Mortgage Question
Question: I own a home that I have a mortgage on and make all payments on. There is a co-borrower on that loan. I want to buy a second home. For mortgage purposes, will the entire first mortgage count against me or just 1/2 of it? Quite true. A lot of people seem to think that co-signing a loan amounts to >giving a character reference or writing a letter of recommendation. I find >it curious that books, news columns, etc. on personal finance do not >emphasize the dangers, since co-signing is a common practice.
Answer: A friend asked me to co-sign a car loan for her adult daughter. I had met the daughter maybe 3 times. The daughter was nice enough but I had no idea where she lived, did not see her regularly, knew next to nothing about her finances except that she had bad credit. Well, her Mom got indignant wanting to know why wouldn’t I sign, like it was a personal insult. Never saw the “friend” after that.
The only loan I ever co-signed was to get our oldest son started, and that loan wasn’t for any more than we could just write a check for if we had to. He lived with us and we knew exactly what he was doing, working, banking & where the (used) car was. He paid it off and had good credit of his own after that. He now has a new truck that cost more than my car, he put $10k down, 3 year loan, I had nothing to do with it. I knew an Army lieutenant who co-signed a car loan for a buddy. The buddy disappeared, and the lieutenant had to pay the entire loan. Co-signing a loan is like borrowing the money yourself. And, as the saying goes, when you go into business with friends, you lose both your friends and your money.
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