This is an absolute yes in my books and this is what I want to help people doing. Mortgage free means you have more money now to use in other projects or just to save. Mortgage free is financial freedom.

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Current house: still in it, unable to sell because market is bad. could i buy another house that's cheaper if i qualify for 2 mortgages and then, if unable to sell the current house, let it go to short sale (hopefully not foreclosure though)? i know this is not ideal, but i need to move asap! please help!

You are going to have a hard time qualifying for 2 mortgages unless you have great income and a hefty downpayment. And if you do manage to do that, and sell the first home for less than what is owed, the lender may not agree to a short sale. Why would they? And a foreclosure could attach to your new property. If you can't sell the house right now, rent it out while you go rent something for yourself in the area you need to be in.

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I have a good job, making 100k a year but i have a huge amount of debt and i can't afford to pay all my monthly payments. i want to sell my 300k house and move to a much cheaper house so i then could afford to pay off my debt. if i did find a buyer for the house, i am wondering if i would be able to get pre-approved for the mortgage for a new cheaper house so that i could close on the new house right after the sale of my house? or will i not be able to be pre-approved because of my debt issues and no savings? if so, then i would have to sell my house, rent something and then get another mortgage later? i have never missed a mortgage payment or been late on payments.

Yes, you can however your interest rates are going to be high. You just need to find a mortgage broker who can help. I don't think your bank would do it at this time but they can be used as a consultant to show you the ropes or talk to a financial consultant.

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I mean, i know it's possible to sell my house for cheap and then buy another house, what i mean is we're upside down $25k loan to value on our current house and i really, really, really want to move. how likely is it that we'd be able to get out from under our current mortgage and into another house without going over our currently monthly payment? is it possible at all?

The bank holding the current mortgage will take a loss because your mortgage is upside down. This will have a negative effect on getting another mortgage from another bank. If you want to buy another house after getting out from under the first mortgage, you should look for private money from trust funds and mortgage brokers. Remember, when dealing with mortgage brokers, never pay them to "look" for a loan. Flakey brokers take your money for looking and never find a lender. A legitimate broker gets paid "after" he has found you the loan.

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I moved to the us a few years ago from the uk where i still have a property. i have a uk mortgage on that property. trouble is uk banks dont offer fixed mortgages over 5 years. does anyone know if its possible to secure a us mortgage on a overseas property? id like to get a fixed long term rate and maybe even benefit from the current cheap gbp and stronger $ which i think will not be the case for long.. any advice or feedback appreciated...

A strictly US based bank is not going to issue a mortgage on a property overseas . If you default on the loan, they have no way at all of recovering their loan since the collateral is in another country. You will have to do business with a bank like American Express that has offices in both the US and the UK.

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We bought a $250,000 house last year and have a $90,000 30 year mortgage on it. we live in a nice peacefull village. my husband is getting a new job and is taking a significant pay cut. we should be able make our payments just fine as long as we watch what we spend. i'm in college and we will have a significant income increase in about 3-4 years. we are nervous about the economy and jobs and were thinking about moving to a town about 30 miles north of here where the houses are a lot cheaper. we could buy a decent house outright. not quite as nice as we have now but still very acceptable. although the community isn't quite as nice as our current one(we basically live in pleasantville) it is still nice with decent schools for our 2 boys. it also has cheaper taxes and cost of living. there is a great church there that i used to attend as a child also. we just keep thinking about what all that extra money could mean for the future of our family. what would you do?

tough call. This is a buyers market, so you can basically name your price for a house. I think you are right to be nervous, I dont think we've hit bottom yet, so I would have to say that being a pessimist, plan your budget on one income, that way anything above and beyond is a bonus, and if you both lose, you're not that far in the hole. You should have at least one years salary in the bank for emergencies, do you? If not, then by all means take the smaller house and save, save, save. If it weren't for my spend-thrift, tightwad husband I would be in a world of hurt right now. Thank God one of us can save! Like I said, if you are worried, go for it, you can always move when the economy picks up!

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My mom has been trying to find a place to refinance our house. our contract with the current owner is up in june. it's a $280,000 house (at least that's what my parents paid when we moved here). it only appraised at like $267,000 on a recent walk-by appraisal. everybody my mom has tried to contact tells her that she doesn't make enough income. she was told that the only way she could get it refinanced is if i myself added my name to the deed and added my income to hers. but i need credit in order for that to work. and i have no credit. i can't even get a freakin' credit card because everyone turns me down (how does anybody build credit if every card company turns them down? you gotta start somewhere). everyone tells my mom that she can't afford this house and that she should put it on the market for sale and get into a cheaper house. but we all love this house. we feel peace and safe here. we have privacy. no troublesome neighbors around. i myself have more luxary at this house than i've ever had in my life. not to mention, we own so many things that the thought of moving kills us! everybody that tells us to move away doesn't realize how much stuff we own (and we do not want to get rid of most of it). and none of us are in good enough health to handle all of that heavy lifting and packing. i just wish there was a finance company that would be willing to help us. we're desperate and out of options and time.

If your mother is not making over 100k a year there is no one. No one will lend money knowing up front she can not make the payments and will foreclose.

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My husband and i have owned our house for almost 3 years paying around $550-$600 monthly and we are wanting to move into something bigger but somehow benefit from our house. we don't have money for a down payment for a new mortgage, so we were thinking of renting this current house out for around $650/month and renting another cheaper, roomier house for ourselves while saving for a down payment in about 2 years. we would then count this house as income when we applied for the next mortgage or sell it. we really aren't sure what would be the best option, and we'd like to move within the next 6-9 months as we've totally out grown this house (it's a 'shot-gun' style) and it has no potential. what should we do?

If you are lucky enough to have a profit in this house (it is worth much more than you bought it for) you may want to sell it before or not long after you buy the new house . If a house has been your homestead for at least 2 of the last three years you can collect any profit at sale TAX FREE. If you have little or no profit then that would not make a difference- but if you do and rent it out for several years before you rent it you will have to pay tax on all gain. Check with the mortgage company you will be using. Most count very little of your rental income as steady income. They figure the property will be vacant a fair amount of the time and that you will have repair costs. Either way- if you buy within the next few months you may qualify for the new tax credit that was just signed into law last week! $6,500!

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I am currently in the process of moving and can't help but notice all the adds online for taking over someones mortgage and getting a house with the deed in your name for a cheaper monthly fee than i am currently paying. to me it seems like a great investment opportunity without having to go through the loan process. does anyone have any experience with this type of thing, advice is needed asap as i have 30 days to move out of my current location.

Be very careful. You can't take over someones mortgage without the mortgagee's (lender) approval. Also, many mortgages have a "due on sale" clause. That means if ownership changes they can call the loan due. realtor.sailor

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My husband and i bought our first home one year ago today. it was a fixer upper that took us about 6 months to complete and we put in a good $25,000 in it for windows, new kitchen, etc. (we really did the house nice...nothing cheap here.) the house we pay for each month does not have a garage and has only one bath, which is fine for the 2 of us, but in the past year, we have had 2 family members move in and out as they relocated here making the bathroom a bit of an issue. the way the market has gone, there is another home 2 streets over with an extra bath, a garage and on a corner lot selling for exactly what we bought our home for. we are thinking of renting this place and buying the other house with all the extra goodies and we should be paying about the same. the other house will need just about everything this house needed...which would deplete our savings, but we wouldn't make all of the upgrades as quickly as we did on the current house. we make our mortgage payment and all of our bills just fine. my husband's in the military, and should advance next year and i am in the car biz...tough market right now! it's a great opportunity for us, but i'm a very calculated person that doesn't like risk, so i'm scared to pull the trigger. if i was asking suze orman, i think she'd tell us no. the big plan would be to have two rental properties when we move from here to our next duty station and we would sell these properties many years down the road for a profit that made it all worth while now. what do you think?

Suze Orman would definitely tell you NO!! First, you have to assume that you can not rent the 1st house. Since there is no guarantee that you would, or that you would have a bad tenant who does not pay their rent, or insists on you fixing things. Never - Never deplete your savings. Especially in the careers you both have right now. I know the buying market is good right now, and is tempting - but I would wait until you are more established. And take it from a former landlord - it is not fun, even with just one unit. Best of luck.

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I tried some of the companies which promise to buy houses but no one calls me back. my mortgage is current and i am in no danger of foreclosure. the house is in good shape, in a good neighborhood, taxes are 1600 and two different cma priced it between 60 and 80k. there was flooding near me in 2006;my house, and the entire block it's on, did not flood but people don't know that unless they look at the flood map;it's also on a busy road. i'd like to move before sept. when my kid starts school again and a regular person, not a buy houses company, offered me 65k for it but i absolutely can't afford to let it go for less than 68k since i have to pay off my mortgage and cover expenses to relocate (my reason for wanting to sell in the first place). 68k is dirt cheap because there are many things a person with money could do to improve it's value and resell (a 3rd bedroom, a pool, a cover for the patio). how and where can i find a buyer for my house before september when school starts? house is listed for 72,900 and 68k is my rock bottom. i do have a realtor, which is part of the reason i can't take less than 68k. i have to pay the mortgage balance the realtor's percentage and get a place to live(not selling to be homeless). the house outfits will not get their way. if i can't sell for 68, i 'll have to keep the house and stay here. 65k did not help me because it would have paid the mortgage and realtor and i would have been out on the street with my kid. yes, it is 68k not 680k. i live in upstate ny in a suburban, ritzi area.

The buy your house places want a bargain and you want full price so they won't ever be interested. Since it is worth 60-80 and you are mid range you can expect it to stay on the market until the right buyer who thinks your house the exactly what they want comes along. If you listed it at 68 you will get offers less than that so you will need to turn them down if you can't lower the price. If you are asking 80 you may not even get lookers.