate points towards purchases at your favorite merchants or invest in college education funds.
Choose the reward program most valuable to you, and always read the program’s terms and conditions to maximize your benefits and avoid unpleasant surprises.
Click Here To Find Online Credit Card Offers . Stephanie Andrews is a contributing editor of the website www.CreditCardCity.com , a credit card directory where you can apply for a new credit card with secure online applications. Visit now to compare all of the best online credit card offers. e
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Entrepreneur Business Opportunity and Market Demand
by Totty100
Entrepreneur Business Opportunity and Market Demand
It’s now quite easy to conduct any form of research and people owe it all to the internet. Aspiring and even full-pledged entrepreneurs get a lot of business opportunities online. If you’re looking for an entrepreneur business opportunity, make sure that youstart your hunt online.
Building a business requires some ideas. You may be planning to offer a certain product or even a service. But before anything else, you need to determine if the service or product that you plan to offer is marketable and in-demand.
When an entrepreneur introduces a new service or product to the market, there should always be a demand for it. Otherwise, you will not be able to make a sale. Even if you think that you’ve found the best business opportunity, probably the most innovative and useful service/product, it will mean nothing if you have no market or people willing to purchase them. You will not be able to earn huge profits without market demand.
Putting up a business may seem very easy to some people. Well, it is especially if you do it online. However, you do need to exert enough effort to make it a success. As mentioned a bit earlier, you first need to determine the demand for your business idea. How will you go about it? Read on and you will find out.
1. You must choose the appropriate market for your business idea. After that, you need to determine if your business idea, whether a service or a product, offers similar or the same benefits like those existing services/products.
2. If you plan to put up an online business, you have to make sure that your business idea can generate enough traffic. It should always be among the top searches in any given search engine.
3. Businesses, both online and offline are dealing with real people. In the case of online businesses, you will often find unethical practices or scams all throughout the net. Make sure that your business idea is not similar to them. Is your product/service easy, lazy, vanity, or trick-like? You must answer this question before you put your business plans into action.
4. Is your chosen market full of disposable income?
These are some things that you need to answer and discover to determine if your business opportunity can compete in the market. Putting up a business will require money and a lot of your time as an entrepreneur. So before you start anything, you must take a hard, good, and long look at your business ideas.
This is true to both products and services. As an entrepreneur, you only want to make money and as much as possible, you want to stay away from business loss. Sell only the things that the market demands.
Studying the market demand is very important in determining if your chosen entrepreneur business opportunity is viable or not. Choosing the right business opportunity will always come side by side with market demand analysis.
Entrepreneurs are well known risk takers in the field of business but before taking any risk, they calculate everything first and see if the risk is worth taking. Putting up a business is a serious undertaking and so even upon the start of choosing the entrepreneur business opportunity, one should already put his heart and mind to it.
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