Post about "Finance"

Financing Investment Properties – Good News For the Conventional Investors!

Fannie Mae is changing their rules regarding multiple mortgages to investors in order to help jump start the housing recovery. Their current policy of financing a maximum of four investment or second home properties has been changed to five to ten for properties purchased after March 1, 2009, whether or not Fannie Mae is the investor on the borrower’s other mortgages. The following are the new eligibility requirements:Eligibility Requirements
· Limit of five to ten financed properties per borrower, with underwriting requirements including a 720 minimum credit score and 70-75% maximum LTV/CLTV/HCLTV (depending on the transaction and the type of property involved).
· Applicable to whole loan purchases or mortgaged backed securities.
· Lenders must use a special code 150 when they are delivering loans to investors or to borrowers for second home properties.Reserves Requirements and Assignment of RentsThe following are the new Fannie Mae reserve requirements for loans on investment properties and second homes to borrowers with multiple financed properties:One to four financed properties (including the subject
property):· Two months of reserves on the subject property if it is a second home,
· Six months of reserves on the subject property if it is an investment property, and
· Two months of reserves on each other financed second home or investment property.Five to ten financed properties (including the subject
property):· Two months of reserves on the subject property if it is a second home,
· Six months of reserves on the subject property if it is an investment property, and
· Six months of reserves on each other financed second home or investment property.Investment property borrowers must now execute a Multi-state 1-4 Family Rider Assignment of Rents Form 3170 authorizing the assignment of rental revenues to the lender. Fannie Mae is deleting the requirement for rent loss insurance though. For more information, visit Fannie Mae’s website.Understanding How Investment Loans Differ from Typical Mortgage LoansInvestment loans differ from a typical mortgage loan on a primary residence. Since the money will be used for investment purposes, lenders usually require a larger down payment for one thing. The interest rate is usually higher as well. Investment loans are for shorter periods of time while the monthly payments are higher, but less money is paid in interest during the term of the loan.Requirements for Conventional Investment LoansLenders require a title policy be purchased, an inspection be conducted and an appraisal be done on the property to make sure the property appraises. Every conventional lender will review the borrower’s current debt to income ratio, past credit history and ability to repay the loan.Hard Money LendersInvestor funding through hard money lenders is an alternative to obtaining traditional conventional financing for many investors these days. Hard money loans can be used for not only acquiring property but rehabbing and resale of single family homes. Hard money lenders look at the asset more than the borrower’s credit history and income so it is easier to get financing.Hard money lenders are mostly other investors who have cash and are willing to loan to you as an investor. Finding them is not that difficult. The best way to find a hard money lender is to get a referral from another investor or friend or family member. In fact, you may already have a family member that is interested in loaning to you. There are many hard money lenders that advertise on the Internet as well.

Brainstorming The Ideas for Influencing Your Mobile App Audience

Once the app is downloaded, you have little time to take a sigh of relief, and then again start focusing on making things easier for the them till their goal is achieved.

According to the AppsFlyer, an app marketing company, the global uninstall rate for apps after 30 days is 28%. Entertainment apps are most frequently deleted, whereas apps based on Finance is least frequently deleted. No matter which app category you belong to, your strategy should be to remain in the mobile phones of users for a long time, and not just sit around but to fulfill your purpose as well.

If we analyze the encounters of users with an app step by step, it can help us unveil the critical factors that influence mobile app audiences, so that we can work upon those and achieve our purpose. Here are the details:

Step1. Finding Your App in Appstore

For this, we have to first find out what exactly users type to search an app. Based on a research, it has been found that 47% app users on iOS confirmed that they found the app through the App Store’s search engine and 53% app users on Android confirmed the same.

What have been their search queries? Interestingly, as the per the data provided by the TUNE research, 86% of the top 100 keywords were brands.With little scope for non-branded categories, most of the keywords were either of games of utility apps. Common keywords in the non branded category are: games, free games, VPN, calculator, music, photo editor, and weather.

Leaving brands aside, if we analyze the user-type of a Non-branded category, we will get two types of users:

1. Users are informed, and they know what they are search

2. Users are exploring possibilities, have no precise information in mind.

If you are a mobile app development company, targeting non-branded users, then your efforts must be directed to creating apps that compel these two types of users. To do so, we have to analyze once they are on an app store, what keywords they use to search. Regina Leuwer, with expertise in marketing & communications, bring some light to the subject. She reached out Sebastian Knopp, creator of app store search intelligence tool appkeywords, who shared with her the data of unique trending search phrases. And according to that data, in 2017, there were around 2,455 unique search phrases trending in the US.

Now, if we study these data to get information, we will find that name of the app is critical to attract the attention of the users.

If your app belongs to non-branded category, then make sure your app name is similar to the common search queries but also unique in comparison with your competitors. So that when your app name is flashed, they click it on to it, finding it purposeful and compelling both.

Step 2. Installation

Remember your users are on mobile devices has limited resources, from battery to storage and RAM to Internet. Everything is limited. So better create an application that is easy to download or say get downloaded with 5 minutes. One critical advice here:

1. Keep the application file size small.

If you are a developer, use APK Analyser to find out which part of the application is consuming maximum space. You can also reduce classes.dex file and res folder that contains images, raw files, and XML.

Step 3. Onboarding

After the user has successfully downloaded your mobile application, don’t leave anything on assumptions. Guide them properly. This you can do through an onboarding process, where users can learn the key functionality and where to begin with the mobile app. Below are the 3 things you need to keep in your mind when creating an onboarding process for your users.

Short and Crisp: The entire guidance of features and functions should be completed within few seconds, with easy options loud and clear option to skip.

Precise Information: Don’t introduce them to the app. They already know what they have downloaded. The objective to inform about the key functions and features.

Allow Users to Skip: Let the tech-savvy users skip the intro. Your app is to meet their requirement and not to have a friendly session.

Step 4. Purpose and UI
Here, the stage is set for your app and it is the golden chance for you to impress your users. What is needed here is the collaboration between purpose and UI of the app. It totally depends on the problem-solving capability and ease of use of the mobile app. Interface design plays the critical role, allowing the users to access features of the apps easily and quickly to perform the task for what they have downloaded the app. When it comes to interface design, make sure that the design is interactive and task-oriented. Here are some factors that you must take care off while creating mobile app interface:

1. Usability: The Mobile phone is an epitome of convenience and if your users find it difficult to use your app, then there is no way there are going to make the space for it in their mobile phones. From screen size to the color of the app, there are many factors that are equally critical and need attention.

2. Intuitive: To create an intuitive User Interface, you have to read the mind of the users, and develop a model based on that. The next should be precise, clear and ‘obvious’ in an interface.

3. Availability: Key features should be hidden in the drop down menu or even if so, it should be obvious for the user to look into the drop-down. An intricate work of design and research is required to make essential features available for the customers and they don’t need to navigate here and there.

If you need more help with the user-interface and innovative ideas for a mobile app, write to me [email protected] and I promise to get back to you with interesting mobile app designs.