The United States Department of Veterans Affairs provides a loan guarantee service to honorably discharged veterans of the United States military. Essentially, any serviceman or their surviving spouse is eligible for 100% financing without a down payment or mortgage insurance or 90% refinancing on an existing home.

How exactly does a VA loan work?

The VA loan isn’t issued by Veterans Affairs. Instead, the loans are issued by private lenders like banks and mortgage companies, but insured by VA. This means that if you default on your loan, Veterans Affairs will guarantee or secure it. This often translates to lower down payment requirements and eligible interest rates.

What else does the VA loan program do?

The Veterans Affairs loan program also provides pre-purchase counseling. VA officers will sit down with you and your families and go through the process of purchasing and owning a home, obtaining financing and basically understanding the home ownership process.

Does entitlement to a VA loan guarantee a mortgage?

Unfortunately, no it doesn’t. Veterans Affairs can’t force a lender to issue you a home loan, but it can help to make you a more attractive recipient. You still must meet basic credit and income requirements. But if a lender is concerned, for example, about a veteran’s poor credit history, the loan can still be denied or offered at a higher interest rate.

How much are veterans entitled to under the VA loans program?

The bare-bones, basic entitlement is $36,000, but this varies depending on region, median home prices and the amount required. While the amount changes yearly, the limit for the continental U.S. in 2008 was $417,000. Consequently, a qualified veteran could obtain a no down-payment mortgage for an amount up to $417,000.

What do I need to get a VA loan?

You need a Certificate of Eligibility. You can get one either from your lender or the Department of Veterans Affairs. Most recent veterans’ information is stored in an online database known as ACE (Automated Certificate of Eligibility), so lenders can access this database to find out if a borrower has a certificate.

How do I get a VA loan?

First you need to select a home and sign a purchase contract that’s dependant on you receiving a VA home loan. Next, you should choose a lender and complete a loan application with your Certificate of Eligibility. The lender will then contact Veterans Affairs to assign an appraiser to determine the market value of the home.

Once a Certificate of Reasonable Value has been issued on the home, your lender will let you know that you’ve been approved for your loan. At that time, you’ll attend the closing where the lender or its attorney will explain the terms of the loan to you, and you will sign the loan agreement.

After the signing, the loan is sent to Veterans Affairs for guaranty, at which point your Certificate of Entitlement is annotated and sent back to you. Finally, once all appropriate approval has taken place and paperwork is signed, you move in.

By: Ben Horne

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Do you run a small business? Is your business insured? If not you could be risking your and your business’ future.

Learn about business insurance, and see why its today’s business lifeboat.

Expensive if You Don’t Use It – Cheap if You Do

The cost of doing business today is rising all the time, its true. Salaries and worker’s benefits are taking a bigger chunk of your profits.

Taxes are always a key consideration, and material costs are rising as well. Add to this insurance, and you have a real significant number on your cost of doing business column (on your profit and loss statement).

When looking at insurance you will be amazed as the amount of risks you are obliged to cover.

There are the obvious accidents or acts of nature risks, worker’s compensation, health and retirement plans, but then there are a host of other risks that can, and many should be insured.

It’s a maximum that all insurance is expensive if you don’t use it, but very cheap if you do.

The “Got To Have” Business Insurance Risks

Here is a list of basic insurance risks that every business should cover;

o Fire, Theft, Water Damage, and Malicious Damage to your business location

o All required worker insurance obligations, and for good worker relations, some perk insurance for employees, like some group private health plan, and retirement fund.

o Product liability if you are producing a product

o Transportation insurance for all your vehicles (full Casco advised)

o Fidelity insurance if your employees handle money. This may be a really indispensable pre-paid asset to your business.

The “Nice to Have” Business Insurance Risks

o Business interruption insurance

o 3rd Party Liability if you are producing a product for wide distribution

o Litigation insurance

o Damage due to civil disobedience and terrorist activity

o Business specific items

Buying Insurance

The choice of buying insurance is becoming a tiresome activity with so many options and prices (and insurance terms), that finding and using a good broker may be your best bet

The insurance broker has some advantages over using one company exclusively.

The broker can shop around, negotiate directly with underwriters (which you cannot do), and tailor make some policies for you.

The cost of using a broker may be easily absorbed by the lower cost of the insurance he provides you and your business.

You must make very sure of the broker’s qualifications, and demand a list of companies and underwriters he deals with.

Ask for a client list, and his inclusion in professional insurance societies. A search on the internet is also helpful. When you are satisfied, start using the broker to plan your business insurance risk profile and coverage plan.

By: Sacha Tarkovsky

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If you are an insurance agent that is looking for insurance leads, more than likely you are looking for policies in the area of auto, home owners, or life insurance. It makes the most sense because this is where the higher commission is.

Due to the fact that most business insurance customers are seeking insurance policies for start up businesses where the premiums are not all that high, the business insurance lead is not highly sought after by insurance professionals.

Also, for these same reasons the customer in need of business insurance has trouble finding someone to fill their business insurance policy for them.

Here is something for Insurance agents to consider when it comes to working with business insurance leads.

If you take the time to help a customer out with their business insurance needs and take the time to build a relationship with them, in no small way will they be overly appreciative of the fact that you took the time to help them.

Remember, you are with them in the beginning and you are a major component for helping them get their fledgling business off the ground. The trust and loyalty they will have in you is second to none.

Because of the relationship and the trust you have built with this customer they will be more than likely, and more than happy to do all of their personal insurance business with you. Which of course leads to life insurance, car insurance, home owners insurance, etc.

Or, at the very least you will have their ear when it comes time to explaining your products and services and the savings that you can offer them.

Also important is finding the right insurance lead company to work with.

Look for the insurance lead companies that sell fresh, real time business insurance leads, and one with which you can start out with a low minimum deposit.

This concept has been tested and has worked for many insurance agents so it may be something you want to consider.

So the next time you find a break in your day or an opening on your calendar, invest in a handful of business insurance leads and see if you can build a relationship with a small business customer.

By: Jay Conners

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Savings accounts, checking accounts, computers, credit cards, and money are some of the important factors that play a very important role in managing your finances successfully. You can follow the following steps in order to do that.

When it comes to getting organized, you must keep in mind that everything needs a place, a home, a spot. The basic filing cabinet is the best way to organize the paperwork. The hanging files can make the best option. They are very easy ton work with. Moreover, they are much easier to access. A basic filing cabinet costs around $30 and is well worth the price. This way, they are economical as well, and none of your important documents will get lost.

Take care of everything, such as savings accounts, checking accounts, credit cards, and money as and when an update comes regarding the same. Do not let the mail pile up. The easiest way is that as soon as you bring in the daily stack of bills, you should go through each envelope immediately, and deal with all business related to the contents of the envelope.

The best way to manage all the aspects associated with savings accounts, checking accounts, credit cards, and money is to use a computer and organize your financial life. You must have heard the famous quote “If you have a computer, then you should be using financial software”.

Savings accounts, checking accounts, computers, credit cards, and money are like the blood of your financial life. Therefore, you must learn how to manage the same successfully. If you are unable to learn to manage these concepts, you may find yourself going bankrupt very quickly.

By: John Gutenburg

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After determining the level of working capital, a firm has to decide how it is to be financed. The need for financing arises mainly because the investment in working capital/current assets – that is, raw materials, work/stock-in-process, finished goods and receivables – typically fluctuates during the year.

Although long-term loans partly finance current assets and provide the margin money for working capital, such assets/working capital is virtually exclusively supported by short-term sources. When talking about small business loans, it is necessary to understand the term “trade credit”.

Trade credit refers to the credit extended by the supplier of goods and services in the normal course of transaction/business of the firm. According to trade practices, cash is not paid immediately for purchases but after an agreed period of time. Thus, trade credit represents a source of finance for credit purchases. There are no legal instruments or acknowledgements of debt, which are granted on an open account basis.

A variant of accounts payable is bills/notes payable. Unlike the open account nature of accounts payable, bills/notes payable represent documentary evidence of credit purchases and a formal acknowledgement of obligation to pay for credit purchases on a maturity date, failing which legal action for recovery will follow. A notable feature of bills/notes payable is that they can be rediscounted and the seller does not necessarily have to hold it until maturity to receive payment.

However, it creates a legally enforceable obligation on the buyer of goods to pay on maturity whereas the accounts payable have more flexible payment obligations. Although most trade credit is on open account as accounts payable, the suppliers of goods do not extend credit indiscriminately. Their decision as well as the quantum is based on a consideration of factors such as earnings record over a period of time, liquidity position of the firm and past record of payment.

By: Thomas Morva

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Most of the time people will find themselves drowning in a sea of debt and have no idea how they managed to get themselves into so much trouble. It happened much like wading into a real ocean does.

First, you are standing on a nice warm sandy shore enjoying the sunshine and the breeze. You dip a toe into the ocean and it feels really nice. You begin wading out and you are surrounded by things you have always wanted. You just keep getting deeper and deeper until you are in way over your head and you cant see a nice dry (debt-free) shore anywhere in sight.

People very rarely just suddenly get into deep financial and debt problems….it happens one credit card at a time. The first credit card might be an oil company credit card. The next one is usually a store credit card. Then you get the major bank credit cards. It is just so easy to get all of the stuff that you want and need using credit cards and making the minimum payments that are required is just no problem at all.

Before you know it, you are using these credit cards to make your car payments and your mortgage payments, maybe even to buy the weekly supply of groceries. You find yourself drowning in debt. It isnt a fun place to be, for sure.

You can get credit counseling, and you can get a debt consolidation loan or even a second mortgage. But you are really going to get out of debt the very same way you got into debt…one step at a time. The closer you get to the shoreline, the easier it will become to free yourself of overburdening debt. And next time, you won’t get too far from shore.

By: Milos Pesic

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