I currently have a stash of cash in a money market earning 3.61% APY. I also have a home improvement project set to start later this month. I have enough cash to cover about 40% of the project. I also have a line of credit locked to prime, currently 5.25%. Should I take some of the cash to max out my Roth IRA and thus borrow that much more against the house assuming investments will earn 8% over time – or – should I minimize my home equity debt in the short term. My job situation is good but not great. I am also putting away 5% of my paycheck monthly into a Roth 401K. I have also considered the fact that I could refinance the equity loan into a new 30 yr mortgage after the project. The downside there is that I am currently at 5.25% 5 years in to a 30 yr mortgage. Thanks for your input.
FYI – even if I used 100% of my equity line, I would still have over 100K in equity on my home. I live just west of Chicago. Our housing market here has slowed but notthing like the devaluations of Florida or the west coast.

I have a friend who works as a loan consultant/sales manager at a mortgage corporation and has told me there is a need for these types of consultants. The need is based on incomplete foreclosed projects. I would be hired to complete the project to get them sold. BUT, what persons should I market to? What should I ask for pay, a percentage? What qualifications will they look for?

The Laws of the State of New York Relating to Banks, Banking, Trust Companies, Loan Mortgage and Safe Deposit Corporations; Together With the Acts ... Bank Act and Cognate United States Statutes

a couple have just taken on a mortgage of $ 200,000. an annual interest rate of 7.5% compounded monthly is being offered for a 30-year loan (360 payments). Two different payment schemes are offered.
One consists of a series of ballooning house payments which will increase by exactly the same amount each month until the loan is paid off. the first month’s payment is only $ 1250, which is exactly the interest due during the first month. determine how much the house payment is to increase each month. list the sequence of payments. list the sequence of balances over the life of the loan.
the other payment scheme is a fixed payment each month over the life of the loan. determine how much that payment should be. list the sequence of balances over the life of the loan.
the Truth in Lending Law requires that you tell your client the true total cost of the loan for each payment schedule. determine these amounts for each of the two payment plans.

i will be indebted to anyone who can help.

My program is to create a mortgage calculator. The user is required to enter the loan principal then selects from 3 separate loans in a combo box. Once they are done, they click calculate.

In my actionPerformed method I have something along the lines of:
If (source == calculate) \ calculate is the button
{
if (selection == 0) \meaning this is loan type one from the combo box
{ \ calculate loan one’s method
}
else if (selection == 1) \ selection for loan 2 from the combobox
{ \ calc loan 2′s method
}
else if (selection == 2) \ selection for loan 3 from the combobox
{ \calc loan 3′s method
}
etc.

Here’s my dilemma. I need to be able to create a text file (done) and somehow have my program read the interest rates from that file to use for each loan’s calculations. But I keep confusing myself on how to do this because I am still not quite understanding it.

I have read lots of help documents on java, and everything talks about the different components of the method to read the file, but I have yet to find something that explains how to create the method and how to tell my program to “take line 0 and use that for loan 1′s interest rate. Take line 1 for 2′s, take line 2 for 3′s”

So, any help would be realllly appreciated.

P.S. Please don’t tell me to go to the Java help forums….been there done that.
Also, I am not necessarily looking for answers. Good references or resources on how to do it would be great too.
Thank you very very very much Jeff. I really appreciate it.
OKay, new question. After I add a method similar to what you guys are suggesting, what statement would I write in my actionPerformed method to call upon that method and get that particular line?
Okay, you guys are doing a great job with giving me a better understanding.

Jeff, are you saying to create 3 separate methods for each line that I want to retrieve? Then use that specific method when I want to call upon that line?
Because to give you an example, in my actionPerformed method, when the calculate button is clicked, I have 3 separate if statements for each loan type (0,1,2). Here is an example of what one looks like:

if (selection == 0)
{
Double data = (Double)calculateLoanOne();
String sourceInput = data.toString();
displayMonthlyPayment.setText(sourceInput);
txtArea.setText(buff.toString());
}

That’s why I was confused with how I would call upon that method in each of the if statements
And to better elaborate on the if statement, each statement is saying if the selection is Loan One, then calculate Loan One’s method. I have 3 separate methods for each loan.
*~Thanks for all the help guys. I resolved my problem. The answer was right in front of me the whole time~*