Hard Money Loans

Los Angeles, CA, United States (AHN) – Police are searching for the person who stole a religious relic nearly 800 years old from St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in downtown Long Beach Monday morning.

Officials with the Los Angeles Archdiocese said the relic of St. Anthony and the 16-inch case, or reliquary, that is stored in were taken from a church cabinet.

The church rarely showcases the relic and says it’s so valuable it had been nine years since it was on public display.

“There’s some tough times right now out in the economy,” said Father Jose Magana, the pastor at the church near 6th Street and Olive Avenue. “People are losing hope. So we said let’s bring the image, let’s bring the relic so people can pray with it and get close to it.”

In Catholicism, St. Anthony is the patron saint of lost or missing things.

The 16 inch relic believed to be close to 780 years old had been kept in case with angel-shaped handles.

Father Magana says he doesn’t regret his decision to showcase the relic and is confident someone will return it.

Police have a person of interest and she is described as someone who had shown unusual interest in the relic. She is also described as a Hispanic woman, 35 to 45 years old, about 5 feet 2 inches tall, with dark brown hair.

Police believe the person who took it may not know its historical value nor what it’s worth.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Long Beach Police Department at (562) 570-5590.

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Detroit, MI, United States (AHN) – Chrysler Group has apparently recovered from the slump that hit the auto industry in 2008. With the carmaker’s start of recovery, the company will repay on May 24 the $7.5 billion it borrowed from the U.S. and Canadian governments to further improve its bottom line.

The loans were part of the bankruptcy restructuring that the two governments extended to Chrysler and General Motors when the U.S. car industry was about to collapse from weak sales.

The repayment of the loans is a condition for new Chrysler operator, Fiat, to increase its stake in the American car manufacturing firm to 46 percent from 30 percent.

To repay Washington and Ottawa, Chrysler will use $3.5 billion in bonds, a $2.5 billion term loan and $1.3 billion in cash from Fiat.

Last month, Chrysler announced it would repay the two governments its loan by the end of June. After the announcement, Chrysler and Fiat Chief Executive and Chrysler Chief Financial officer Richard Palmer sought potential lenders, which would offer lower interest rates.

Marchionne attributed the company’s deficit to the interest payments it made on the government loans. In 2010, Chrysler reported a $652 million loss, partly because of $1.23 billion interests it paid on the bailout loans.

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DHAKA, Bangladesh (IRIN) – Lack of regulation and a surplus of donor funds in Bangladesh’s microcredit industry have led to NGOs pushing loans to over-indebted borrowers, says BRAC, the world’s largest development organization and heavily involved in the country’s microfinance industry.

Asked whether BRAC itself had pushed loans onto borrowers who could not afford them, Shameran Abed, programme head of microfinance at BRAC, told IRIN: “Yes,” citing “excess liquidity” and a lack of communication between lenders.

“In the mid 2000s, the microfinancing industry grew too fast. And yes, we did,” said Abed. “But I’ll tell you why we did – we didn’t have perfect information.”

In 2009, BRAC disbursed US$1.1 billion worth of loans to women throughout Bangladesh, and like many other microfinance institutions (MFIs), claimed that 99 percent of their borrowers paid back their loans, a win-win situation.

However, the industry has also come into disrepute. A Norwegian documentary, Caught in Micro Debt, sparked international outrage in 2010 by showing the difficulties people have under the burden of paying back a loan.

Some borrowers are even taking out more loans to meet repayments, experts say.

Microcredit, the practice of loaning sums as small as US$20, was first pioneered in Bangladesh in the 70s and 80s by Nobel laureate and politically controversial figure Mohammad Yunus and the organization he founded, Grameen Bank.

Since then, the industry has mushroomed to over 500 registered MFIs in Bangladesh and has come under increasing scrutiny.

Women, who are the borrowers in most cases, are subject to high interest rates and aggressive debt recovery techniques, said Lamia Karim, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Oregon. She has been researching microfinance for more than 15 years.

But BRAC’s Abed said the popular belief that high interest rates are to blame for loan defaulting is wrong. The interest on a $140 loan, he explained, is 15 percent, with weekly installments of $3.40, of which about $0.40 is interest.

“Is that 30 taka [US $0.40] tipping you over the edge? I don’t think so,” he said.

Inadequate regulatory body

Despite having more than 20 million micro-borrowers, the Bangladesh government still has no effective system in place to protect microcredit lenders and clients, experts agree.

The Microcredit Regulatory Authority (MRA), formed in 2006 after repetitive calls from the microcredit industry to establish control over smaller MFIs, is hamstrung by a lack of manpower and funds, according Prodip Chandra Roy, MRA assistant director of research.

Furthermore, Roy said the MRA’s authority is severely undermined by other organizations that offer registration.

“For us the biggest challenge is to control other authorities that also have the authority to register microfinance organizations,” he said.

To register with the MRA, an MFI has to show either that it has 1,000 members (potential borrowers), or $50,000-worth of dispersible funds. To date, the MRA has registered some 548 MFIs out of thousands operating in Bangladesh.

Strong-arm tactics

Many microcredit borrowers have little or no property to be used as collateral, which makes trust a key element of the loaning process.

“For our microfinance borrowers we do not have any collateral, so we cannot take anything back. The court system doesn’t work here. So, the only way you can get your money back is to keep pestering them,” Abed said.

However, BRAC, Grameen and other NGOs have been found to do much more than pester borrowers who missed payments, some claims suggest.

As an attack on a family’s honour, women are regularly shamed in public, an activity that can have grave social repercussions, Karim said.

Stronger measures are used if the borrowers default even after public humiliation.

“Grameen, BRAC, ASA and Proshika all strong-armed women into paying back. In extreme cases homesteads are taken apart and the timber and tin sold off,” said Karim.

Though the NGOs don’t actively take part in `ghar bhanga’ (house-breaking), community members do what NGO officers order them to do, out of fear of losing access to loans, she said.

However, despite numerous papers by independent researchers, the NGO community refuses to accept such allegations.

“I’ve not had one issue of complaints [of house-breaking] coming from borrowers, or the media or the society that we work in,” said Abed.

mh/nb/ds/cb

– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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Houston, Texas, United States (AHN) – A man trying to corral a loose bull on a ranch near Houston, Texas fell into a bayou and drowned.

According to local media reports, two men were chasing the bull along the Berry Creek near the town of Ahrens at about 11 p.m. Friday night. Both men fell into the water.

Several people from a nearby farm ran to the men’s aid and were able to pull one of them out, but the second man slipped back into the water and drowned.

His body was recovered by the Houston Police Department’s dive team several hours later, according to local media reports.

His identity has not been released.

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Pakistan’s central bank kept interest rates unchanged for a second straight meeting, in line with economists’ forecasts, as the inflation rate slowed to a seven-month low.

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The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose 1 basis point in Freddie Mac’s latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey. But mortgage rates are likely to fall at least 10 basis points in the next weekly report. The prediction is based on a falling 10-year Treasury yield.

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While commercial hard money loans might sound as if they come out of a Mafia movie, there is nothing dangerous or especially risky about being granted one of the many commercial loans that are on offer by the different independent financial institutions.

What are Commercial Hard Money Loans?

The word ‘hard’ can be misleading for many people who are applying for this sort of financing. All that it means is that the loan is guaranteed by an asset or a piece of immovable property. The loan will be granted on the strength of the value of the asset in question. Many developers use these type of loans when they are attempting to develop a piece of land into a commercial property that has investment potential as well as the potential of future earnings that will more than cover the loan amount.

The value of these loans is that they are usually funded by private investors. It is worthwhile finding a company who is able to match up potential investors to loan applicants. They will ensure that the loan is completely legal as well as being secured by the property itself and not the personal assets of the owner. Most of the private investors in America today are likely to be private firms who consider that issuing commercial hard money loans is a way of doing business that guarantees them a substantial return on investment. These loans are not usually granted over an extended loan term.

This type of loan is not like a conventional mortgage that is repaid over 30 years. The term is usually between 1 and 5 years and the interest rates are much higher than a conventional loan. While the top end of the scale of interest rates can reach up to 15 % it is still a way of obtaining finance for an investment without having to wait for months or go through an extensive process of paperwork and credit checks.

It is always wise to remember that commercial hard money loans will not cover the full value of the property and it is unusual to find any commercial hard money lender that will over about 60% of the value of the property. If you are buying property then you will have to fund the difference from another source or be prepared to fund it yourself. Commercial hard money loans are granted based on a logical and achievable plan to pay the money back on time and most commercial hard money lenders will need to see a considerable amount of property related experience.

They will not be inclined to lend money to first time investors, unless the risk is very low. Commercial hard money loans are a solution to investment opportunities that many banks have refused due to the economy.

To know more information about Commercial Hard Money Loans and Commercial Financing Services visit ICPFinancial.com

Author: Claire Geonzon
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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If you own real estate whether it is single family home, condo, apartment building or a commercial property, in this economy, chances are you already know about Hard Money Loan.

Basically a hard money or a private money loan is a sub-prime loan. A lender puts more emphasis on the security rather than your income and credit. When you go to a pawn shop to pawn an item, the shop owner does not care what you do for living, how much you make, and what your credit score is like. He only cares for the value of that time and that too a firesale value.

Similarly, a private lender, looks more at the value of your real property and how much equity you have in it. If the property is worth a million dollars and you owe $300,000. You can borrow $200,000 to $300,000 more on it easily. The formula lenders use is called loan to value ratio. In most cases you can get a loan up to 60% loan to value ratio.

Qualifying for this kind of loan is less stringent as compared to a conventional loan especially when it is a non-owner occupied or a commercial property. Debt ratios are liberal and credit score has little consideration. If you had great debt ratios and good credit score why will you be applying for a hard money loan? So, if your hard money lender is asking you for your credit score, you need to call someone else.

The Pros are it is fast. In most cases you can get funds as fast as five working days. Qualifying, as mentioned above, is a lot easier. Without hard money loans lot more people will lose their properties. Hard money or private money loans fulfill an important need in the society. It is a bridge loan and can be a great relief. It is also called a band-aid loan.

The Cons are it is short term. generally no more than seven years. Mostly it is from one to three years. It is interest only. Interest rate is high, from 10 to 12%. Fees are high. Expect to pay three to 6 points.

Not everyone who gets a loan like this has credit or income problem. In this economy, more and more people who are borrowing private money have good credit and good income but somehow cannot get a bank or a conventioanl loan for one reason or the other. Banks are taking months to close a loan.

Money for funding these loans comes from private investors; from retirement; hedge funds and Trust Deed Investors.

Get more information on http://www.saratogabancorp.com

Amarjit Ahluwalia is the author of Make Your Money Make Money For You – a step by step guide to Trust Deed Investments. The book shows you how to earn 10% or more on your savings.

Keep in mind money is not power, knowledge is.

For more information on Hard Money Loans go to http://www.saratogabancorp.com

Author: Amarjit Ahluwalia
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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China’s bank reserve-ratio increase capped a week of Asia escalating its fight against inflation, with South Korea and Thailand boosting interest rates and India importing onions, a curry staple, from historical enemy Pakistan.

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What is a Hard Money Loan?

Hard money loans are a specialized type of real estate backed loans. Hard money lenders or private lenders provide short-term loans based on the value of real estate that has been collateralized for the loan.

Hard money loans typically have a much higher interest rate than bank loans because they fund deals that do not conform to bank standards and have higher risks. Hard money loans are more expensive than traditional loans because they are not based upon traditional credit guidelines. Hard money lenders may not require the income verification, credit score, etc. that typical lenders do, but their interest rate and points are higher.

“Points” on a hard money loan vary widely, some lenders may charge 1 to 3 points, while other lenders may charge up to 7 or 8 points. Some lenders base the points charged on the rehab experience of the borrower with regular clients getting reduced points the more business they do.

New rehabbers should not do more than 1 project at a time, especially in this economy. You don’t want to be stuck with a couple of houses when you do not have the finances to maintain them until they are sold. Also, as a new rehabber, you should get yourself registered (qualified) with a Hard Money Lender first so you can act fast when you find a house to rehab. You will able to get a “proof of funds” letter quickly from your Hard Money Lender to be qualified as a cash buyer. It is important to be a cash buyer since the sellers of foreclosed or distressed properties want fast deals. In fact, most ads or MLS listings require a pre-approved buyer and request the proof of funds letter to be submitted with the purchase contract. With most Hard Money Lenders, it is not difficult to get qualified. Usually it takes a simple application, a bit of information about your experience or lack thereof and some personal information.

The advantages of using Hard Money Loans are:

1. No Credit history, tax returns, W-2′s or job history
2. You can make All Cash Offers
3. The property value is used to determine the loan, not your income.
4. Close in a very short time frame.
5. Purchase the property and have the funds available to rehab it in one loan.
6. The Hard Money Lender understands all aspects of rehabbing and can, if necessary, be flexible on their programs.

THINGS YOU NEED TO THINK ABOUT WHEN PURCHASING A HOUSE FOR REHAB

Pricing your home is one of the most important aspects of your rehabbing. You should determine a selling price when you purchase the property. However, sometimes things change and the original price you calculated to sell it is not longer an option. Always remember that you make a profit when you BUY the property, not when you SELL it!! This means that if you do not make a wise and well thought out purchase, there is no way you are going to make money. It just doesn’t happen because you want it to happen. This is a process that needs to be calculated to the end and that includes the SALE of the property after it has been rehabbed.

Pricing: Realize that because of the economy and the current housing market conditions, there are many properties on the market. Some are in great shape, some need a little work and some need a lot of work. Also there are a lot of pre-foreclosures, foreclosures and short sales. Ask yourself some questions:

1. Would I buy this rehabbed home before buying a pre-foreclosure, foreclosure or short sale (distressed properties)?
2. How is the new buyer’s appraiser going to evaluate the home; equal to the distressed properties in the neighborhood or better? Sometimes appraisers don’t look at the upgrades you may have put in to your project. A “budget” buyer might buy the short sale or foreclosed house that needs a little work for less money than what you are asking.

Test the neighborhood:

1. Are there many distressed properties in the area?

2. Are there a lot of vacant lots?

3. Do the neighbors keep up their properties?

4. Are there schools nearby?

5. Are shopping areas convenient? Within walking distance?

6. Are there streetlights and sidewalks?

7. What about transportation? Bus lines? Train Lines?

8. Do comps in the neighborhood. Have your Realtor pull rehabbed properties in the same area that have recently sold (within 6 months), or do drive-bys yourself and look up the comparables with www.zillow.com or www.realtytrac.com. These sites will give you approximate values and can help you make the decision whether this is the right house to buy for rehab. Don’t fudge the numbers. Make sure you comps are similar size, number of bedrooms and baths, design, frame or brick, etc. If one or more of your “test items” does not work out, then move on to another property.

All of this must be considered when making a purchase for rehab.

The actual funding of the deal, the paperwork and how it works will be discussed in my next article.

I have ten years experience in Real Estate Investing. As a Real Estate Broker with my own company, I have personally rehabbed properties and wholesaled single family and two-flats in the Chicago area.

I am currently writing E-Books on Real Estate as an Investment, Hard Money Lending and Rehabbing for Profit that will be available on my website at http://www.RealEstateRehabProfits.com. Hard Money Lending criteria is available on the website http://www.zdeinvestments.com

I will also continue contributing shorter articles on many subjects pertaining to Real Estate.

Author: Rebecca A Miller
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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