A Home Equity Line of Credit is bank product that grants homeowners access to the equity in their home at anytime, usually using checks. Often called a HELOC, these equity-based credit lines function very much like credit cards: The rate is adjustable, tied to Prime Rate There is a minimum monthly payment There is a [...]

Most homeowners make four housing-related payments each month: Principal on a mortgage Interest on a mortgage Taxes on the real estate owned Insurance for the real estate owned Collectively, these payments are known by the acronym PITI but don’t let it fool you — a homeowner’s monthly expenses are still called PITI even if one [...]

California, Florida, Arizona and Michigan account for more than half of the foreclosures in the U.S. in May 2008RealtyTrac released its most recent foreclosure statistics and if you only read the headlines, you think the entire country was on the verge of losing its homes. The underlying data tells a different story, however. More than [...]