Yahoo Finance Escaping debt – the right and wrong way of breaking free
Escaping debt is a must, but there are both right and wrong ways to go about it. Unfortunately, those dressed up as a quick fix tend to cause more problems than they solve.
By: Phoenix Lee/
Taking a loan for escaping debt is a huge responsibility, therefore you have to think through it thoroughly. Borrow only when you need to and have carefully considered how it may affect you. You need to consider some factors before taking a loan, this includes your family.
Those that try escaping debt may consider taking a cash advance on a credit card – but remember that this is a very expensive proposition.
There is usually a fee charged for advances along with very high interest rates that begin ticking away from the moment you initiate the advance. Cash advances are very costly, high-risk item. The cost of a cash advance from a credit card can be 500 percent or more.
Image credit: Alan Cleaver l Flickr
In your effort in escaping debt, don’t dig one hole to fill in another.
Payday lenders may offer a solution for short-term emergencies, but they are not meant as a long-term fix for credit card debts. When calculated on an annual basis, their interest rates are astronomical.
Payday loans have advantages, like the possibility of getting your loan extended, no credit check and avoiding bounced checks or late fees on credit cards. But that’s where the good ends. Remember that you have to pay back the loan plus fees, and extending your loan can double or triple your fees. The interest rate can be as much as 100 percent or more of the amount borrowed and you could end up owing more debt after obtaining the payday loan.
Before taking a loan, you have to consider other expenses such as car monthly installment, transport expenses, food, child’s education and other expenses. The best way is to write down all your expenses on a piece of paper and do the necessary calculation. After which, apply for the loan when you are sure that you have the ability to repay the loan.
If you have financial discipline and are willing to put your house at risk, home equity loan could be a fix for escaping debt. There are pluses, such as a lower interest rate and the deductibility of the interest payments. And a home equity loan can be relatively fast compared to a full-blown mortgage loan.
A home equity loan is also called cash-out refinancing, or a second mortgage. A home equity lets you borrow money, while using your house as collateral. Home equity loan is another option available to homeowners who may have a tight cash situation but have have a valuable house at their disposal, which they may sell and downgrade. But a home equity loan lets you get money out of your house, without having to lose it.
There are plenty of advantages: when your house is the collateral, the bank feels a lot more secure; they know you can’t exactly pack up your house and run away with it. Because there’s something they can foreclose on, banks consider home equity loans to be low-risk, secured loans. That means they charge a super-low interest rate, seldom above 1.3 per cent per annum. For reference, that’s less than a third of your CPF Ordinary Account rate (up to 3.5 per cent per annum), and about 1/6th of a personal loan rate (about six per cent per annum).
That super-low interest rate means home equity loans are quite cheap, and can provide a much bigger loan than you’d get through, say, a personal installment loan. Most other, unsecured loans can only lend you up to four times your monthly salary.
On top of this, the government in 2017, made regulatory changes to home equity loan restrictions. If your house is already paid up, you can borrow up to half its value, without having to meet Total Debt Servicing Ratio (TDSR) restrictions.
Sadly though, home equity loan can only be gotten for private a private property, HDB not allowed.
HDB says, “HDB flats can only be mortgaged to banks or financial institutions to finance the purchase of the flat itself. You are not allowed to use your HDB flat, which has been fully paid for, as collateral to banks to raise credit facilities for private reasons.“
This is how home equity loan works:
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