To land a home loan you can live with, consider a mortgage matched to your lifestyle.

Lifestyle-based mortgage hunting targets your specific financial needs and goals at a given point in your life. Use the lifestyle mortgage matching strategy and you'll likely land a loan you can best afford that also makes the most financial sense for you.

First-Timers

Because the vast number of new and innovative mortgage programs target first-time home buyers, your search is perhaps the most difficult, but so-called "two-step" or hybrid mortgages are worth a look.

The adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) come with mortgage rates that are effectively fixed for the first step of three, five, seven or ten years and then become 1-year ARMs with rates that adjust each year for the term of the loan.

Hybrid ARMs are a good fit because statistics reveal first-timers typically move after five-to-seven years when growing incomes permit the move and growing families dictate the need for a larger home.

During the first step of the loan, the locked-in loan rate provides some financial stability for the young buyer and the rate is cheaper than that of a typical 30-year fixed-rate mortgage.

On Jan. 13, BankRate.com said the national average annual percentage rate (APR) on a 30-year, conforming, fixed-rate mortgage (FRM), was 5.45 percent, but only 3.87 on a 3/1 ARM, 4.09 percent on a 5/1 ARM, 4.40 on a 7/1 ARM and 4.86 on a 10/1 ARM.

The 1.58 percent difference between a FRM at 5.45 percent and a 3/1 ARM at 3.87 percent on a maximum $322,700 conforming loan adds up to a monthly savings of more than $300, $3,600 for the year and $11,000 for three years of the ARM's fixed period.

Because the lower rate generates lower monthly payments it's easier to qualify for according to Peter Miller, a Silver Spring, MD-based online real estate publisher and author of the Common-Sense Mortgage (Contemporary Books, $16.95).

"It's a perfectly good strategy," says Miller.

Miller says another common option for first-timers are Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Veterans Administration (VA) loans, especially for buyers who don't have large down payments.

The loans require down payments as low as three percent and have less stringent qualifying requirements than some nongovernment loans. However, interest rates tend to be higher and mortgage insurance premiums are tacked onto low down payment loans.

Move-Uppers

Some move-up buyers who know they will move-up again, likewise should consider hybrid loans for the same reasons they work for first-timers.

In the current low interest rate market, however, move-up buyers may do well to opt for a plain vanilla, conventional or jumbo 30-year fixed-rate mortgage with 20 percent down. With rising home values in recent years, obtaining 20 percent down from the equity you've gained is not an unlikely scenario and rolling over that equity is a good plan.

"In terms of long-term financing, look for loans with at least 20 percent down to avoid private mortgage insurance. A plain 30-year mortgage with the right to prepay in whole or in part at any time and without penalty can be especially attractive because if incomes rise, you can increase your monthly payments to shorten the loan term or reduce interest costs," said Miller.

During high interest rate markets, move-up buyers might consider 1/1 or 3/1 ARMs to make qualifying easier for the larger home they typically seek. Later, refinancing to a cheaper fixed rate could be possible.

Wayne, PA-based mortgage expert known as "The Mortgage Professor," Jack Guttentag says the ARM is also a good choice if you expect the ARM rate will remain below the FRM rate beyond the initial rate period and if you are prepared to risk that it won't.

Others who are making the one-and-only move up, may want a cheaper loan with a shorter term. Bankrate.com on Jan. 13 put the national APR average for 15-year fixed-rate conforming loans at 4.87 percent, 5.29 for 20-year loans, and 4.75 for 10-year loans.

"You may not want to make mortgage payments for the next 30 years because you may not be working for 30 more years," say Randy Johnson, owner-broker of Newport Beach, CA-based Independence Mortgage Co. and author of Save Thousands of Dollars On Your Home Mortgage (John P. Wiley & Sons, Inc., $14.95).

Empty-Nesters

If your children have enrolled in school, started a career and purchased a home of their own, or otherwise fled the nest, you may not need the spacious mansion into which you've settled.

Moving down to a smaller home often raises the question, "Do your really need a mortgage?"

"Crunch the numbers to see if you are better off getting a mortgage or going free and clear. Ironically, empty nesters are often in their highest earning years and this may be your last chance to use the mortgage interest and property tax deductions to shelter your income," says San Francisco broker Ray Brown, who also co-authored Mortgages for Dummies (Hungry Minds, $16.99).

If you do need a mortgage, says Brown, a mortgage with a shorter term, say 15 years, is a good choice. Along with the lower rates you have the option of making larger payments or paying the mortgage off early.

"Meanwhile, you get the preferred rate and you get the interest write off," says Brown.

On the other hand, the liberal capital gains tax law that allows couples to take tax-free profits of up to $500,000 on the sale of a home, could infuse you with enough cash to free you from the need for a mortgage-based tax shelter.

"It's always cheaper to pay taxes than it is to pay interest," said Miller.

Published: January 14, 2004

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.