The collapse of the home loan lenders Freddy Mac and Fannie Mae in the United States in 2008 reverberated around property and financial markets worldwide. This created panic and resulted in a downturn in most countries' economies. On investigation, it was found that these companies collapsed as a result of them granting mortgages which were higher than the actual value of the properties - in some cases as much as 125%. This means, for instance, that the buyer of a property worth 0,000 would be given a loan of 5,000 to assist him is setting up his new home and having some extra funds to help in repaying the mortgage. Thus, when borrowers defaulted on their payments and their properties were repossessed, these two lenders found that they could not recoup the value of the outstanding mortgages when trying to resell these homes. This situation is called negative equity and today, throughout the world, lending institutions have mechanisms in place to prevent this situation from ever reoccurring.
Freddy Mac and Fannie Mae were two of the largest home loan lenders in the United States and specifically catered to the less wealthy members of society, those with poor credit ratings and even those people who were blacklisted by credit agencies. Over many decades these two companies catered to the needs of these less fortunate members of society and were successful in financing their home buying aspirations, but the bubble eventually burst and many people either lost their properties or are still in danger of losing them. The resulting outcome of all the above is that no bank, building society or other financial lending institution of repute is now willing to take on a risky mortgage.
In the United Kingdom there has been an upside to all this economic bad news in recent times. Interest rates are now at their lowest level for decades, in order to try to attract business to the now stagnant property market and, in fact, property prices are showing only marginal price increases. These factors are all positives for those prospective property buyers who are able to pay a deposit on the home of their choice and can prove to be able to repay their mortgages, thus being low risk borrowers which the financial institutions are happy to grant home loans.
For those people who would like to purchase a home of their own but have a bad credit rating or have been blacklisted, it will be an uphill struggle to get financing. The best advice is to address these agencies to check for discrepancies in their ratings and to take advice on how to upgrade one's credit score. One way of doing this is by consolidating all one's debts, which means that one loan is taken out to cover all the outstanding debts, thus cutting the cost of interest and charges on many small loans. Once this single loan is repaid your credit score will be upgraded, thus giving you a better chance of being given a home loan by a bank, building society or other lending institution. Bear in mind though, that having been blacklisted or having had a bad credit score in the past will cause any lender to charge you a premium rate of interest in order to protect it from the risk of non-payment of the loan.
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