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Home loan tips to avoid being conned by home mortgage companies Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

And 10 or 20 years later, you end up owing a lot more than you should owe, thanks to these shell games by mortgage companies. So what can you do to defend yourself against this unscrupulous tactic used by some of the largest banks in the world? Well, it's simple. Keep track of your principle each and every month. If you send in an extra payment, you should know how much extra principle should be paid down. You may have to call your mortgage company and demand that the extra payment be applied to principle only.

But what they may not know about is something I can only characterize as an extremely dishonest practice by mortgage companies. Here's how they trick consumers and take their money without paying down the actual principle balance of the loan: Let's say your monthly payment amount is supposed to be $1000. And suppose that's $900 of interest and $100 of principle. But instead of sending $1000, you think 'Hey! I'm going to save some money down the road. So I'm going to send in $1500.

That would be too unprofitable for the mortgage companies. They have to devise a system -- a con -- to extract more money from you even though you're trying to pay down the balance. So here's what they do. They will take that extra $500 you've paid, and instead of applying that to your principle, they apply it as a pre-payment of your next month's interest. Let me repeat that. Instead of using that $500 to pay down your principle, they are applying it as a prepayment against the next month's interest.

For example, instead of sending $1000 once a month to your mortgage company, you might send $500 every two weeks. It actually does make a difference because you're avoiding interest on the money for that additional two weeks. You are far better off, of course, making a payment that is larger than $1000. So if you can afford it, send in $1100. Or maybe even something ambitious like $2000. That additional $1000 in payment will probably save you $20,000 over the life of the loan. It's true! The cost of dinner today, if you use it to help pay off your house, can save you $1000 down the road!

You may have to call your mortgage company and demand that the extra payment be applied to principle only. Then, next month, when you get your statement, make sure that they have applied it appropriately. And if they keep messing with you and playing this silly game of smoke and mirrors, then refinance your house with an honest company. Switch to a company that has the ethics to carry an honest loan. And by the way, just because you're banking with a so-called 'reputable' bank, it doesn't mean they're not going to play this trick on you.

My advice is learn how to crunch the numbers, learn how to calculate interest rates, understand your mortgage, get the vocabulary down so you can talk about principle versus interest and pre-payment penalties and so on. Educate yourself about your money or you're going to be surrounded by companies who will be more than happy to help you part with it.

The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine Anne Harrington See book keywords and concepts

Low mortgage rates (designed particularly to make home ownership affordable for returning serviceman) fueled a housing boom. Many of the houses in question were built in the new suburbs, where they encouraged a lifestyle organized around the nuclear family and material comfort. Nevertheless, for many Americans these developments had produced less happiness than might have been expected. The 1950s was not just an era of television and two-car garages; it was also, as many historians have observed, the "age of anxiety.

A mortgage over $10,000 is worse than a son (or daughter) leaving home. Trouble with your in-laws is as stressful as "outstanding personal achievement" which is only slightly more stressful than if "wife begins or stops work."... Conclusion: With 25 points or more, "you probably will feel better if you reduce your stress. "38 Postwar prosperity and the overburdened executive Even though the stresses of modern life spared no one, there still might be differences worth registering in the ways that the burdens of stress were distributed across the population.

I would have bet the mortgage of my house that it would not have come out this way."64 Before long, Spiegel and some of his patients had accepted an invitation to appear on the television talk show Oprah, and a few years later his group therapy was profiled in the Public Broadcasting Service's 1993 blockbuster documentary Healing and the Mind. There on television, before millions of viewers, journalist Bill Moyers asked Spiegel, "If the findings of your study are replicated, what do you think it means for medicine?

Financial Armageddon: Protecting Your Future from Four Impending Catastrophes Michael J. Panzner See book keywords and concepts

So did the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, which seemed more of a cheerleader than a regulatory overseer, until investigations in 2003 and 2004 revealed a host of accounting irregularities at the two mortgage giants. Both had "smoothed" results to meet internal performance-related criteria and keep Wall Street happy. The investigations forced the two institutions to delay earnings reports and issue restatements. In November 2005, Fannie Mae disclosed $10.

Lawn health warning: screen your lawn for Brown's Grass Disease and grasseoporosis Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

I decided I was going to have to mortgage the house, and took out a second mortgage. I said, "You know, the lawn is worth it. I'm going to go all the way on this. Let's do the grass transplant surgery. Let's do it! We don't really have any other choice here. Let's put in a whole new lawn and we'll start over. Hopefully, the new one won't have Brown’s Grass Disease." Sure enough, he brought over a team, and they put on their masks and their surgical coats. They brought these really huge scalpels, and they dug up what was left of the old lawn.

From Belly Fat to Belly FLAT: How Your Hormones Are Adding Inches to Your Waistline and Subtracting Years from Your Life C. W. Randolph, M.D. See book keywords and concepts

Contemporary stressors, like worrying about paying the mortgage, doing the jobs of three people, dealing with an unhappy marriage, or grappling with ongoing parenting issues, tend to be more long-term. A life stressor can be considered chronic if it persists for three or more months. Instead of pumping out more adrenaline, the adrenal glands respond to chronic stress by secreting more Cortisol. Because chronic stress is ongoing, high Cortisol levels do not subside until the stress is removed or the adrenal glands exhausted. Over time, elevated Cortisol levels can wreak havoc on your body.

Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations David R. Montgomery See book keywords and concepts

Heavy mortgage indebtedness exerts a specific financial pressure upon the soil by forcing the farmer to squeeze out of his soil whatever he can to meet his financial obligations.11 The growth of mechanized industrial agriculture promoted rapid soil loss as farmers spenr their narural capiral ro service loans for machinery and fertilizers. Records at Woburn Experimental Farm, established about twenty-five miles north of London in 1876 by England's Royal Agricultutal Society, inadvertently documented the effects of changing agricultural practices on soil erosion.

Bottom Line's Health Breakthroughs 2007 Bottom Line Health See book keywords and concepts

Instead of taking out a second mortgage to fund a Ferrari, buy a snazzy Volkswagen that doesn't jeopardize your financial security. If you want to try snowboarding, get an instructor until you are ready to go out on your own. One of my midlife passions was driving all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). During one reckless ride, I flipped the vehicle and nearly died. Now I have a permanently dislocated collarbone. If I had it to do over again, I would still get the ATV, but I would take a safety course first. Trap: Scapegoating.

The Secret History of the War on Cancer Devra Davis See book keywords and concepts

My husband was still employed and we had enough income to make our mortgage payments. Abe Lilienfeld, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and the dean of American epidemiology, bailed me out using funds he had previously secured from the National Cancer Institute. With his support, I became a senior fellow in epidemiology at one of the world's top programs in public health. He had hired me, he said, because my experience working in the federal government in the 1970s gave me a perspective that few researchers have. I was to focus on the really big Deconstructing Cancer Statistics picture.

Financial Armageddon: Protecting Your Future from Four Impending Catastrophes Michael J. Panzner See book keywords and concepts

Once known as the less sexy-sounding Federal National mortgage Association, Fannie Mae was privatized in 1970. Originally part of the Federal Home Loan Bank system, sister agency Freddie Mac was privatized in 1989. Like the S&Ls during the 1980s, Fannie and Freddie were suddenly free of regulatory burdens and forced to compete with more experienced, sophisticated, and aggressive financial firms in a rapidly changing marketplace.

The savings and loans, or S&Ls, had long toiled in the sleepy backwaters of traditional mortgage lending. That is, until they were set free to compete with banks and other financial operators. By the time it was all over, a combination of poor management, ill-conceived forays into unfamiliar and risky investments, naivete, fraud, and a cornucopia of regulatory blunders cost more than $150 billion—approximately $240 billion in 2006 dollars—in a taxpayer-funded bailout.

As with the broad move to floating-rate borrowing fostered by mortgage and other lenders, the rise of 401 (k) plans indicates that ordinary Americans have increasingly begun to shoulder risks traditionally assumed by businesses and governments. By cutting benefits and moving away from defined-pension arrangements, a sizable slice of corporate America moved large numbers of employees into programs that are far less costly for the corporate bottom line. In 1985, there were approximately 22 million active participants in single-employer defined-benefit plans.

From 2001 through 2005, the sum total of mortgage equity withdrawals, or MEWs, was estimated to be around $2.5 trillion, according to the Weekly Standard. Some analysts suggested, in fact, that MEWs may have accounted for a substantial share of U.S. economic growth over the five-year period. Along with the direct economic impact, however, developments in the credit markets dramatically altered the distribution and structure of interest rate and default risk in the American financial system.

Lawn health warning: screen your lawn for Brown's Grass Disease and grasseoporosis Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

I decided I was going to have to mortgage the house, and took out a second mortgage. I said, "You know, the lawn is worth it. I'm going to go all the way on this. Let's do the grass transplant surgery. Let's do it! We don't really have any other choice here. Let's put in a whole new lawn and we'll start over. Hopefully, the new one won't have Brown’s Grass Disease." Sure enough, he brought over a team, and they put on their masks and their surgical coats. They brought these really huge scalpels, and they dug up what was left of the old lawn.

Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs Melody Petersen See book keywords and concepts

She regularly receives calls, she said, from cancer patients who can no longer make their mortgage payments because of the cost of their drugs, doctors, and other care. One patient sent her a copy of a five-thousand-dollar bill for Thalomid, a drug for multiple myeloma. And that was for a single prescription. She said she believes the statistics that show that getting sick in America can quickly lead to financial disaster, even for those with insurance. "We all walk a pretty thin line," she said, "between being middle class and being poor.

They write big checks each month for their mortgage, rent, and car payments. The true financial burden of health care is hidden. Most people have health insurance paid for by an employer, which covers the majority of their medical bills. They don't realize how many thousands of dollars of their taxes are funneled to the medical system. Taxpayers covered nearly half the country's health care tab in 2005. At the same time, medical spending is concentrated with the minority of Americans suffering from chronic or serious illnesses, even though everyone pitches in to pay the fast-rising cost.

The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine Anne Harrington See book keywords and concepts

Death of a spouse" was first on the list, worth a full 100 "life change units" (LCUs); "taking out a big mortgage" was midway down, worth 31 LCUs; and going through Christmas holidays was near the bottom of the list, worth a mere 12 LCUs.36 (As a matter of interest, the original scores had been determined by making marriage the fixed midpoint on the scale, and then asking groups of people to rank the other stressors in relation to that fixed point.

The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century James Howard Kunstler See book keywords and concepts

In the early twentieth century, the mechanized factory system was new, mass production was new, broad-based installment purchases were new, the thirty-year mortgage was new. Modern economic behavior was being improvised. Not even savvy individuals knew what to expect, only what they hoped for. Except among a few intellectual eccentrics, such as Oswald Spengler, there wasn't any notion that the industrial story had a beginning, a middle, and an end, or where we were in the story.

Financial Armageddon: Protecting Your Future from Four Impending Catastrophes Michael J. Panzner See book keywords and concepts

Borrowing money was fast becoming the bad habit of choice for American consumers, many of whom were finding it hard to "just say no" or were oblivious to the longer-term consequences of boosting debt exposure to hitherto unseen levels. Households spent a record 13.75 percent of their after-tax income on servicing required interest and principal payments during the last quarter of 2005. Americans borrowed so carelessly because they focused only on the payments involved. When it came to obtaining financing, the number that always stood out was the monthly carrying charge, or "nut.

BeliefWorks: The Art of Living Your Dreams Ray Dodd See book keywords and concepts

One day, Annie discovered that Lee wasn't paying the credit card bills or the mortgage. She frantically phoned him and left message after message. He didn't answer for three days. When she finally reached him he said, "I can't come back right now." Lee had begun to drink again, was gambling, and had devoured their life savings. Annie eventually filed for divorce. "He's the love of my life," said Annie, "but I realized that he never changed any of the beliefs that made him an alcoholic in the first place. I did, but he didn't. He traded his addiction to alcohol for another addiction?

Making Them Pay: How to Get the Most from Health Insurance and Managed Care Rhonda D. Orin See book keywords and concepts

You have a lease or a mortgage agreement, a car loan, a student loan. You have a contract to use a credit card, to have cable TV, to have electricity and water. You even have a contract to shop at Costco. Most of these contracts are long, complicated documents, filled with small print and technical language. You probably don't understand them, and that's not great—but in most cases it's still okay. Generally you just pay the bills when they come due. In fact, you may make monthly mortgage payments for thirty years without ever knowing what your mortgage contract really says.

The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century James Howard Kunstler See book keywords and concepts

If large numbers of house owners cannot make their mortgage payments, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and by extension the federal government, would be the big losers. The failure of the GSEs would make the S&L fiasco of the 1980s look like a bad night of poker. The failure of the GSEs would pose a far graver situation than the LTCM flameout. It could easily bring on cascading failures that might jeopardize global finance. This time, the American public would feel the pain.

High interest rates discouraged house buying because the mortgage interest was gargantuan. The industrial nations entered deep recessions, the worst since the 1930s. The so-called developing nations were especially hard-hit. Many of those in Africa that had only recently emerged from colonialism in the 1960s would be permanently saddled with debt after the OPEC embargo and would never make a successful transition into sovereign self-sufficiency.

Finally there was the federal tax policy of the mortgage interest deduction that gave homeowners a substantial advantage over renters, which has always biased the U.S. market not only in terms of personal dwelling choices but in terms of housing typologies offered by the building industry. True, the population of the United States was growing, but not at a rate that justified the construction of so many new McHouses, as the "units" were called in the pop-up subdivisions.

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ABOUT THE CREATOR OF NATURALPEDIA: Mike Adams, the creator of this NaturalNews Naturalpedia, is the editor of NaturalNews.com, the internet's top natural health news site, creator of the Honest Food Guide (www.HonestFoodGuide.org), a free downloadable consumer food guide based on natural health principles, author of Grocery Warning, The 7 Laws of Nutrition, Natural Health Solutions, and many other books available at www.TruthPublishing.com, creator of the earth-friendly EcoLEDs company (www.EcoLEDs.com) that manufactures energy-efficient LED lighting products, founder of Arial Software (www.ArialSoftware.com), a permission e-mail technology company, creator of the CounterThink Cartoon series (www.NaturalNews.com/index-cartoons.html) and author of over 1,500 articles, interviews, special reports and reference guides available at www.NaturalNews.com. Adams' personal philosophy and health statistics are available at www.HealthRanger.org.