Money info for UK readers

Anyone living in the UK reading this blog might be interested in visiting this interesting Money website. Aside from the usual information about the various Credit Cards on the market, it also has information regarding insurance and other money-related topics.

This site also offers a financial email newsletter and you can subscribe to the RSS feeds of one of its numerous financial blogs. The newsletter has some genuinely useful and interesting information, for example, there is an article about a high interest savings account available for people aged between16 and 20, offering an impressive 10% on savings (Alliance & Leicester's award winning Premier 21 account). Another article provides details of the ISA available from Barclays that is offering a tax-free 6.5% AER.

The main webpage is well laid out, and has a summary of "Latest Money News". There are links to the specialist sections on Credit Cards, Loans, Mortgages, Savings, Current Accounts, and Share Dealings. The insurance section covers car, home, travel and pet insurance and is well laid out. For example, the car insurance page lets you view and compare insurance offerings with the best discount, as well as special offers for woman, over-50s, young drivers, students, classic cars and performance cars.

The credit card page has listing of most popular cards, those that are offering 0% balance transfers, cash back/rewards, or cards available to people with bad credit, or for business use.

I quite like this site as apart from all the usual consumer financial product information, it is well organised and also provides some useful articles as well as news information.

Signing up for the email newsletter only requires an email address, and they state that they will NOT provide your details to any third party. The fact that they are registered with the Data Protection Act and provide a registration number is also reassuring. Once you've registered with your email address you can also download a free eBook of money saving tips. I signed up for the free eBook and got a message that the link would be emailed to me. The email hadn't arrived after five minutes, so I have yet to read through the eBook.

Copyright Enough Wealth 2008

Falling knives, dead cats bouncing, and buying opportunities

Nearly all bubbles eventually burst (there are some apparent exceptions, such as the growth in per capita income since the industrial revolution), and conversely, most crashes eventually recover. So, although the plunge in home prices in the US appears to still have a long way to go (the plot of the Standard & Poor's/Case Schiller index of house prices shown below has yet to show any hint of an inflection point - the rate of decline slowing rather than accelerating), there will, inevitably, come a point at which the 'correction' in prices has been overdone and bargains are to be had. So, if you're an aspiring home-owner, it may be time to look at available home loans in preparation of making the plunge once house prices stabilize at more affordable levels.



Meanwhile, those with a home mortgage might take the opportunity for mortgage refinance
at a lower rate. A home has, and always will be, a long term investment. The transaction costs of real estate make it an unsuitable asset class for short-term trading (despite what "flippers" may have thought during the boom years). Therefore, there's little chance of getting out of real estate during a down-turn and buying back in at lower prices. Instead, the best most home owners can hope for is to ride out the storm, and make sure they minimise costs by pursuing avenures for home refinance while interests rates are relatively low.

Refinance.com has a website that provides information on mortgage refinancing specific to each state, provides a list of the currently available 15- and 30-year fixed rate loans, as well as ARMS with reset periods of 1- ,3- or 5-years. It's interesting to see that the 1-year ARM is currently higher than the 15-year fixed rate loan, and only slightly less than a 30-year fixed rate loan. The site has a few tools to assist in comparing refinancing options. For example, there is a refinancing calculator that provides monthly payments, total payments, and total interest paid when you enter values for loan amount, interest rate and term of a loan.



Copyright Enough Wealth 2008

Review of Clickbooth publisher experience

I signed up as a publisher for the Clickbooth Advertising Network at http://www.clickbooth.com the other night, and found the experience quite simple. The registration process takes several screens to get through, and involved a few novel, and some quirky, features compared to other affiliate program joining processes.

The first screen/step required the usual name, address, email and password information.

Second Step was the authentication stage, which I hadn't come across before. It required entering a phone number to receive a validation PIN. I'm not quite sure why this is required, the process was fast and simple. I just specified my country as Australia and entered my mobile phone number. As my phone ran out of charge during the incoming phone call (a few seconds after I'd entered the phone number online), the 15 second message went to my voicemail. Retrieving the PIN number and entering it online got me past the authentication stage without any hassle. One gold star for ease of use.

Step 3 was the entering of my website info. This stage was fairly standard, but the category selection list was very limited and skewed towards particular advertiser niches. There wasn't any financial planning or investing category, and the Financial categories listed weren't really relevant to me (Cash Advance, Credit & Credit Improvement, Debt, Mortgage) so I ended up choosing the generic 'Education' category.

A final niggling problem was the the registration form wouldn't accept http://enoughwealth.com as my URL, so I had to enter http://www.enoughwealth.com (which doesn't actually work due to some quirk of my Dotster domain name registration and redirection of the URL to my Blogger account hosting).

Once the registration details had all been completed, a notice popped up that the approval process would take up to 72 hours........

Two days later......

I got an email notifying me that my application had been approved, so I logged in the the Clickbooth.com site to browse for possible affiliate content. I decided to trial the VistaPrint ad, which I've added to my RH margin. There were several different 'creative' designs to choose from, so it was easy to find one that fitted the space I had in mind.

One additional step will be required if I earn enough to get a payment - a W8 form (for non-US affiliates).

I'll report on any earning from participation in the Clickbooth CPA Network / Affiliate Network in future monthly blog income posts.

Copyright Enough Wealth 2008

An Elite Credit Card with a difference

The select-credit-card.com website has an information centre that provides some useful information about the usual CC topics such as new credit products, credit repair post bankruptcy, credit bureaus and bad credit. However, it also has some more esoteric information that you might not find elsewhere. For example, this Elite credit cards page provides some information about the Sotheby's World MasterCard and the Sotheby's World Elite MasterCard, which are definitely not your "typical" credit card offering. Do you earn well into the six figures? Fancy buying expensive art works to decorate your penthouse, inviting your friends along to the best museums free of charge, take a helicopter tour or rent a mansion in Europe? Well, if so, this card may be just what you are looking for.

I can't imagine that many multi-millionaires shop around for their next credit card using the Internet, but perhaps their personal assistant or accountant will come across this website while surfing the 'net on company time. Anyhow, it's interesting to read about some of the products and services available to those living at the top end of the wealth distribution curve. I may not be in the position to justify paying $85 annual fee for this card (I also couldn't get one since I'm not a US resident), but I can imagine some people would like having the card in their wallet (it looks a bit more up-market than the usual MasterCard from AnyBank). However, the Elite version (available by invitation only) is really only suited to those for whom money is no object, and are happy to pay $395 a year for "personal" services such as:

• 24/7 concierge and travel consultation
  
• Complimentary Business Class companion international air tickets
  
• Upgrades from Economy to Business Class on international air travel
  
• Global airport lounge access
  
• Upgrades and amenities at 700+ top hotels, resorts, spas, lodges and villas
  
• Complimentary shore excursions on 400+ luxury cruises annually

I don't think I'll ever be rich enough to want such services, even when my assets (net worth?) exceed the US$2 million which is apparently required to get an "invitation" :)



Copyright Enough Wealth 2008

Review of Select-Credit-Card.com

This website provides some useful information about credit cards - such as an information centre that provides articles about recent innovations in the credit card arena. A recent article discusses the pros and cons of so-called "green" credit cards from Bank of America and Wells Fargo. The article discusses how rewards points on these cards can be used to purchase carbon dioxide offsets or support projects aimed at developing renewable energy sources. On the downside the article reveals that these cards tend to have higher interest rates than other types of credit cards, but may still be attractive to customers that are concerned enough about the environment so pay extra for an environmentally-friendly card that encourages signing up for paperless credit card payments.

There's an interesting article on the site that discusses the benefits of cards with no annual fee and low interest rates for mature age customers (who tend to pay off their balances in full and use their cards sparingly). Another article discusses the option of using a debit card if you can't qualify (or don't want) a credit card, and how the debit card can help you learn the basics of credit card management. The article also points out the potential pitfall of accruing overdraft charges if you make a mistake and exceed the available funds in your debit account.

So, if you're looking for easy to access information about Credit card innovations you should browse through some of the articles on this site.

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

Review of Artem Minayev

If you are looking for information to help choose a new credit card, then Artem Minayev's Credit Cards Club may be of interest. It provides about various types of credit card offers (such as business credit cards, 0%APR credit cards, balance transfer offers, low interest rate and No annual fee credit cards etc.) and also a "top credit card" selection of current offers that are available.

Another section of this site provides articles about how to choose a credit card, the basics of the dreaded "credit score", and even a history of the credit card page listing articles such as "A short history of MasterCard". This section would have been interesting, except that the articles appear to be blank placeholder pages!

Overall the layout of creditcardsclub.com is attractive, uncluttered and easy to navigate. It provides some useful links to a selection of card offers, and the ability to sort offers (such as balance transfer credit cards by APR rate or into APR period) is very useful. It's unfortunate that a few sections of this site (CC history) appear to be incomplete, but there is still a vast amount of information about the various aspects of credit card selection and use available.

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

Frugal gift ideas: Personalised wall calendars

Vistaprint is offering Wall calendars for sale. I got some free business cards for my parents alpaca farm business as a sample from the US Vistaprint several years ago, and found them to be good quality. If they'd ever sold enough animals to require more business cards I'd have been happy to order them from Vistaprint! I haven't tried out the Australian Vistaprint service yet, but the custom photo desk calendars look interesting as a gift idea for next Christmas. They are only $10.99 each (plus a one-off image upload fee of $7.99, which seems a bit much). Since you can have a different photo image on each month, it would be a nice present to send to my relatives overseas. Being a calendar it's more likely to be useful than sending a personalised mouse pad or mug! You can also add personalised text to individual calendar dates, so I could insert reminders of the kids and other relatives birthdates, anniversaries and so on.

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

Property Outlook

The US housing market is expected to drop by around 10-15% from it's peak before a recovery starts in late 2008 (unless delayed by a recession in the US). In comparison the Australian residential property market is still doing quite well, and even the Sydney market is expected to increase by between 5-15% this year, except from properties in the so-called mortgage belt that will continue to struggle to find any support due to the on-going crisis of affordability in the mortgage market.

The recent round of bank mortgage rate increases in Australia of between 0.10% and 0.20% was attributed to the global fallout of the US subprime meltdown, and will hit hard the "battlers" and "working poor" already struggling to afford home ownership with housing affordability at record lows. If there is another official interest rate rise of 0.25% by the RBA the Australian property market is likely to remain subdued during 2008. In Australia the economy is still growing quite strongly (as measured by the GDP), but there is concern that inflation will nudge above the official target band of 2-3%.

I take a middling view of prospects for interest rates and the property market in Sydney. My ROI targets for this year assume the value of my Sydney properties will increase by around 8% during 2008, and we have approximately half of our home and investment property mortgages at a fixed rate for five years. As the fixed rate is now around 1% less than the current variable rate, we are likely to end up ahead by fixing part of our loans early last year, even if interest rates peak this year and trend downwards in 2009 and beyond.

In the US the Fed is still cutting rates in an attempt to avoid a US recession. But the danger is that inflation could be given a boost. The last thing the economy needs is a return to stagflation, last seen during the last "oil shock".

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

Investing in Precious Metals

Bullion investments tend to fall into the "other" category of most people's investment portfolio asset mix. The main components are generally stocks, bonds, property and cash. However, a case can be made for having a modest investment in gold or silver. Personally I have some silver coins, some gold coins and a couple of ounces of gold bullion. The main reason for investing in bullion are:
* as an inflation hedge (precious metals tend to go up in price when inflation takes off)
* in case of major disaster. Although diamonds are better as physical stores of large amounts of wealth, only experts are in a position to accurately value them. So in a disaster situation you're much more likely to be able to barter silver or gold coins for necessities.
* to reduce the overall risk of your portfolio. Due to the low correlation with other asset classes, including a small amount of bullion in your overall asset allocation can significantly reduce the overall risk (volatility) of your portfolio without reducing performance too much.

On the downside, investments in bullion:
* don't provide any income
* have storage costs (either home security or paying a fee for an entitlement to physical bullion held elsewhere (which loses the benefit of owning bullion in a disaster)
* capital gains are largely speculative

If you're interested in investing in gold bullion, one way is to invest via BullionVault. BullionVault gold is stored in security vaults, so the gold you buy doesn't move making it safe, secure, cheap and easy to trade online. Client holdings are reconciled every day and published online using anonymous aliases to show who owns the gold stored by BullionVault.

While some people may be tempted to invest in gold to protect their wealth from possible bank panics due to the credit-crunch, I invested in gold when it was less than half it's current price. Gold has doubled in value over the past 5 years to $800/oz (you can check out gold charts at BullionVault), so the big question is whether gold prices will fall back or continue to climb.

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

Site Review: BadCreditOffers.com

BadCreditOffers.com is a website offering information to U.S. consumers with "bad credit" on how to find the best available credit offers. While this sort of information is helpful for those who need to rebuild their credit rating by obtaining credit, using it responsibly (ie. only charge normal monthly expenditure), and paying it off in full each month. there is always the danger that those with "bad credit" would continue to misuse any credit they did obtain, and thereby just dig themselves deeper into debt. The main page prominently features images of a big house and a fast, red sportscar - hardly the images of sensible use of credit by those in debt! However, the site does offer some useful content for those with "bad credit" issues - such as credit counselling services and how to obtain a report of current credit ratings. All in all, this site is dynamite. While it offers information and resources that can be extremely valuable to connsumers with bad credit, it could also lead to further debt problems if used unwisely. Handle with care.s

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

Save Money on your Superannuation Investments

There is an interesting new service available from a recently launched company All My Funds which has potential to save considerable amounts of money. There are many hidden costs that can be associated with superannuation investments and insurance. For a set fee of $275 you can get a SOA (statement of advice) that compares your particular superannuation fund with other similar superannuation funds. Although the comparison funds are not specific recommendations, the information would indicate if your fund is costing you too much in fees and charges. A sample of how this report would look is provided on the AllMyFunds.com website.

The other way that All My Funds could save you money is via their subscription service of $385 pa. For this annual fee you will get a rebate of contribution fees (up to 5%), annual trailing commisions (up to 1% per annum) and life insurance commissions (30+% of premiums). Often a superannuation fund will either pay fees and annual trails to a 'financial advisor' that was nominated when you joined the fund (even if you get no follow-up advice), or whill keep this fee themselves if you invested directly with a superannuation fund and don't have an advisor. By using the rebate service you could get rebates worth more than the annual fee paid to All My Funds.

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

Venture Capitalist

Although I invest largely in index funds these days (I started out investing in individual stock and actively managed but the results were not particularly impressive) I also have a small amount invested in a private equity fund (IPE), and I will probably take up the 124,000 $1 options I have that expire at the end of this month. This is my first dabble in the field of venture capital - a type of private equity capital provided by professional, outside investors to new, small businesses that are deemed to have potential. Venture capital is generally made as a cash contribution made in exchange for unlisted (private) shares in the investee company. Such investments are usually high risk, but offer the potential for above-average returns.

A venture capitalist (VC) is a person who makes such investments on a large scale. I was interested to find out that the site www.spock.com has several pages listing venture capitalists. Here you can browse through the details of some of these risk-taking private investors, such as Josh Kopelman, Joichi Ito and Roelof Botha. You can find out where they got their money from, and, in some cases, what sort of investments they are making. It's funny and kind of sad that most of the venture capitalists listed are male, and that the few women listed don't list their age!


Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

Dividend Season has Arrived

After the long weekend my post box was stuffed full of dividend statements and proxy voting materials. I organised most of my stock holdings to pay dividends into my credit union online savings account, where I let it accumulate until I prepay 12 months interest on my margin loans each June. The interest on my margin loans more than offsets the dividend income, but seeing all the dividends arrive in my bank account gives me a feel for what retirement might be like, living off investment income. In just the past week or so I've received the following:

19/09/2007 ASX DIVIDEND       $  183.00
19/09/2007 ANSELL DIVIDEND    $   67.20
21/09/2007 TELSTRA DIVIDEND   $1,120.00
21/09/2007 QBE DIVIDEND       $  345.99
21/09/2007 TELSTRA DIVIDEND   $  280.00
27/09/2007 WOODSIDE DIVIDEND  $  107.80
27/09/2007 NEWCREST DIVIDEND  $   15.00
28/09/2007 SYMBION DIVIDEND   $  144.00
28/09/2007 APA DIVIDEND       $  327.95
28/09/2007 BHP BILLITON DIV   $  251.55
01/10/2007 FOSTERS DIVIDEND   $  487.63
01/10/2007 SUNCORP DIVIDEND   $  529.65

Where there are two dividends from the same company it's due to holding the same stock in two of my margin loan accounts. There are still a few dividends that are deposited into a different bank account or arrive via cheque - I'll slowly weed these out by sending in the paperwork required to have the dividends paid into the one account.

Filing of all this paperwork is quite simple - I just slip the dividend statements into next years tax folder and throw out all the proxy voting forms and an marketing materials that may be included (such as the wine selection from Fosters). When I was single I used to enter all the dividend information into quicken as it arrived (as well as all my other daily expenditure), but nowadays I'm either too busy with the family or too tired to make the effort required to keep quicken up to date. It makes life easier in the short term, but makes capital gains calculations a real pain at tax time if I've sold any shares (especially those where I've participated in a DRP for many years).


People who can’t purchase their own home can get easily mortgage loans from banks. This will help people to build their own home or purchase it. There are many banks now in competition and have different mortgage rates as well as terms and conditions. Many people also not satisfying with different interest rates so they go for mortgage refinancing in order to satisfy their financial needs. Banks are always looking to give loans those people who have sufficient resource to payback loan in future. The new insurance policy is an important factor while purchasing a home.

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Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

Frugal Living: Save Money with DIY Projects

Although my grandfather was a plumber and did carpentry as a hobby, my dad and I are strictly amateurs when it comes to home repairs and improvements. However, you can a lot of money with DIY projects compared to buying ready-made furniture such as bookcases, or having to pay tradesmen to hang a door or fix a toilet cistern. Do-it-yourself projects can also be a great hobby and stress reliever - but only if you know what you're doing!

Although DIY is a potential money-saver, things can easily get off-track if you don't know what you're doing and don't know where to turn for help. My dad has been renovating the family home in preparation for selling it and moving to the country. But what started out as a project that should take 3-6 months to complete has now dragged on for over three years! Some tasks, like finishing a ceiling or laying floor tiles can take forever if you don't know the "tricks of the trade" - knowledge is power!. Just a few secrets can save you hours of wasted effort and materials.

If you are thinking about a home improvement project, check out DoitYourself.com. It's is an open, free community with articles and many active forums on DIY home improvement topics. So, whether you are renovating your own home, starting a project, or even buy resale homes to renovate and resell at a profit, you should visit to DoItYourself.com and consider buying the "DoItYourself" DVD.

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

Review: FinancialRebel.com

There are a lot of personal finance and investing blogs out there, and the quality of both content, presentation and style varies a lot - from top notch right on down to "must try harder" or even "makes no effort" (mostly those that just regurgitate other sites content as a prop for a page full of advertising). FinancialRebel. com is an investing blog that falls somewhere in the middle of the pack from what I've seen - the layout is OK, but a bit basic, and the colour scheme somewhat garish for my tastes. The content is a mix of stock new tid-bits, stock selections and/or musings (but without much detailed analysis) and some general interest personal finance articles such as this one about how to create a budget. I can't say that this blog strikes me as one of the best around, but it's worth a quick look to see if the content and style suits your interests. However, I suspect that this blog may end up being a "flash in the pan" - after apparently starting up in June (the first post seems to be from 13th June as there aren't any earlier posts currently listed, but it's hard to tell as this first(?) post isn't a "welcome to my blog" messsge) and an initial flurry of posts in July and August there has been no new content since mid-August, so the author (Jason Martin) may have moved on to other interests.

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

Review: Debt Consolidation Care

DebtCC is a get-out-of-debt internet community site with information about:
* debt consolidation
* debt consolidation loans
* credit card debt
* debt settlement
* collection agencies
* payday loans
* creditors
* budgeting

They have a "Ranking Chart", which lists over 150 debt consolidation companies that offer debt consolidation, settlement, counseling and budgeting services.

There are interesting articles available on solving debt related problems and there are handy calculators that allow you work out such things as the real APR on your debts, how long it will take to pay off debt with a fixed monthly payment, and the debt to income (DTI) ratio which is an indicator of your financial health.

There is a comprehensive forum section with the following topics:
* Debt Consolidation and Settlement (83446 Posts)
* Payday Loan help (13400 Posts)
* Dealing with Collection Agencies (45045 Posts)
* Credit Repair (6341 Posts)
* Bankruptcy (2184 Posts)
* Identity theft (3036 Posts)
* Getting a Loan (4906 Posts)
* Dealing with Student Loans (1270 Posts)
* Community Success Stories (1904 Posts)
* My story (2436 Posts)
* Creditors and collection agency database (22219 Posts)
* The Pub, feedback and announcements (31334 Posts)


With some new insurance policies many financial institution including federal tax department have to renew his policies. Now people can pay taxes online with the help of online credit card access. Many financial institutions including private banks have revised their policies about debt finance, so now people have some relaxation on debt consolidation. Now with the effects of new policies procedure of getting personal loans is more easy and quick. Also the interest rate is quite low.

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Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

Hawaii Real Estate

Although I fancy buying a Scottish Manor House (I even went so far as to bid on a 17th century Scottish property a few years ago, but didn't bid high enough) the reality is that I'm not overly keen on living in a cold climate in the winter months, and DW is dead set against the idea. A week or a couple of weekends skiing is more than enough "winter" for us. Therefore our retirement dream is to move to a rural property in a warmer climate when we eventually retire from being full-time employees. In our case we will probably move up to the mid-north coast as my parents own a hobby farm at Lake Wallace which has a nice climate all year round.

If we were living in the US we would probably be considering Hawaii real estate. If you are considering relocation there is some information about real estate available online, and you can read this real estate blog for some specific information about how the Hawaii property market is doing these days.

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

Takeover Debris

One of the stocks in my porfolio was taken over recently, with the default offer being a mix of shares in various Babcock & Brown investment vehicles plus some cash. I should have completed the paperwork to nominate a preference for receiving cash only for the takeover, as it is I've ended up with various tiny stockholdings:
BBI 105 shares worth $174.83
BBP 93 shares worth $271.56
BBW 36 shares worth $59.40
BEPPA 222 shares worth $200.91

If I'm very lucky these stocks may have a DRP that rounds up to whole numbers of shares, but I doubt it. There will probably be an offer to buy back these shares from stockholds with small parcels at some stage - it costs the companies too much to communicate with stockholders that only have $59.40 worth of BBW shares, for example.


You can get easily mortgage from bank if you have better credit rating. People need to follow each procedure to get home loans and satisfy their needs. Financial institutions have many other products like they are offering now different credit card to their current customers. We have seen many debit and credit card with different credit limits so one can spend in shopping. If you have master card then you can change your limit after some duration and also can get extra reward. Many travel companies are also looking for the assistance and travel insurance can help in order to any damages.

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Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

NuWire Investor Site

NuWire Investor has a website www.nuwireinvestor.com that offers free investment information. The website is attractive and easy to navigate, but the content scope is fairly restricted - concentrating on US and International real estate and some franchising.

The most interesting article I saw there was "Volatility Kills Compound Interest" which showed an example of six cases where the investment returns had an arithmetic average return of 6.00% over three years, but the more volatile the returns the lower the Averaged compounded return became.

Another interesting article on the site is "Investor Risk vs. Reward" which covers the relationship between risk (volality) and expected return, and why some risk must be accepted in an investment portfolio in order to achieve reasonable returns.

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

Property Loan Payments

When we bought our investment property we initially paid off as much as possible, even though the interest was tax deductible. We had borrowed 80% of the value of the property, and at that time the amount we had borrowed seemed huge. After a few years the boom in Sydney property prices meant we had considerable equity in the property, and the drop in interest rates and slight increase in rent meant that the property was no longer negatively geared. Then when we bought our own home we changed the investment property loan to interest only as we wanted to reduce the balance of our home loan as quickly as possible because the interest on your own home loan isn't tax deductible in Australia, so any amount paid of the home loan is equivalent to an investment paying the home loan interest rate after tax. More recently we have changed our home loan to "interest only" as it is more tax effective to make pre-tax salary sacrifice contributions into our superannuation accounts since the latest tax changes mean that retirement payouts from our superannuation fund will be tax free once we are retired and over 60. Better still, if investments aren't sold until the superannuation account has switched into pension mode, there will be no capital gains tax liability either.

When making home loan decisions it is important to understand the various payment options, terms and conditions available, so you can select the most appropriate type of loan and loan provider for your situation. It also important to know when it may be worthwhile looking at fixed rate mortgages - bearing in mind that lenders will offer rates based on how they expect interest rates to move during the fixed rate period.

UK readers may wish to compare mortgages to determine which loan suits them best. Those considering an investment in real estate may want to learn about buy to let mortgages.

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007