If you buy a house with less than 20% down or if you haven't built up at least 20% equity before mortgage refinancing, you'll typically have to pay private mortgage insurance (PMI). This protects the lender in case you default on the mortgage loan.

The U.S. Public Interest Group in Washington and other consumer-advocacy groups have been pressuring Congress to enact legislation that would require lenders to stop billing for PMI automatically once a borrower achieves about 20% equity. Right now, the consumer generally has to ask a lender to stop charging for PMI, which is not easy to do. "I have heard of lenders who won't cancel PMI, regardless," says Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH Associates, a mortgage-information provider in Butler, N.J. This is one of the main reasons why a growing number of buyers are avoiding PMI altogether by getting what's known as a "piggyback mortgage." "A piggyback mortgage is a second mortgage that closes simultaneously with the first," explains Chris Larson, chief executive officer with E-Loan, an online provider of consumer loans based in Dublin, Calif.

A piggyback mortgage is also known as an 80-10-10 loan because it involves a first mortgage for 80% of the purchase generally offered at a lower rate, a second trust loan (second mortgage) for 10% at a slightly higher rate and the remaining 10% as a down payment. But variations, such as 75%-15%-10%, are also available.

"This can significantly reduce a borrower's monthly payments," says Mark Smith, president of the Mortgage Bankers Association of America in Washington and chief executive officer of Crestar Mortgage Corp., a unit of Crestar Financial Corp., Richmond, Va. "And the interest on the second mortgage is tax-deductible--PMI payments are not." For areas where housing is more expensive, buyers find that the piggyback mortgages can help them keep their primary mortgages below the conforming limits set annually by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the agencies that dominate the secondary market in mortgages. Currently, 30-year fixed rate home mortgages that exceed $417,000 are considered "jumbo" (non-conforming) mortgages, which carry higher interest rates.

Piggyback mortgages are also flexible. You can either take it out as a home equity installment loan (HEIL) where you get a lump sum all at once or as a home equity line of credit (HELOC) where you can pay off the line of credit and draw down on it and use the funds for other purposes without having to apply for another loan. And, of course, you can refinance both loans when your home appreciates in value and possibly pay a lower rate of interest, making your savings even greater.

Maria Ny is an acclaimed free-lance writer from San Diego. She has published many articles that covered a broad range of subjects ranging from Home Purchase, Bankruptcy Reform, Credit Repair to Subordinate Loan Financing. Get more useful tips if you read her loan articles online at BD Second Mortgage Loans. You can learn more about financing credit card debt and get additional loan parameters for debt consolidation loans. Get a free loan quote for a 125% second mortgages. We suggest you get more information and learn more about the guidelines for fixed rate second mortgages that could help lower your monthly payments by reducing the high interest rates of your credit card debt.

You either need a loan or you need to refinance your current debt. First of all you need to decide how much money you'll need, which loan type is best for you; you'll also need to decide whether this is the right time to do it and how you are going to pay for it. All these questions need to be answered prior to applying for a student loan or refinance student loan and even before doing some research and requesting loan quotes.

Loan Amount

The amount of money you will need does not only have to cover tuition, studying material, and any other college related costs, but also accommodation, transportation and other expenses that you will have to face due to living away from home. Once you've added up all your expenses, it is a good idea to add a 15% over that amount for unexpected expenses that always arise.

Loan Types

For starters, we will analyze government student loans. Federal Loans carry, as regular loans, capital and interests. Though the interest rate charged is lower than private loans, so is the loan amount. Under certain circumstances the interest can be subsidized and not charged. Otherwise the interest, though present, is deferred till after graduation. Moreover, the capital can also be deferred till after graduation and sometimes you can get a government grant so you won't have to reimburse the money at all.

Private student loans, on the other hand, have higher interest rates but you can request higher loan amounts. There are mainly two types of private student loans: Secured Student Loans and Unsecured Student Loans. Generally, secured student loans are requested by parents who have a property to use as collateral in order to pay for their sons/daughters' tuition. Unsecured Student Loans are generally requested by student themselves and do not require collateral in order to be approved.

Refinancing or Consolidating your Student Debt

If you can't meet your monthly payments or you want to take advantage of better market conditions you may want to refinance your student loans. By refinancing you'll take a loan in order to cancel previous debt. When a single loan is used to repay more than one loan or other debt, the process is known as consolidating. There are loans specially tailored for this purpose: Consolidation Loans. And there are even loans of this kind designed to consolidate only student debt.

By refinancing or consolidating student debt you can save thousands of dollars on interests. Moreover, by consolidating you'll get a single monthly payment instead of several bills. However, bear in mind that refinancing makes sense only if you can save money by doing so or at least reduce your monthly payments so you can afford them without sacrifices.

What's housekeeping software? It's software that takes care of your PC and everything recorded on that hard-drive. If that's what you need, make sure you consider these titles.

HandyRecovery 2.0 (SoftLogica LLC)

As you might expect, data recovery and undeletion software is a very popular thing. Next to antivirus software, a firewall and proper backups, a decent file recovery program is the most essential thing you can have on your system. Hard drives die eventually, of course, and worse than that, people make mistakes. HandyRecovery 2.0 is fairly easy to use, allows you to search for deleted files by name and comes with all the help support you'll need to get you on your way. HandyRecovery 2.0 can discover and recover deleted partitions and quick formatted drives as well as undeleting files. It can also be used to make a drive image of a partition so that recovery can be attempted without further damaging a wonky hard disk.

My Registry Cleaner (PC Security Shield)

If your computer is slow and often crashes, My Registry Cleaner will help you. The application scans your entire computer and removes errors, speeds up your PC, and stops crashes. My Registry Cleaner comes with one year of free tech support and updates. My Registry Cleaner will make your system more stable, run quicker, and your operating system will boot faster. Registry problems can occur for many reasons, including references left behind after uninstallation; incorrect removal of software; missing or corrupt hardware drivers; or orphaned start-up programs. With a few easy steps, My Registry Cleaner will scan your entire registry for any invalid entries and provide a list of the errors found.

Win Undelete 2.1 (Jufsoft)

This program for recovering deleted files comes in near the top of its class in almost every area except download restrictions. Win Undelete 2.1 boasts a welcoming interface with buttons for all necessary actions prominently displayed - and since the program greets you with a step-by-step wizard, you may never need the tutorial or help info. The list of supported file types that Win Undelete 2.1 supports is extensive, and you'll really appreciate the program's ability to ignore temporary Internet files and junk files, which saves both time and effort. You can search for deleted documents by extension or filename, as well as sort the list of results.

Download Links

HandyRecovery 2.0 http://www.deprice.com/handyrecovery.htm

My Registry Cleaner http://www.deprice.com/myregistrycleaner.htm

Win Undelete http://www.deprice.com/winundelete.htm

More info: http://www.deprice.com

Software development and software engineering go hand in hand when it comes to the implementation of software. Software development deals more with the creation of the software and when this is complete, software engineering takes over with the creation of software systems. Both of these disciplines are at times interchangeable and without much difference to the layman. If you just want to have one specific piece of software designed, such as database software that will keep track of your bird watching hobby, then you'll just need software development. If, however, you want your bird watching database to be able to support multiple functions, such as delivering a report with statistics and results, then you'll more likely need the expertise of software engineering.

Software engineers will implement and design software applications through the use of many mediums. These software applications will then be used for a variety of purposes that include business practices to entertainment purposes. It is these software applications that allow users to make their time on the computer as functional and productive as possible. Types of software applications include language applications, office applications, entertainment packages, and applications for education.

The cost of hiring a software developer will be significantly less than hiring a software engineer. Before you make your final decision about what you want the software to do you need to plan you budget, your timeline, and determine what you want the end result to be. The industry of software development continues to grow each year as more and more businesses are having their own software developed for them that is specific to what they do and what they want the software to do. Most companies will already be using some type of software application, such as Office Suite, and most likely won't need another application developed for them. For most intents and purposes you'll be fine hiring a software developer for you and your business needs.

Collaboration Software

Collaboration Software, also known as group collaboration software or groupware, is software which allows cooperation on a business document between multiple parties on multiple computers. Collaboration software also allows the integration and merging of document changes and versions on a business document.

There are two types of collaboration software: IT centered and low IT involvement. IT-centered collaboration software, like many document and content management platforms, requires new IT infrastructure, training, maintenance and support. Low IT involved collaboration software communicates collaborative information to all parties involved using the existing IT infrastructure and with little or no training and maintenance, making open collaborative software more diverse and less expensive. This type of collaboration software also manages the ad hoc processes of business collaboration, assisting businesses even when the workload and deadlines create a hectic and disorganized schedule.

This article presents an index of collaboration software technologies to assist businesses in finding collaboration software that works for them. Any given internet search on "groupware" or "collaboration software" will yield millions of results. Knowing what technologies to look for will help whittle down the results to a groupware that works the way businesses work.

literally threads together multiple drafts of a document by placing a tag in the metadata of the document. Each time the document is edited or changed, the changes are tracked. When it comes time to merge versions of the document into the final draft, each version will be accounted for. In addition, those who work on the document will know what changes were made, when they were made, and where and by whom the drafts were saved.

Digital Signature is a signature appended to e-mails sent back and forth with draft attachments during the collaboration process that informs the user which draft it is and by whom it was saved. Finding the latest version of a document is very simple to track.

Version History ties everything together by presenting a visual flowchart outlining the "genealogy" of the document. Each draft is accounted for, and the who, what, when, where, and why of the document and its drafts are always answered.

Merge is usually the final and most difficult step of document collaboration. However, adopting the right collaboration software simplifies this process by allowing you to compare the changes in a document, even when those changes are saved in different locations or in your email account. Merging documents is often synonymous with sifting through document chaos, but collaboration software suites which can manage ad hoc business collaboration simplify the tracking and merging of document drafts.

Conclusion

Businesses move quickly, and collaboration software needs to be able to keep up. Business collaboration can be a messy ad hoc process, and collaboration software needs to be able to manage it. Merging business documents can be confusing and chaotic, and collaboration software needs to be able to simplify it. Digital Thread Technology, Digital Signature, and Version History are technologies that have combined to find a way to work the way businesses do.