The Importance of Location in Fundraising

The Importance of Location in Fundraising

The Importance of Location in Fundraising

Location, Location, Location!

There are few things that are more important than location. It not only 

applies to real estate, but to fundraising too.  Here are some tips to 

expand your horizons when trying to maximize your fundraising efforts.

Traditionally, fundraising efforts are concentrated on: 

-Friends

-Neighbors

-Relatives

-Co-workers

Besides the usual suspects, there is a whole lot of money in other places right under your nose.

You have to go where the money is.  The big money in fundraising is being located where people are shopping.  They are out and about with cash or checkbooks in hand.

There's no better time than that for offering a quality fundraising product at these locations:

-Drugstores

-Home Improvement Stores

-Grocery Stores

-Shopping Malls

Drugstores -  Nice entry-level sales spot. Generally have good sidewalk space available.

Home Improvement Stores - Big weekend traffic spots. Lots of do it yourselfers diving in to their next project.

Grocery Stores - Prime hunting grounds for product fundraisers. A small, high-quality food item does real well here.

Shopping Malls - Hard to get approval for outside space, but a location near the food court is golden.

And don't forget the 800-pound gorilla: Wal-Mart - The Holy Grail of fundraising locations.  A day spent fundraising in front of this high-traffic retailer is like being in fundraising heaven. You'll have more potential prospects than you can shake a stick at.

Because of the sheer volume of Wal-Mart shoppers, you'll 

need oversize signage to get your fundraising message across quickly before 

your prospects hurry on in

Casing the Joint Ahead of Time

You want the best location for your weekend fundraising table. Scope out the lay of the land. Check which entrance gets the most foot traffic. 

Find out who is in charge at this location. Often it's the store manager, but occasionally it might require approval from the regional manager or 

shopping center management.  Don't expect them to drop everything to speak with you. If necessary, set up an appointment to seek permission

Be prepared with a two-minute overview of

Who - Tell them who you (and your group) are

What - Describe what your fundraiser involves

When - Have a primary date and an alternate one picked out

Where - Identify the exact spot you'd like to use

Why - Give the specific reason you are raising funds

How - Summarize your proposed activities at their location

It's a good idea to have everything written up in a well-prepared letter.  Stick to the basics as described above.  If you have group letterhead, use it!  

Make sure that everything will go smoothly. Ask for the name of the contact person for your chosen date.  Get permission, preferably in writing, just in case the weekend manager didn't get the memo.

Setting Up for the Big Job

After you've cased the joint, you want to be prepared to pull off your fundraising bank job.

Location - There is often a separate set of entrance doors. You want to stake your claim right there. There should also be plenty of room for people to get by.

Signage - Look for good places to hang your signs and posters.  They should be bright and bold with wording visible from thirty feet away. Highlight major benefits of the product and be sure to identify your purpose

Table Space - You want a large folding table, preferably 36x72.  Place folding chairs on the side away from the door. Use a full-sized tablecloth to improve presentation. 

Staffing - Schedule your fundraising teams with overlapping adult/child pairs. You want two adults and two children covering each 90-minute shift. Stagger the start/departure times by 30 minutes to avoid resource shortages.

Pulling It Off

To really break the bank, you have to have everything well planned. Timing and presentation are everything.  You only have 30 seconds to capture your prospects attention and convince them to stop. Your fundraising should be well thought out in these areas:

Product - Make sure to choose a high-profit, cash and carry fundraiser. Fast food discount cards are excellent. So are quality food items such as cookies and gourmet treats like fudge. Sales items should be small, highly portable, and attention getting in their own right.

Samples - Product samples should be well-displayed and readily offered to each prospective client. In the case of food items, plates or trays of small nibble-sized morsels should be offered by the children involved.

Presentation - Sell the sizzle, not the steak! Accentuate product benefits, not features. Would you rather have a juicy, mouth-watering, flame-broiled Whopper or a hamburger?

Sales Patter - Talk a good game! Work from a loose script. Write down your best talking points as itemized bullets. Keep it short and simple. Tell them about your cause and be sure to ask for their help

Location Wrap

As you've seen, a great location delivers hundreds of potential customers right to you. All you have to do is stake your claim to the prime turf and go for it!

Don't wait for your next fundraiser to suddenly grow wings.  Plan ahead and pull off your own bank job instead. 

Maximize your fundraising success with location, location, location!

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Soccer Fundraising Ideas

Soccer Fundraising Ideas

Soccer Fundraising Ideas

It seems like soccer fundraising is either a season-long effort or a quick hitter that doesn't cover all your needs. 

Well, the good news is that there are some ways to make money quickly, or even all season long, that merit your consideration.

What are your fundraising goals?

Many youth sports teams and leagues want:

1 - Fundraisers that can be done with little effort

2 - Fundraisers that may be done sporadically

3 - Fundraisers that will produce significant results

Soccer fundraising programs

In this article, we'll examine several soccer fundraisers that are quick hitting and sure to score. 

The three soccer fundraising programs are:

Bottled water

Shot cage and radar gun

Fast-food discount cards

Soccer Fundraising: Bottled Water

The first soccer fundraising program is selling bottled water. Consider for a moment that each team member will bring water to every practice and to every game. That's at least a couple dozen bottles right there and probably a whole lot more. 

Add in sales to spectators and you've got at least 500 bottles that could easily be sold. Sure, you can buy in bulk at a warehouse club, but you can add extra value to your soccer fundraising with private branding of your bottled water, either as a team or as a league.

The initial setup for each label is $75 and afterward, the unique label with your logo emblazoned in color costs nothing extra. Prices for the bottled spring water are wholesale, which allows your group a comfortable 50% profit margin.

When you think about it, doesn't it make sense to capture the wholesale-to-retail markup for your group while building team spirit at the same time?

Soccer Fundraising: Shot Cage 

The second soccer fundraising program is best suited for a league-wide effort. On Picture Day, during a tournament, or at any other event with high attendance, set up a soccer "shot cage" with a radar gun to measure velocity.

Every player will want multiple chances to show just how fast their shot speeds toward the goal. You can set up contests with prizes for various age ranges, team awards, Top Gun, etc.

Soccer fundraising featuring a radar-equipped shooting cage is actually an inexpensive event to host. 

Several companies rent the equipment by the week with radar gun, cage, and freight all included for less than $350.

You can also find suppliers who will put together a soccer fundraiser with a hosted radar cage and do a revenue split with your group, so there would be no upfront cost. 

To maximize your soccer fundraising success, price shots in a multi-shot package, such as two for $1 or other combinations.

Count the number of players in your league or potential shooters at a tournament event and determine if this type of soccer fundraising is right for your group. 

Soccer Fundraising: Fast-food Discount Cards 

The third soccer fundraiser is one that your group can use once or use to raise funds all season long. And that's selling fast food discount cards. 

This is a simple item to sell. Each fundraising discount card contains a certain number of two-for-one meal packages at a well-known fast food outlet. 

Participating companies include McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Subway, Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Dominoes Pizza, and other large fast-food chains.

Your group purchases a certain number of these cards in advance and sells them to families or individuals that will appreciate a substantial discount. The number of two-for-one deals on each card varies by company. 

Pizza Hut's card offers a free pizza with the purchase of another pizza up to a maximum of ten. The McDonalds card seems to offer the least number  of "double deals" but its also one of the most popular. 

Each card retails for $10 and costs between $1 to $2. Each one features the fast-food company's logo on the front along with a message stating that 80-90% of the price of this card goes to support your soccer fundraising group. 

It's a nice way to tap into the consumer spending revenue stream with an attractive product that benefits both parties. 

Find out more about fundraising discount cards from a supplier that handles all the different cards, Krazy Kard Fundraising. 

These programs allow your group to reap an excellent return by offering quality products that require only moderate effort. 

They are guaranteed to score a goal every time out with your players and your supporters.

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Selecting The Right Fundraiser

Selecting The Right Fundraiser

Selecting The Right Fundraiser

Selecting the right fundraiser is the most important decision you’ll make. Among the key factors are the timing of your fundraisers each year, the quality of the merchandise, selling considerations, delivery considerations, and ultimately, the net profit to your organization.

Think of yourself as running a small business building a reputation for innovation and quality products. What are your financial goals versus expected unit volume numbers, sales revenue versus profit percentage, quality of goods versus cost, acceptable market price points, etc?

 

If you think like a business leader, then you’re on the right track.

First choose a type of fundraiser

There are different types of “best” fundraisers and you have to select what’s best for your organization at this particular time.

 

Your fundraising choices are:

1 - Event-based fundraisers

2 - Direct donation fundraiser

3 - Fundraisers with immediate product delivery

4 - Fundraisers with delayed product delivery

The first decisions you have to make are on the fundraiser category, selecting a fundraising company or distributor as your supplier, and then the actual fundraiser itself.

Decision factors

How do you make that decision? A professional fundraising consultant can often be a big help. You can also check the web, use your personal contacts, review your group’s past records, etc. Most importantly, take some time to gather the information you need to make the right decision.

You can design a simple survey that you can give to past organizers and other key influencers such as local merchants and organizational leaders. Offer clear choices to ease evaluation of replies. Print it out and get quality feedback from within and without your organization on what’s worked well before and what needs improving.

Then, put together a spreadsheet for evaluating and ranking fundraisers. Break the ranking criteria into categories with sub headings in text boxes across the spreadsheet. Numerical rankings should be assigned to what criteria are most important to your group at this particular time for this fundraiser. 

Things to consider when evaluating offerings:

1. Quality of the merchandise items offered

2. Quality of support materials provided such as catalogs

3. References of supplier

4. Availability of free samples or catalogs

5. Service level of supplier such as pre-sorting goods, etc.

6. Hidden costs such as freight, paying for brochures, etc.

7. Hassle factors like replacement goods and refunds policies

8. Special delivery needs such as refrigeration for some foodstuffs

9. Specific needs of organization

10. Previous vs. projected financial performance

Seek wisdom from past experience

Results will vary with the amount of fundraisers done previously, number going on at same time (yours and others), time of year, etc. Look at this fundraiser in context of others – done this one before, done it every year, competing group just did it, or our cheerleaders did this one before and it was a big hit. 

Successful past fundraising ideas could and should be repeated, but remember that your customer base is often close to eighty percent the same customers from year to year. Spice it up; try something new and different that will increase your revenue.

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A Good Understanding of Mortgage Backed Securities

A Good Understanding of Mortgage Backed Securities

A Good Understanding of Mortgage Backed Securities

Mortgage backed securities are one of the important reasons for the fast pace growth of real estate industry. Hence it is very important to have a good understanding of mortgage-backed securities Mortgage backed securities are very important bonds. Investors buy the interests of the mortgage security and the monthly payment of the mortgage acts as a revenue earned from it. The value of the mortgage varies due to the fact that it can be paid off before the term and hence it is not like a bond. The mortgage may be repaid any time through outright cash payment or with refinance. Actually, the mortgage-backed security is issued by a retail lender who extends the mortgage loan. The reasons for issuing mortgage-backed securities are many. The main reason is for creating liquidity that can be used by them for many purposes. It is not possible for a lender to wait for thirty years to recover his money and make profit out of it. To solve this problem, the lender sells the securities in the secondary market by keeping the property of the borrower as collateral for security. The creditors also use these securities to clean their balance sheet. Although they might seem to be a little speculative and fishy, the fact is that they drive the market. Understanding mortgage backed securities helps to clear all kinds of doubts about it. A good understanding of various mortgage points: Mortgage points are those, which are asked by the mortgage broker to be paid by the borrower. It is actually a lending fee expressed in terms of percentage on the quantum of the loan amount. Sometimes a creditor may ask the borrower to pay origination points on the mortgage. This fee enables the lender to get many of their costs earlier in the deal instead of waiting to recover them as part of interest payments. Understanding origination points is very important as the margin of interest may be low but the lenders get their inflow of cash by making the borrower to pay front end fees of the loan. Discounts points too can be offered by the lender for making one or two points of payments when the borrower makes on the mortgage loan amount. The borrower enjoys a slashed down interest rate from the lenders for doing so. People who are purchasing homes for the first time are shocked by jargons like PMI and piggy bank loans. Hence, a good understanding of mortgage is the best method to start with. When applying for mortgage loans, the lenders first look at the borrowers credit score to find out how the commitments can be met by him. They check for the amount of money the borrower posses, how prompt he had been in paying the dues, how often he had played the balance transfer game, etc. The credit score makes a great impact on the down payment made by the borrower in turn it affects the interest rates on the mortgage offered to him. Understanding various mortgage programs will help in the selection of the most suitable one for the borrower.

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Top 7 Youth Fundraising ideas

Top 7 Youth Fundraising ideas

Top 7 Youth Fundraising ideas

The most important rule in planning a youth fundraiser is to make sure that everybody has fun! These ideas will work well for a youth group, a church young people's group, non-profit group or a youth sports (e.g. football, baseball) group. Here are seven ideas to get your fundraising started:- Sales -if you type in “youth fundraiser” on any search engine you'll find offers to sell cookie dough, pizza cards, scratch cards, candles, sports goods and plenty more. Depending on the age of the children and the type of group, the locality, consider which of these are likely to be well received in your area. Using existing contacts with family, neighbours and friends alone can be quite profitable. Car wash - this can be a profitable way to raise funds. It will need good planning. A great free guide to organising a successful car wash event is available from www.carwashguys.com , called “How to run a successful car wash fundraiser” and is written by Lance Winslow. Fundraising auction - clear out the garage, spring clean the house, ask for donations - and then auction!. Publicise your auction well in advance around the neighbourhood, invite friends and family, have a printed list of auction items and get someone you trust to run the actual auction itself for you. Sponsored event - such as a walk, sleepover, or 24 hour sports event - your young people will have their own ideas as to what they'd like to do! Photos - arrange for a photographer to come for a day or evening. Book a time slot for families, children, publicise the event. Arrange a good level of commission on all photographs purchased and ensure plenty of flyers are available to distribute. Website advertising - does your group have a website? Could you set up a free blog to keep people informed? If so, consider selling advertising space to local suppliers who may be interested - e.g. the local sports shop. Dance/Disco/Live Music/Barbeque/Casino event - any event that will work for your locality. Obviously, some church youth groups might find a casino night inappropriate. However, most of these are suitable for young people to help to arrange and to attend. For other ideas to raise money, get your group together and do a little brainstorming. Everyone will have ideas that they can contribute and this will help to get them involve in the fundraising effort. Remember to follow some simple rules:-

• Never go out fundraising alone, but always in groups of at least two.
• Have some printed information about your project and how much you are planning to raise.
• Involve as many friends and family members as you can - they will want to support what you are involved with.
• Have fun!

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Tips for Organizing Your Fundraiser

Tips for Organizing Your Fundraiser

Tips for Organizing Your Fundraiser

1- Have a written project plan

Run your fundraiser like a small business. Have a written project plan that spells out all roles and responsibilities.

Slot motivated individuals into those roles and equip them with everything they need to do a great job.

2- Use your website

If you don't have one, get one. Use it to communicate goals, thank your sponsors, highlight periodic offerings, recognize successes, honor individual contributors, etc.  Promote your web site on all your materials.

3- Review previous records

See what's been successful before. Look for ways to improve upon the past. 

What items sold best? Get more of them. 

Has your gift-wrap sale lost its luster with declining revenues?

Jazz it up with newer offerings.

4- Set a specific timeline

Make sure that your start date and end date are both firm.

The best selling period is 17 days, including 3 weekends.

Any longer and the drive runs out of gas; any shorter and you limit your prospects. 

Avoid any scheduling conflicts.

Plan ahead to avoid overlapping other important community events, holidays, etc.

5- Actively recruit volunteers 

Get more and better volunteers by going after them. Don't wait for them to come to you. 

Use a calling tree to root out prospects. 

Ask for dads, older siblings, and grandparents to get involved. 

Advertise for specific help via newsletters and word of mouth.

6- Identify needs and define roles

Do it ahead of time and match your group's needs to each volunteer's skills and availability by including it in each position's description.

7- Use different people

Double up, particularly for key positions. 

Fill organizational  roles well ahead of time with different people than on the last fundraiser, unless there is a good reason not to switch. 

8- Start early to broaden participation

Put the word out early and often about what volunteers you need. 

Get plenty of them so no one feels overworked. 

Offer a volunteer sign-up sheet for different events at every meeting.

9- Have a master sergeant

Use a strong communicator to help group and assign volunteers.

Some people are a natural for this key role.

10- Set small group goals

Break overall goal down into what's needed from each sub-group.

Set up each unit with their own goal and translate that into what's in it for them. 

Reward each sub-group based on their own success.  That will reinforce the correlation between funds raised and their own efforts.

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Seeking Grant Proposals for your Fundraiser

Seeking Grant Proposals for your Fundraiser

Seeking Grant Proposals for your Fundraiser

An essential part of fundraising is writing grant proposals and grant applications.  An effectively written grant application can result in large sums of money for your fundraising group.  Grant applications can be a long and tiresome journey, but in the end it will be worth it for your group!  In the following article, we are going to help you understand grants and what they entail.

Grant Applications Broken Down

Most grant applications will include some or more of the following components:

Letters of Reference – letters from those who can testify to your experience and good character.

Formal Proposal – a detailed explanation of what the grant money will be used for.

A Business Plan – detailing the finer points of your financial needs.

A List of Resources – detail the resources you have, and the resources you need.

Complete list of Group Members - including both workers and volunteers.

Goals and Plans – detail the short and long term goals of your group.

The grant application will list all the material and documents needed for submission.  It is vitally important that you follow all the directions exactly as they are stated when filling out the grant application.  One mistake could make the difference between getting the grant and getting turned down.  Many grant providers reject applications that didn’t take the time to follow the directions when submitting their application.  Prior to submitting your grant application have someone in the group proof read it and make sure that all the information is correct and in order.  After staring at the same document for days on end, it becomes difficult to notice any mistakes. 

Your grant application should stress the importance of your cause and the necessity of the grant.  How many people are you expecting to be able to help?  How will this project benefit them?  The more compelling your application is, the more likely you are to receive the grant money.  Most importantly, grant providers want to make sure the money is going to be used wisely and appropriately.  To help your cause, make sure you describe your goals and focus in clear detail.

Lastly, take time and fill out your application with precision.  Don’t rush through it, or you are bound to make some mistakes.  Give yourself enough time to provide all of the financial documents that are requested, and be sure to have someone proofread it prior to submitting!  A well-written application will stand out above the rest!

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9 Survival Tips for the Market Shakeout Blues

9 Survival Tips for the Market Shakeout Blues

9 Survival Tips for the Market Shakeout Blues

9 Survival Tips for the Market Shakeout Blues

Investors who bought during the top of the frothy commodities rally are now panicking or kicking themselves. Neither activity helps an investor or trader think straight. Below are a few tips in dealing with the current market shakeout.

1. If you believe you invested in the right stock(s), then turn off your computer and do something enjoyable. Exercise is a great stress reliever. The market has already begun its shakeout. If you didn’t get stopped out, or failed to place earlier stops, your best opportunity lays ahead in picking up additional shares at a much lower price. Most of the experts we’ve interviewed tell us the next rally should start sometime between late July and Labor Day. In an attempt to interview the uranium guru James Dines in late May, we were told, “Call back in a couple of months.” That was a helpful clue that the markets were less than exciting. Mr. Dines is often eager to be interviewed, but recently he was not.

2. Do you believe the fundamentals which engendered the commodities boom have changed? If they haven’t, then the bullishness is only taking a breather. We don’t see any fundamental change in the markets. Russia still wants nuclear power, and its oil production may be peaking. China hasn’t announced the end of its nuclear expansion program. India wants to spend $40 billion on new nuclear reactors. If you are invested in uranium stocks, spot uranium jumped another dollar to $45/pound this past week. Hardly the end of the bull market.

3. If you worry about your investment in one stock or another, then stop watching the ticker and focus on the company fundamentals. Is the story still true or has it changed? See #7 A, B and C below.

4. There’s an old cliché that the time to buy is when you feel like dumping everything you own in the category. At the exact moment you want to sell your entire portfolio of uranium stocks, it may be wiser to add to your holdings. This applies mainly to the retail investor. Most of the professionals did dump at the top and are now slowly accumulating the shares of the naïve who waited until the washout to start selling off.

5. Has a major, earth-shattering event occurred? The last bull cycle in uranium ended with Three Mile Island (TMI). The last decent rally in the precious metals markets fell off a cliff after it was discovered Bre-X Minerals had perpetrated a fraud about its gold ‘discovery’ in Indonesia. Something significant and newsworthy always transpires, and it is also far-reaching. That is the trigger. As with TMI and Bre-X, those were the first shots which launched a later chain reaction to end those bull markets.

6. Before pulling the sell trigger, ask yourself: Do I really want to give up these shares to a bargain basement hunter, who will make a killing on my losses?

7. Since most of you will still panic, please review the following basics for any of the uranium companies you’ve read about:

A) How much cash does the company have in the bank? During shakeouts, cash is king. Prescient companies, which completed their financings during the recent and robust rally, are sitting pretty. They can weather the short-term storm and are well-oiled to move forward when this correction bottoms and reverses. Those companies are the strongest ones to check out when this correction looks gloomiest. 

B) Has the management remained the same? Unless the top financial and/or technical people blew out the door, in recent weeks, the story probably hasn’t changed much. Companies which built a strong technical team are resilient and powerful. They will move forward.

C) Have the properties come up dry? One of the reasons you invested in a uranium company was because it announced it had “pounds in the ground.” Some companies have more than others. Some went to the expense and trouble of completing a National Instrument 43-101, which independently confirmed the quantity and quality of the uranium resource. If that changed – and the company announced, “Sorry, nothing there after all,” or announced, “Hey, we were kidding,” that’s one thing. If you haven’t heard that, or read a news release announcing that, then the uranium didn’t walk away or move onto a competitor’s property. It’s still there.

Next time, when the markets are racing higher, and you feel like you won the lottery, consider this bit of biblical advice. The old joke goes, “When did Noah build his ark?” The answer of course is: Before it began to rain.

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Young, Self Employed, No Accounts And No Savings. How Did I Get A Mortgage?

Young, Self Employed, No Accounts And No Savings.  How Did I Get A Mortgage?

Young, Self Employed, No Accounts And No Savings.  How Did I Get A Mortgage?

I was having considerable problems getting a mortgage to buy my first home about four years ago. If I was to believe everything I had heard, I was the ideal candidate for a mortgage - young, a first-time buyer and with an annual income of about £30k. Easy!

No, not easy, actually. Being young with a leaning towards enjoying myself, I had no savings - nothing to use as a deposit. But what about these 100% mortgages I had been hearing about? Surely I qualified? Oh, there was something else - I was also self employed with no accounts. 

Self employed with no accounts and no savings. 

Could I get a mortgage? It was virtually impossible. Not a single High Street lender would give me a mortgage. Even my bank who have had my services for ten years turned me down; even though my bank knew exactly how much I earned each year and how much I spent each week; even though my bank knew that making the monthly payments on a repayment mortgage would not be an big problem for me.

Then I heard about Self Certification Mortgages.

What is a Self Certification Mortgage? It's essentially a mortgage whereby you decide whether or not you are capable of making the repayments. And that is when the penny dropped, because you see the entire process of applying for a mortgage is premised upon an institution (such as your bank) deciding whether or not you are able to make the monthly repayments. 

And what is the formula for working this out? Well, if you are employed it is your salary - a bank will lend you, say, 3 or 4 times your annual salary. Normally they will ask you for a small deposit, say 5%, to demonstrate that your intentions are serious. 

Obviously, if you are self employed, and particularly with no accounts, you often do not have an annual salary and you are unable to demonstrate regular monthly income. Many self employed people - notably me - live hand-to-mouth, regularly waiting for reluctant clients to settle outstanding invoices. So how can your ability to repay a mortgage be judged? I discovered that self certification was the answer - i.e. YOU. You make a judgement as to whether or not you are borrowing too much money and whether or not you will be able to afford the monthly repayments. After all, if you are bright enough to run your own business, manage your own tax affairs, handle purchasing and invoicing, surely you are bright enough to work out whether you can repay your mortgage!

Think about it - conventional, salary-based mortgages are judged on the basis of what a person has earned in the past, but a person could be made unemployed within hours of securing a mortgage. On the other hand, Self Certification puts the onus on you predicting what you will earn in the future. Sure, you could go out of business, but a salaried person could also lose their job.

So I thought, well this is good, but I bet that a Self Certification Mortgage is the stuff of loan sharks, with huge interest rates, crushing monthly repayments and Guantanemo-style penalties. 

But there was something else I discovered about mortgages. Although the High Street is swamped by lenders, there are only actually a very small number of 'actual' lenders: the majority are intermediaries acting on their behalf, because the number of mortgage applications is so great that intermediaries are required to perform the process of judging each applicant and assessing risk.

So I discovered that whereas a High Street lender would turn me down, a smaller lender might accept me. But get this: the mortgage that I actually received from the small lender at the end of the day was exactly the same as the mortgage which had been refused me by the High Street lender! Only the forumla for judging my ability to repay the mortgage was different, not the mortgage itself!

So what's the catch with Self Cerftification? There is always a catch in my experience, and in this instance it was a very big catch. Whereas a regular mortgage requires the borrower to contribute a deposit of, say, 5%, my Self Certification Mortgage required a deposit of 15%. Fifteen percent!! Of course I can see why they ask for this, why if you are not being judged using the conventional formula you are expected to show some serious committment. But I didn't have any savings. I was young and self employed for crying out loud.

So what did I do? Okay, I would not recommend this to everybody, but I was desperate for my own home and I knew that I could afford the repayments. I took out a Personal Loan shortly before my mortgage application and, supplemented with a timely invoice payment, I was able to pay the deposit and afford the key refurbishment costs on the property (roof, re-wiring, plumbing etc). 

On the High Street this would be called a Home Improvement Loan and acquired AFTER you have obtained a mortgage and purchased the property. I simply borrowed a little more in the form of a Personal Loan before I had acquired a mortgage. I was fortunate in that I could afford to carry the costs of these repayments for the forseeable future and I had bought on a rising market - the value of my property was already more than the mortgage and personal loan combined before I had even finished the refurbishment (ie. 4 months after buying the property). I would not recommend this to everyone, and you have to be very, very clear about how much you are borrowing and what the total repayments will be.

However, getting on the property ladder and having my own home was the most important thing to me, and it just goes to show that if you look beyond the High Street you can actually find the same or similar financial products but with less of the hassle. The High Street had always made me feel inadequate, a financial failure

You might be interested to know that, because I was still looking for the catch in my Self Certification Mortgage, I went to a respected, independent financial advisor recently (on the High Street as it happens) and asked if I should change my mortgage to something better. His advice was that I had got a very good mortgage deal and that I should stick with it for the forseeable future. So I have.

Richard

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Your Mortgage Application May Trigger Competing Offers

Your Mortgage Application May Trigger Competing Offers

Your Mortgage Application May Trigger Competing Offers

If you apply for a mortgage, your inbox, answering machine, and mailbox may fill up quickly with competing offers from other mortgage companies. It’s not that the company you applied to is selling or sharing your information. Rather, it’s that creditors – including mortgage companies – are taking advantage of a federal law that allows them to identify potential customers for the products they offer, and then market to them. The Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s consumer protection agency, wants you to know why your application for a mortgage may trigger competing offers, how you can use them to your benefit, and how to stop getting them if that’s your choice.

The unsolicited calls, emails, and letters about competing offers often are called “prescreened” or “pre-approved” offers of credit. They are based on information in your credit report that suggests you meet criteria set by the creditor making the offer – for example, you live in a certain zip code, you have a certain number of credit cards, or you have a certain credit score. Credit bureaus and other consumer reporting companies sell lists of consumers who meet the criteria to insurance companies, lenders, and other creditors. 

When you apply for a mortgage, the lender usually gets a copy of your credit report. At that point, an “inquiry” appears on your report showing that the lender has looked at it. The inquiry indicates you’re in the market for a loan. That’s why mortgage companies buy lists of consumers who have a recent inquiry from a mortgage company on their credit report. Federal law allows this practice if the offer of credit meets certain legal requirements. 

Clearly, some mortgage companies benefit from the practice. Consumers can benefit, too: prescreened offers can highlight other available products and make it easier to compare costs while you carefully check out the terms and conditions of any offers you might consider. 

Still, some people may prefer not to receive prescreened offers of credit and insurance at all. Here’s how to stop them: 

Call 1-888-5-OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688) and you will be asked to provide certain personal information, including your home telephone number, name, Social Security number, and date of birth. The information you provide is confidential, and will be used only to process your request to opt out. 

Opting out of prescreened offers does not affect your ability to apply for credit or to get it. Your opt out request will be processed within five days, but it may take up to 60 days before the prescreened offers stop coming. If you have a joint mortgage, both parties need to opt out to stop the prescreened offers. If or when you want to opt back in, use the same telephone number.

Put your phone number on the federal government’s National Do Not Call Registry to reduce the telemarketing calls you get at home. To register your phone number or to get information about the registry call 1-888-382-1222 from the phone number you want to register. You will get fewer telemarketing calls within 31 days of registering your number. Your number stays on the registry for five years, until it is disconnected, or until you take it off the registry.

Many companies use other tools to identify marketing prospects, and that the Do Not Call Registry won’t shield you from all telemarketers – for example, those with which you have a business relationship. Even if you opt out of prescreened offers and put your number on the National Do Not Call Registry, you can expect some unsolicited offers.

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