Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Looking For Low Cost Home Improvement Loans? The Internet Is The Place To Look


By Gary M. Gaither

The home resale market is still severely depressed, so many homeowners are not in a position to sell their homes if they need to expand. A better solution at this point is probably to improve the house you have and a new opportunity for home improvement loans has opened up with peer to peer loans.

Most investments you can make in your residence will improve the value for the day when the market finally improves and you can sell (the exceptions are luxury items such as swimming pools, fancy chandeliers, etc., things you cannot be sure a prospective buyer would want). Certain items, such as a kitchen or bathroom remodeling or a roof replacement have proven to be valuable home improvement investments, and in the meanwhile you reap the benefits while you live there.

But the most important hurdle may be to finance these improvements through a home improvement loan, and a unique opportunity for home improvement loans now exists in the online community. Peer to peer loans appear perfectly designed to fill this need.

The home improvement loans we have known in the pasthave been financed by banks or similar lending institutions. But if your home has very little or even negative equity because of the recent real estate slide, you may not be able to secure a traditional bank loan.

If you consider where the money banks get their money from, you will see there is a better solution. Depositors give the banks the money to give to borrowers. If there were a way that those depositors could lend those funds directly to the homeowner, in theory, everyone would gain.

People who have some money to invest may consider depositing it in a bank, but that kind of investment only yields about 1% today. Banks, however, are still lending to borrowers at rates that are in the teens. Where does the differential in these rates go? The banks keep this difference as profit. This is where peer to peer financing serves such an important purpose, by eliminating the bank as the intermediary. Investors can lend to borrowers at a rate significantly better than 1%. The borrower, in turn, will be quoted a better rate because there is no financial intermediary in the middle to make all of the profit.

An added advantage for investors is that they can structure their investment into loans of small denominations so their risk is spread out over quite a few borrowers. This same type of advantage accrues to borrowers, who now have many investors bidding for their loans.

Most peer to peer lending is structured as part of an online site that operates in a manner that is like Ebay or other auction sites, on which buyers and sellers bid on goods. Lenders review the potential borrowers and pick the ones they are interested in. They can learn the purpose of the loan, so if they have a particular interest in financing home improvement loans, that option is given to them as potential borrowers list this specific purpose to their loans.

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