FrugalMaster.com

With mortgage rates on everyone’s mind lately, I’ve got two great potential money saving tips for you.

1. As you know mortgage rates move in cycles. If you happened to get your mortgage loan at a higher rate, you may have decided to refinance when the rate was lower. Unfortunately, you may have had to pay thousands and thousands of dollars to get that lower rate. Well, I’d like to introduce you to ARC Loan, which stands for Automatic Rate Cut loan. The interest on ARC loans never go up and you can continue to refinance your loan as rates decrease without paying refinance charges. Check out their website at: www.arcloan.com. There is a video on the site that explains who and what they are all about.

2. Ever wondered whether your escrow account or mortgage payments were incorrect? What kinds of errors could occur, you may be wondering?

First, in regards to escrow accounts, according to Loantech, errors include miscalculations of monthly payment amounts, incorrect, late or even non-payment of tax bills or insurance premiums as well as incorrect reserve levels. Escrow shortages occur when insufficient funds are held to cover future bills and overages occur if excess funds are held in the homeowner’s account. Loantech states that mistakes occur for several reasons including inexperienced personnel, incorrect escrow reviews, faulty software as well as incorrect procedures for computing escrow monthly payments…often resulting in monthly overcharges and excess funds held in the reserve or “cushion” account.

Regarding mortgages, you may have been overcharged if your lender selected the wrong index value, rounded the figures incorrectly or improperly credited extra principal payments. You should be especially concerned if your original lender sold the loan or is now out of business, if the loan has a rider/addendum or if the balance just seems too high.

Loantech LLC, founded in 1983, provides mortgage and escrow audits to homeowners and financial institutions. They claim that typical ARM loan overcharges can range from $700 to $2000. In addition, Loantech states that government officials estimate that two-thirds of all escrow accounts contain overcharges of $150 to $1,000.

Their fee is $295 for their services. If you feel that your payments may have been miscalculated, it may be worth checking out their site for more information. They can be found at www.loantech.com.