Top 10 Things to Consider on Home Loans – Debt Consolidation
Top 10 Things to Consider on Home Loans
Tom Levine
Here are our Top 10 most important things to consider when shopping for a Home Loan, Equity Line of Credit, or Refinance, courtesy of LoanResources.Net:
Down-Payment
Fixed Versus Adjustable Rate
APR
Loan Types
Loan Amount Qualification, Income
Loan Amount Qualification, Expenses
Employment and Credit History
Points
Sub-Prime Loans
Short-Forms
1. Down-Payment - As a general rule of thumb, lenders will be seeking contribution from you of around 3% to 6% of the total loan value. This can be negotiable, and there are many loan packages available.
2. Fixed versus Adjustable
What To Consider Before Approaching Lenders – Real Estate
What To Consider Before Approaching Lenders
Jeff Schein
Dealing with a bank doesnt have to be like walking through a maze in the dark. Keeping the following points in mind when you approach a bank should help you through the process.
Lenders are looking to satisfy themselves of the following:
1. That the business can make the regular interest and principal payments
2. That the lender can get its money back if something goes wrong
When approaching a financial institution, you are effectively selling the merits of your business and your proposal. Consider the needs of the lender, if you were lending money to someone what would you ask for
Be prepared to answer questions about your industry, your company, your management, the principals of the company and the financial statements.
If you are looking to finance property or used equipment, you will most likely need an appraisal.
In todays environment, an environmental study may be required on commercial real estate.
Lenders will look at the ability to service debt. You will need to show an ability to service the debt plus a sufficient surplus to cover any contingencies, such as unexpected costs or a drop in sales. Use 1.4 times coverage as a guide; both historical financial statements and a cash flow forecast and projected income statement will show this.
The bank will want to make sure that existing debt, or the addition of new debt, will not bring the Debt/Tangible Net Worth ratio of the company too high. What figure is used depends on the industry you are in and what stage of growth you are at. Dont be surprised if the bank asks for hard security to help support the lending request.
The bank in almost all cases will want a complete personal statement of affairs, and a personal credit history will be reviewed to ensure you are responsible with credit.
Your level of commitment to the company will be reviewed; for example, how much equity have you put into the company
If your company cannot repay its debt, the bank will evaluate what the secondary source of payment is; this can include security such as businesses assets that can be liquidated, personal guarantees and/or other sources of income.
Give the lender sufficient lead time to review the request, particularly if you are new to the financial institution. It can take some time to review all the information, often clarification is needed and the business may need to be visited before any financing is approved. As well, most often the request needs to be referred to the institutions risk management for review.
A good business plan is important, but keep it concise and dont overdo it on the documentation. The cash flow and balance sheet are of particular importance. Before preparing the final draft of the plan you may want to set up a preliminary appointment with a financial institution, be prepared to answer questions such as: how much money is being requested, why, what terms are you looking for, what are your alternative sources of repayment
The reality is that banks are conservative lenders and will try to mitigate most or all of the risk away. At the very least you will probably have to provide a personal guarantee to some percentage of the total outstanding amount borrowed.
Fees are a fact of business financing, you can negotiate and may get some reduction in fact you should always try, but lenders are not in the business of losing money. Interest rates are based on the type of loan, the perceived risk of the business and financing and the security being held in support of the loan.
About The Author
Jeff Schein is a CGA and offers advisory services in the areas of business planning, loan proposals, business modeling, strategic planning, business analysis and financial management for new ventures and growing small businesses. Visit www.companyworkshop.com or mailto:jeff@companyworkshop.com
jeff@companyworkshop.com
7 Key Points to Consider When Choosing a Web Host – Web
7 Key Points to Consider When Choosing a Web Host
Kyle Dusang
With literally thousands of web hosting companies in the industry all vieing for your business, carefully consider these key points to ensure you make the most well informed decision possible.
1. Server Space
First, think about how much space your site will take up on a server. Unless you are planning on running a software repository or an image gallery, the files that make up your website will probably only use between 1 and 5 megabytes of disk space. Many companies will offer several hundreds of megabytes of webspace for a very reasonable price in attempt to out perform their competitors, but ask yourself "Do I really need that much space". Though its true that you should allow your site "room to grow", dont opt for what seems like a great deal on a massively sized account if youll never use all of the space offered. Chances are youll find an even better deal on an amount of space more suitable for your site size.
2. Data Transfer Allowance
This decision should be based on the same principal as above. Though you may be convinced that your site will be the next Amazon or Yahoo and receive a gazillion visitors a day, you really shouldnt need an extremely high data transfer allowance unless, as stated above, youre running a software download site or a large image gallery. Even heavily trafficked normal HTML sites usually only use a few gigabytes per month in bandwidth allowance. Dont go overboard just because it seems like an awesome deal. You may also want to be wary of companies who offer "unlimited" data transfer as there are usually some fine-print stipulations that make this claim not entirely true. Be sure to read their terms and conditions very carefully before opting for this type of account. A five or ten gigabyte bandwidth allowance is usually plenty enough for a small to medium sized business or personal site.
3. Technical Support
A very important point to consider when choosing a web host is the types of technical support offered by the company and how easy they are to contact when you need them. Ideally, a company should offer 24/7 toll-free telephone support and email. I have seen companies that do not even offer a telephone number on their website. You should look for a company that is very easily accessible in your time of need. Nothing is more frustrating than being in the middle of working on your site and needing an important piece of information to finish the job and not being able to contact your hosting company to find it out.
4. CGI-Bin Access
No matter what type of site you are planning on running, chances are you will eventually need to install some type of CGI script. Whether it be a mailing list management script, contact form processor, or maybe even a fancy credit card processing script, your hosting account will need to allow you to install and run them. This requires access to a special folder on your server called "CGI-Bin". Some hosting accounts will only allow you to use "pre-installed" scripts as a security measure. These are scripts that the owners of the company have installed and configured so that they know that they will work properly and not adversely affect their servers performance. That may be all you need, but if you have the knowledge, its always nice to have the ability to install your own scripts and configure them to suit your individual needs. You should also be sure that the account you choose supports the language in which your scripts are written, such as PHP, Perl, etc.
5. Up-Time Guarantee
Another very important issue in determining the value of a hosting company is how often and for how long their servers "go down". No matter how good a deal you get on server space or bandwidht allowance, or how wonderfully the companys tech support takes care of you, your site cant receive visitors or produce revenue if the machine on which it is hosted is not up and running. Naturally you want a company who can guarantee the highest up-time percentage possible. Servers are taken down briefly from time to time for maintenance or upgrading, so no company can ensure 100% up-time, but you want your site to be hosted on dependable, well managed machines that are not constantly having problems which require them to be down for long periods of time.
6. Email Accounts
Again, like data transfer allowance and server space, some companies will offer you loads more email accounts than you will ever use. Some offer hundreds or even unlimited email accounts as a selling point. This is an important factor if you are Bill Gates and have thousands of employees, each who need their own email box, but not such a big deal if youre just one person or a small company. You should be okay with 10 or 15.
7. Reputation
This is probably the most important factor to consider when choosing a web host. Do your homework. Pay attention to any negative feedback you may hear or read about a particular hosting company. There are several sites arount the Web that feature discussion forums that allow people to discuss and critique various hosting companies. Ask specific questions about any company you might be interested in using to see if anyone else has had any negative experiences with them. As a beginning webmaster, I had initially contracted the services of a particular web hosting company to host my first site, who promised very good, dependable service for a very cheap price. Then one day, for no apparent reason, decided to delete my entire site without warning or explanation. Only then did I visit some hosting forums and find that many others had similar negative experiences with that company. Dont make the same mistake I did, find out for sure from the start that your hosting company is not going to let you down.
About The Author
Author: Kyle Dusang
Webmaster of http://www.verybesthosting.com
Looking for a web host Compare plans, features, and pricing from several of the Webs most reputable hosting companies all in one place at eryBestHosting.com.
kyle@verybesthosting.com