Hello from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Welcome to the IowaMortgageGuy Blog! Glad to have you as a guest and hope to see you back again soon. Hope you find the information useful and informative.

A little About Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Named after the Cedar River, Cedar Rapids, Iowa is the second largest city behind Des Moines, Iowa. It is located in the eastern portion of Iowa and is known as "The City of Five Seasons." The "fifth season" being time to enjoy the other four. Cedar Rapids is the County seat of Linn County, Iowa. It is considered a safe place to raise a family and it has short commute times from most surrounding communities. Interstate 380 runs right through Cedar Rapids and is also a part of the Avenue of Saints from St. Paul, Minnesota to St. Louis, Missouri. Cedar Rapids shares borders with the City of Marion and Hiawatha which are also both great communities to reside, work and play as well. Several large businesses and industries call Cedar Rapids, Iowa home. Some of those business located here are Rockwell Collins, AEGON, Quaker Oats, Archer Daniels Midland, Alliant Energy, McLeodUSA, Qwest, Great America Leasing and Square D to name a few. High-tech industries have been located here for many years but new ones are attracted to the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City area due in part to the Technology Corridor. The Technology Corridor is the area along I-380 from Cedar Rapids to Iowa City, Iowa. Many of Iowa's top technological businesses and industries are located in the "corridor." Cedar Rapids is also home to several colleges such as Coe College, Mount Mercy College, Kirkwood College, Hamilton College and Capri College (College of Cosmetology). Cedar Rapids has several Public schools. The University of Iowa is just at the south end of the "corridor" in Iowa City - Home of the Iowa Hawkeyes. High Schools include George Washington (Wash), Thomas Jefferson (Jeff), John F Kennedy (Kennedy) and Metro High School. Middle Schools include Franklin, Harding, McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson. Elementary Schools include Arthur, Cleveland, Coolidge, Erskine, Garfield, Gibson, Grant Early, Grant Wood, Harrison, Hiawatha, Hoover, Jackson, Johnson, Kenwood, Madison, Monroe, Nixon, Pierce, Polk, Taylor, Truman, Van Buren and Wright. Other public school districts serving Cedar Rapids, Marion, and the surrounding area include Linn-Mar, College Community and Marion Independent. There are also Private Schools like Xavier, St. Pius, Regis, LaSalle, The Cedar Rapids Area Metro Catholic Education System, Holy Family School System, Summit, Trinity Lutheran, Isaac Newton Christian and Cedar Valley Christian.

Housing and Relocation Services

Skogman provides a suite of the very finest products and services to the companies, families and individuals relocating to and from the Cedar Rapids, Iowa area. Our Professional services include Realtors® with Skogman Realty, Skogman Relocation, Skogman Mortgage and Skogman Homes groups. Skogman Relocation, amongst many other services, provides Community Tours, Informational Packets, Rental and Temporary Housing Assistance, Access to New and Existing Housing Markets, Assistance in Movement of Household Goods, School Searches and Information, Special Family Needs Assistance, Elder Care Assistance, Pre-Market Analysis and Listing Services, Referral of Community Resources, INS Process Help, Assistance in Job Placement for other family members and Affiliation with the Nation's Largest Relocation Network. Skogman Mortgage provides home loan services for your new or existing home. They understand the Relocation process and how stressful it can be and so they have turnkey processes in place to streamline your home buying and financing process to allow you time to focus on what's important - integrating into your job and your new life in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Skogman Mortgage has expert professionals and flexible financing solutions for relocating borrowers with The Relocation Mortgage Program_SM. This program provides fast applications and loan decisions, Priority Buyer _SM Pre-Approvals, a simplified process, easier qualifying, expanded relaxed underwriting (and programs for less than perfect credit borrowers), low or no down payment options, convenience and an exceptional relocation Foreign National program.

Please visit http://www.iowamortgageguy.com/ for all your relocation and mortgage needs. Or please feel free to visit one of my other links: http://www.skogmanrelocation.com/ or http://www.cedarrapidsrelocation.com/.

For more information on Cedar Rapids, you can visit http://www.cedar-rapids.com/ (Cedar Rapids Convention and Visitors Bureau) or visit the Cedar Rapids Chamber of Commerce at http://www.cedarrapids.org/. For jobs in the area, you can visit http://www.corridorcareers.com/.

Best wishes to you and welcome to the Cedar Rapids, Marion, Hiawatha Metro Area, we hope you stay a long time and that you enjoy the "Fifth" Season with us.

Putting my interest in yours,

Hello from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Welcome to the IowaMortgageGuy Blog! Glad to have you as a guest and hope to see you back again soon. Hope you find the information useful and informative.

Selecting the right mortgage is critical to the home buying process. Therefore, it's important to understand that there are options. When considering a mortgage there are several things the Iowa Mortgage Guy likes to ask his clients - which loan achieves your goals with respect to payment, down payment and price of new home desired. As well, consideration should be given to the time the client intends to be in that home before selling or moving on and even market conditions or credit qualification. Let's look at payment, price and down payment first and then move on to loan types and loan terms.

Your Goals

The most important person is you. It is imperative that your goals are met with respect to payment, price and cash to close or this mortgage transaction may start off with unrealistic expectations. You should consider your current housing/rent payment and monthly budget when looking at what you think you can afford, consider your cash available for down payment and closing costs and the price of the home you think you will need to fit your needs and be ready to discuss those items with your mortgage professional. You may find that you have to adjust your goals in order to achieve the most important one. For example, if you wanted a $900 a month house payment with Taxes and Insurance included and you wanted to purchase a home for $150,000 and wanted to put no money down, you may have to modify your goals to fit the one which is most important - the payment or the price in this example. Obviously, consideration would have to be given to qualifying with income to debt ratio and your credit.

Loan Types

Home loans fall into one of two general categories: fixed-rate and adjustable-rate (ARMs) mortgages.

Fixed rate mortgages have interest rates that stay the same for the entire life of the loan. This provides you, the consumer, with a stable monthly principal and interest payment throughout the life of the loan and protects you from rising rates.

Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARM's) have interest rates that may be fixed for a period of time (usually 6 months to 10 years) but then they adjust based on market conditions at an interval pre-determined by the mortgage product. The rates on these products are sometimes lower than for a fixed-rate mortgage. Because of the lower initial rate, some borrowers may be eligible for a larger loan amount with an ARM than with a fixed-rate mortgage. These mortgages also carry initial rate adjustment caps, periodic or annual adjustment caps and lifetime caps that keep interest rates from going above a certain level at each interval (initial, periodic of lifetime). As an example, a 3/1 ARM may start at say 5% rate and then its initial adjustment (after 3 years) is capped at 2%, then the annual adjustment (after year 4) is capped at 1% and the lifetime is capped at 5% (max overall adjustment over the remaining term to initial rate - 5% initial rate+5% life cap rate = max rate over 30 years amortization).

Loan terms

The "term" of a loan is the period of time you will spend repaying the funds loaned to you back. The most common loan term is 30 years. There are other terms out there like the 40-year term (lower payments and longer repayment), 20-year, 15-year and 10-year (all for shorter repayment periods). Whether you'd be better off with a longer loan term or a shorter one depends on a number of factors, most notably your monthly income and long-term financial goals on equity position, sale of the home or move up or down to a larger or smaller property and the time frame you wish to accomplish this.

Longer mortgage terms offer lower monthly payments, and are a good option if you're on a tight budget or would prefer to direct your monthly cash flow toward other investments or expenses or you plan to be in the home for a longer period of time.

Shorter mortgage terms mean higher monthly payments but allow you to repay the loan faster, save money on interest and build equity faster for that future home, wealth or borrowing power.

The bottom line is that you must have some sort of idea of your long range goals with respect to your home, financial objectives and wealth strategies and discuss them with a professional mortgage originator and make the educated choices that are best suited to YOUR goals and objectives.

Putting my interest in yours,

Hello from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Welcome to the IowaMortgageGuy Blog! Glad to have you as a guest and hope to see you back again soon. Hope you find the information useful and informative.

The concept of a mortgage is quite simple: it is a loan made to help you finance a home. Each of the many different mortgage products and programs have their own unique features but fundamentally they are still the same - your lender advances you an amount of money, which you repay over period of time.

What are rates, points, and loan fees? The cost of your mortgage is determined by many different factors, most relevant are the interest rate, discount points, and loan fees.

• Interest rate refers to the percentage your are charged on your outstanding loan balance, paid to the lender each month as part of your cost to borrow money. The interest rate will be based on the current rate environment, your financial and credit profile and the unique features of your loan.
• Discount points "buy down" your interest rate. One point equals 1% of your loan amount. The more points you pay, the lower your interest rate will be, and the less your payments will be monthly. If you wanted to lower your closing costs, you could accept a slightly higher rate and pay no points.
• Loan fees are up-front charges to cover the cost of originating, processing, and closing your loan, among other things. An origination point is a loan fee that equals 1% of your loan amount also.

When considering loan options, keep in mind that rates, points and fees should all be considered. The interest rate is only one part of the makeup of your mortgage. The expenses that contribute to the cost of your loan are expressed as the annual percentage rate (APR). This is the measuring tool by which you can determine the true cost or your loan when compared to others.

What makes up my monthly mortgage payments? Mortgage payments are generally divided into four parts: Principal(P), Interest(I), Taxes(T), and Insurance(I). This is where the acronym PITI comes from. Sometimes you may be considering a loan with less than 20% down or even possibly a government loan like FHA. In this case, you may also be looking at a monthly Mortgage (M) Insurance (I) - MI/PMI premium (see below) added to the PITI.

• Principal is the amount of money you borrowed to buy the home, and to the outstanding loan balance at any point during the mortgage term.
• Interest is the cost of borrowing money. As noted above, the amount of interest you pay each month is determined by your interest rate.
• Taxes assessed by your local government will likely be collected by your lender as part of your monthly payments, and then paid annually or semi-annually on your behalf. This is known as an escrow account.
• Insurance, like property taxes, is normally collected by the lender in an escrow account. Insurance offers financial protection, and has two major components:
  • Homeowner's insurance, also called hazard insurance, protects you against damage to your property caused by fire, wind, or other hazards.
  • Mortgage insurance protects your lender in the event that you fail to repay your mortgage. Whether you must pay mortgage insurance usually depends on the loan program and the size of your down payment. In some cases this premium can be either paid by you or if you choose paid by your lender by increasing the interest rate (referred to then as Lender Paid Mortgage Insurance). Be sure to ask about your options for MI when talking to your loan officer.

Note that the loan's APR doesn't figure into the calculation of the monthly payment. The APR reflects all the costs of your mortgage, including not only the quoted interest rate (used to calculate the principal and interest) but also required loan fees such as loan points, fees and mortgage insurance.

Understanding the basics of the home mortgage can give you that leg up when discussing options with your lender.

Putting my interest in yours,

Jeff Harding