Money Merge Account - Facts and Fiction
I have been a mortgage broker for over 10 years in South Florida. Over the years, many mortgage acceleration programs have crossed my path, but I have never felt truly passionate about one of these programs until I was introduced to the Money Merge Account from United First Financial. The purpose of this article is to outline the benefits and put to rest the misconceptions about these innovative programs and why I truly believe the Money Merge Account is the best of them.
To start with, we first must understand what exactly is meant by the term mortgage acceleration program and what every one of these program does and does not do.
Mortgage acceleration programs are designed to help or assist in paying down your mortgages principal balance and save on the total amount of interest you pay on your mortgage. If you borrowed $200,000, then you will be paying back the $200,000, just the amount of interest you pay will be reduced. I usually refer to these programs as the diet programs of the financial world. The reason for this analogy is, just like diet programs, every person is capable of losing weight although some of us need help in achieving this goal. The same can be said about our mortgage. We are all capable in paying off our mortgage faster, but some of us lack the financial obedience and discipline to do so. Mortgage acceleration programs keep us on the path toward our ultimate goal (living mortgage free) and making this task easier and less stressful for us; that is all.
With that being said, I would like to look at the two different types of mortgage acceleration programs available today and the pros and cons of each.
The first type of program is the first position Home Equity Line of Credit or HELOC for short. In this program, a client is asked to refinance their existing first mortgage (which is usually a fixed rate, fully amortized loan), their second mortgage (if they have one) and their credit card debt (if they have any) into a first position HELOC. The reason for this is the payment on a HELOC is interest only, BUT the amount of interest we are charged is based on the daily average balance of the HELOC for the prior month. The client is then asked to transfer the full amount of their paychecks (and whatever other money they make that month) into the HELOC (they should always have a $0 balance in their checking/savings accounts). By doing this, it drives down the principal balance of the HELOC. When they need to pay a bill, they simply can write a check from their HELOC to pay it since all HELOCs act as a checking account as well. In essence, the HELOC becomes the clients checking and savings account.
To put this into prospective, lets look at an example:
A person starts the first of the month with a balance on the HELOC at $100,000. They are paid twice a month on the 1st and the 15th in the amount of $2,500 each pay period and they have monthly living expenses of $4,000 (to make this example simple, we will assume the client pays all their bills on the 30th of the month). Therefore, they started the month with a $100,000 HELOC balance, but their paychecks were applied throughout the month and then their expenses were written from the HELOC, therefore, their end of the month balance is $99,000 (($100,000 - $2,500 - $2,500) + $4,000). If the interest rate on the HELOC was 10%, people would assume that their payment would be $825 at the end of the month (($99,000 * 10%) / 12 = $825). But this is wrong. There true payment would be based on the average daily balance of the account, which is $93,083.33 ($97,500 for the first 14 days, $95,000 for the next 15 days and $99,000 for 1 day divided by 30 days). Therefore, their payment on the HELOC would be $755.69. This is a difference of $49.31.
Based on the information above, lets look at the pros and cons to this program.
The pros to this program should be easy to identify:
The first position HELOC is a very simple and effective way for people to use every dollar they earn and save to help pay down the principal balance and save on they amount of interest they pay on their mortgage. However, there are a number of cons with this program which has prevented me from offering this solution to clients. They are as follows:
The second type of mortgage acceleration program combines the use of a second position HELOC and computer software to payoff the first mortgage and other debts (this is how the Money Merge Account is setup). In this program, a client obtains a HELOC as a second mortgage on their property. The client is then asked to transfer the full amount of their paychecks (and whatever other money they make that month) into the HELOC (they should always have a $0 balance in their checking/savings accounts). By doing this, it drives down the principal balance of the HELOC. When they need to pay a bill, they simply can write a check from their HELOC to pay it since all HELOCs act as a checking account as well. In essence, the HELOC becomes the clients checking and savings account.
Computer software is then used to monitor how much money is coming in, the frequency in which the client is paid and how much is going out for expenses. Based on these factors, the computer software will tell the client exactly how much (an exact dollar amount down to the penny) and when (an exact date) to borrow from the HELOC and apply it as an additional principal payment to their first mortgage. The computer software will also keep track of how much principal is owed on the first mortgage and HELOC and how much time is left to payoff the mortgages.
Now that we have an overview of how the program works, lets look at the pros and cons to this program.
There are a number of pros to this system which make it very useful to a client. They are:
Although the pro list is long, there are some cons to this program:
In this article we examined the two different types of mortgage acceleration programs and listed the pros and cons of each of them. You can clearly see why I have chosen to offer the Money Merge Account to my clients over the first position HELOC. I truly believe this program will help those clients who need assistance in controlling their finances to become mortgage free. At the time of this article, I currently have several clients utilizing the Money Merge Account and all are happy and referring other potential clients to me. It should also be noted that there is not one unhappy client out of the many thousands across the United States who are currently using the Money Merge Account.
Charles Petruzzi has been a mortgage broker in South Florida since 1996 and is a agent for United First Financial and the Money Merge Account. For more information on the Money Merge Account, please visit his website at http://www.mortgageaccelerationllc.com