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Orchard Bank Platinum MasterCard

Enjoy the prestige of Platinum with no up front fees
Premium Platinum benefits including Purchase Protection
Great credit card to strengthen your credit
Reports to all 3 credit bureaus monthly, which can help improve your credit score


Take your credit to the next level, with an Orchard Bank Platinum MasterCard®. With a unique approach of educating customers on all aspects of obtaining and managing credit, the Orchard Bank MasterCard® continues today as a leader in the credit card industry.

Orchard Bank Platinum MasterCard®

• Enjoy the prestige of Platinum with no up front fees
  
• Premium Platinum benefits including Purchase Protection
  
• Great credit card to strengthen your credit
  
• Reports to all 3 credit bureaus monthly, which can help improve your credit score
  
• Free Online 24-hour Account Access and Bill Pay
  
• Periodic credit limit increases

DID YOU KNOW?

	In this modern economy, lenders provide loans tailored to just about any situation. Balloon loans are one such loan, but carry a serious downside if you’re not careful. Balloon Loans A balloon loan has nothing to do with hot air or floating around the world in 80 days. Fail to plan very carefully when using one of these loans, however, and your financial world will definitely go down in flame like the Hindenburg. A balloon loan is a mortgage with a fixed interest rate for a set period of years. Unlike traditional fixed rate home loans, the interest rates on balloon loans are nearly as low as those found on adjustable rate mortgages. The problem with balloon loans, however, is the term. While balloon loans provide a low fixed interest rate for a set period of years, those years are not in abundance. Instead of a fifteen or thirty year repayment term, a balloon loan typically has a term of seven to ten years, depending upon what the lender was willing to give you. At the end of the term, you must repay the balloon loan in full. Yes, in full. Let’s take a look at how this can play out. In 2005, you find a home you love but can’t qualify for a loan. You are so engrossed with the loan that you eventually locate a lender willing to write you a balloon loan. The loan is for $400,000 and has a 7 year term. At the end of the seven years, you’ve paid the loan down by $50,000, but still owe $350,000. Somehow and someway, you must come up with that $350,000 to pay off the loan. If you don’t, the lender will foreclose on the home. Every borrower that goes with a balloon loan fully intends to refinance the property before the balloon blows. While this makes sense, you have to keep in mind that refinancing is no sure thing. Maybe you can, but maybe you can’t. Also, we are experiencing some of the lowest loan rates every seen. Chances are very strong that in seven years, rates are going to be much higher. Are you really going to be able to afford those rates? Balloon home loans are all about seeing the future. In essence, you are pulling out the tea leaves and betting on rates in 2012 or so. If you get it wrong, your financial life can become a nightmare.

It may not seem obvious to many people, but the strategies involved in real estate investing and stock market investing are different from each other. Many people, disenchanted with the lackluster performance of their stock portfolio, first become interested in real estate investing after someone they know makes a large sum of money in real estate in a relatively short time.

If that sounds like YOU, be warned: investing in real estate in the hopes that the market will increase rapidly and steadily is, and always has been, a risky strategy, and can cause severe difficulty if you guess wrong about a piece of property--or if the entire real estate market begins to collapse, as has happened many times in the past.

If you can afford to buy real estate and hold on to it for five to fifteen years, you will nearly always realize a substantial profit. If you are savvy enough to buy a significantly discounted piece of property and then sell it within a year, you'll make money, too. But buying an investment property at its fair market value that only gives you a break-even cash flow (or worse yet, loses money every month) can sink you in a relatively short time if you don't have the wherewithal to feed it until you CAN make money on it.

It's like riding a horse. If you don't know how to ride, you'd better take some lessons before you sign up for a rodeo! The results could be disastrous if you make a mistake. And if you haven't done your homework, you WILL make a mistake. The wrong real estate investment could cause not just financial hardship, but also financial ruin.

So know your real estate market, inside and out. Know where it is in its overall cycle, because all markets, no matter how hot, have ups and downs within the overall trend. There are always bargains available, regardless of the market. Watch your local housing market so you know how much rental income to expect and if there is a vacancy glut on the market. Two years ago you could buy an apartment building in Las Vegas for zero down because investors couldn't rent the apartments. Some investors who could afford to make up the negative cash flow each month made a killing in appreciation. Investors with financing or cash who transformed the apartments into condominiums made even more money.

Finding the lowest-priced financing also helps make the most return on your investment. Unlike stock investing, you need strong credit to use other people's money to finance investment property.

Even if you're frustrated by a lackluster stock market, don't expect to make a short-term killing in real estate to make up for it. In both cases, one of the best strategies is to buy excellent examples--and then hang on for awhile. It's also a good strategy to maintain a cash reserve, especially when it comes to real estate. That way, even if the market heads south, you won't find yourself being overwhelmed while you wait for the inevitable rebound in prices.

Real estate investing can carry more significant consequences than stock market investing if you guess wrong, since there's generally a great deal more money involved. So take it easy, do your homework, and don't rush into anything until you've learned as much as you can about how to become a prudent real estate investor.

Copyright © Jeanette J. Fisher