Personal Loans

Come this June, as WalletPop has reported, new government rules take effect that are designed to make it easier for distressed homeowners to get not only that often-elusive, three-month trial mortgage loan modification, but also the much more sought after (and relatively seldom gotten) permanent mortgage modification.

But new rules and regulations, while helpful, are only part of the picture. As with many other things in life, having the right attitude and a firm plan in place before paying a visit to your questionably friendly neighborhood loan officer may greatly enhance your chances of getting that loan modification.

It's an age-old problem that's been with us for ages. You raise your kids to be independent adults, but...what if something goes wrong?

What if, for instance, they lose their job, suddenly run out of cash and need help? Or what if they got in over their heads financially with credit card debt and need a loan to help pay off their debt?

Do you look the other way and let the chips fall where they may, even if that means they wind up on the streets? Or do you help them out? And what if they need a lot of help? How far should you go to get them out of the bind they're in? And at what dollar amount are you really helping them out, or just enabling them to continue their financially unsound lifestyle?

In an op-ed piece (subscription required) in the Wall Street Journal, Virginia governor Tim Kaine explains a new loan program being offered to state employees: the Virginia State Employee Loan Program, "a unique partnership between the Virginia State Employee Assistance Fund and the Virginia Credit Union."

If you're a parent and have grown kids, have you ever paid off a debt of theirs?

That's a question that GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media recently posed to 1,004 adults in a survey for CreditCards.com. Two out of five adults, or 42%, said that they had paid off a debt for a grown child at some point.

Auto loans topped out the most likely to be paid (40%), with medical debt close behind (37%) and utilities (31%) following. Credit cards were next (30%), followed by student loans (29%) and the mortgage (11%). The entire story can be found here.

This isn't your father's banker. Your father's banker was probably human. Today, you can get online loans without ever stepping into a bank -- actually, without even leaving your home. But that facelessness can be either convenient or dangerous. You need to be cautious when shopping for online loans, so you find a legitimate online loan provider and not a scam artist trying to take rather than give you money.

Here are the top 10 tips for getting online loans.

Online Loans Tip #1: Make the most of online advantages. One of the biggest benefits of shopping for online loans is you can easily compare rates and offerings and get qualified and approved quicker than from traditional banks.

Who doesn't have an unmarried friend who lost the house, or at least their investment in the condo, when the relationship went sour?

The key question when buying property together, according to a new book -- "Living Together: A Legal Guide for Unmarried Couples" -- seems pretty simple: Does your legal relationship match your private agreement?

But who wants to have that conversation when you are newly in love, or at least new to nesting?

No one, the book's author admitted to WalletPop.

A Money magazine reader asks ethicists Jeanne Fleming and Leonard Schwarz "Is there anything wrong with asking a good friend to secure the loan I'm giving him with the title to his car? Tom really needs the money, but he can be pretty irresponsible, and I don't want my $2,500 to become a gift."

The ethicists get the first part right (Answer: In a word, No. And in two words, Absolutely Not.") but then offer some really bad follow-up advice: "Consider asking Tom to give you some collateral to hold until he repays you: a fine watch, say, or his prized Stratocaster -- something of sufficient value to give him a real incentive to pay off the loan. Because you're right: You don't want to bet $2,500 on the good intentions of an irresponsible friend."

Here's why you shouldn't do that:

• If Tom is so hard up for cash that he's trying to borrow $2,500 from a friend (most people borrowing cash from friends are borrowing it to stay afloat and make payments on other debt) and he has a watch worth anything close to $2,500, he should sell the freakin' watch. If he's so brain dead that he'd rather go into debt to a friend rather than sell a watch, you really don't want to lend money to him.
• If his watch is so important to him that he'd rather hit up a friend for cash than sell it, are you really going to be prepared to sell it to make good on the debt?

Lending money to kids away at college or family members in need just got a little easier.

Today Fiserv, a global provider of financial technology services, announced plans for a new Person-to-Person, or P2P service that will enable the quick transfer of funds between individuals.

This service will be made available to the more than 3,100 financial institutions in the Fiserv network.

According to a Fiserv survey conducted in June 2009, demand for this service is substantial. Seventy percent of the survey's respondents expressed interest in this type of service, with three out of four saying they'd prefer to have access to P2P at their own financial institutions rather an outside source such as Lending Club and 83% said it's important for money to be deposited directly into a recipient's bank account, as opposed to being funneled through a third party system.

Peer-to-peer lending marketplace Lending Club just announced several new features for investors who use the service which can help them earn an average return of 9.67%.

The new features, which went live this morning, make it easier than ever to find the types of loans you want to invest in and create a diversified portfolio based on how much risk you want to take.

The new investor experience provides you with more information and the ability to filter on several factors to find loans that appeal to you. For instance, if you want to avoid a specific type of loan such as home improvement projects, you can exclude them from your loan search. Another welcome filter will show only loans that have been approved for funding.

Think your kid's college bill is pricey? Think again. For the second year in a row, Sarah Lawrence College has the dubious distinction of being the nation's most expensive place to attend college -- a whopping $54,410 for the current 2009-10 school year, including tuition, plus room and board, according to data compiled by CampusGrotto.com.

Of course, for that price, students get the distinction of attending one of the finest colleges in the country. Most of the colleges in the 100 most expensive colleges ranking are private liberal-arts universities in the Northeast.

CampusGrotto notes that while the current school year saw one of the smallest increases in costs in decades, expenses still rose 4.3%. By contrast, the annual rate of inflation in the United States fell 1.3% in September. Many of the colleges on the list now cost around $50,000 a year to attend.

When it comes to finding the best deal on mortgage rates, some homeowners might be feeling as if they missed the boat.

Earlier this month, interest rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages hit their lowest point since the spring, falling to 4.89 percent. Plenty of homeowners rushed to take advantage of those cheap rates with mortgage applications climbing 18.2% week over week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. But last week rates were on the rise again. Last Friday, the rate on the average 30-year mortgage hit 5.32%, according to BankRate.com.

Those who failed to lock in those sub-five percent rates are now faced with a quandary: Refinance now before rates rise even further or wait for rates to start falling again.

Anyone who has ever bought a car and had the purchase financed by a dealership knows what a sweaty-palm experience it can be.

Even the savviest of consumers are likely to blanch after the credit manager runs all the numbers and comes up with a payment that seems way higher than anticipated. And what about all those extra costs? Are they really legit?

It's these concerns and more that are the impetus behind several groups' opposition to an auto-dealer exemption from legislation being fashioned by Congress to create a new consumer watchdog agency. Members of the House Financial Services Committee are expected to vote on the legislation Thursday.

Gayla Bentley made quite an impression Tuesday on ABC's Shark Tank. She's a big lady with a big vision: to create the first globally successful luxury fashion line for women of size 12 or larger. In fact, now that she's got the investment she needs, you may be hearing from her again.

WalletPop's Jason Cochran talked to Bentley about her success in obtaining the capital she needs to bring her garments to a wider market, and we got the video interview on tape as part of our popular AfterShark series.

As the ninth episode of ABC's Shark Tank unspooled, we met Dan Mackey. When he saw that California was dumping sugary sodas from the schools, he realized there was an opening for something organic and low-glycemic, with no high fructose corn syrup: his Chill Soda.

"A lot of people have great ideas. It's just a matter of doing something about it," he told us. And he's right about that. He only wanted $50,000, but for just 10% equity. Using agave nectar, it has about half the calories of the regular sodas on the market. Right away, the pitch started to go flat, when Kevin O'Leary asked what was the one thing that marked the ability to sell in the market, and Mackey was apparently too nervous to answer. "Distribution!" O'Leary said. "Sorry, I thought that was a given," Mackey said, and then said he already had a distributor working away, although he had only sold 250 cans. "You're getting in on the ground floor of this." You could hear a cricket in the Tank until Daymond John pressed a little more, and Mackey clarified: That was 250 thousand cans, worth $175,000 in sales. "I'm a marketing guy. I'm not in the beverage industry," he said, and the Sharks knew it was time to go for blood. "You should never have ever told me that you do not know that business. I'm out," said Daymond John.

WalletPop's Jason Cochran caught up with Dan Mackey for our popular AfterShark series:

So you've heard of credit scores, but do you really understand how they're calculated? In this week's episode of Show & Tell with The 2 Mortgage Guys we'll break down the credit report guidelines and give you a few tips on how to keep your score from limiting your financial options!

Ryan Minick and Steve DeLon are The 2 Mortgage Guys. Subscribe to their newsletter or visit them at www.The2MortgageGuys.com.