Fixed Frame Projection

Fixed Frame Projection

Fixed Rate Mortgages: Back To Basics

In many sections of the country the home purchase market has slowed down. Prices of homes for sale seemed to go through the roof. Mortgage interest rates, while still low historically, are up from last year. During this volatile time the homebuyer can choose from a number of options. Fixed rate mortgages give the purchaser of a home a secure way to finance that home. Fixed rate mortgages allow for a more certain base from which to budget house payments for the future.

Recently, much activity in home purchase loans has been in the category of conventional adjustable rate loans. Adjustable rate loans offer some really attractive features. One is a lower entry rate generally than a fixed rate mortgage. There is a designated period of time when the buyer is paying that lower rate. The risk element is that the payment more than likely go up when it starts adjusting. This could really disrupt your budget, since your property taxes and homeowners insurance will be going up also over a period of time. But, the amount of increases could be minimal. The money you save by getting that lower rate up front could result in some real savings. So the real benefit is getting into the house with lower payments thereby affording the new payments.

Another popular way of getting into a home has been the interest only payment option. This can either be calculated on a fixed rate or adjustable rate mortgage. On the fixed rate mortgage program this interest only feature can last for as long as ten years. Then the mortgage payments are recast. If originally the loan was to amortize for thirty years it has to be paid off by the end of the thirty years. The way this happens is that the loan is recast so that the last twenty years of it includes enough to payoff the interest plus that entire deferred principal. This can result in a substantial increase in payments. On the adjustable rate mortgage the interest only option is in effect during the time the loan is in the fixed period time frame. As an example, if you have a 3-year, 5 year or 7-year period of time before your loan becomes an adjustable, the interest only portion covers that phase. When your loan starts adjusting, the deferred principal will be included in the new payments. As in the prior example: if the rates have gone up you will have higher payments.

A variation of these prior themes is the potential negative amortization ARM. This offers a low start rate. The payment is fixed for a certain period usually a year. The interest rate though is not set with the payment. Usually the interest rate adjusts monthly. Therefore, the payment may not be enough to meet the necessary amount to amortize the loan over the 30-year period. If the payment is not enough to amortize the loan as the months go on, then the shortage is placed against the mortgage balance. The lender will allow this to go on only for a definite period of time before there is a recasting of the payment to allow for complete amortization. Let's say your payments have been in a shortfall by the end of each year. At the end of the first five years the loan will be recast so that the loan can be paid off in the 30-year period. This will result in not only the possibility of higher interest rates, but you having to include the deficient balance in the payback resulting in even higher payments.

Between the asking price of homes these days, the costs to get into one, and the projected payments it will take to keep that house up, one could have sticker shock. Initially, the fixed rate mortgage loan may seem less attractive than an adjustable rate mortgage because of the somewhat higher payment. The adjustable rate and interest only mortgages may very well be the way to go, particularly if you looking to move into the next home in several years. But in looking at the overall picture, if you are going to be in the home for an extended period of time, the fixed rate mortgage will be what you are looking to for stability resulting in long term affordability.

About the Author

Bill Wehr publishes mortgage articles at http://www.mortgagejourney.com. Bill has an MBA and is the owner of Great Pacific Northwest Mortgage http://www.billwehr.com serving Oregon and Washington. For loans please complete a secure on-line application at http://www.portlandoregonmortgages.com.

Should I make my own front projector screen, buy a cheap one or paint one on the wall?

I am in need of a fixed projector screen for my deticated home theatre. I am building my theatre and i am trying to keep it as low cost as I can while still making it nice and functional. I am in need of a projector screen and I really do not want to spend 2,000 or even 500 dollars for a screen. I have read that you can make your own using photo paper and a black frame for about a $100. I also know that I can paint one on the wall using goo kits for a couple of hunderd dollars as well. My other thought was to buy an inexpensive pull down screen and cut it from the mechanism and fram it.

The first answer is a good approach. I also recommend the AVS DIY Screen forum. However, I chose to paint my own screen The two approaches (blackout cloth and paint) have different advantages and disadvantages ... which I'll address at the end of this response.

I wanted as large as possible a a 4:3 screen (that is the native format of my projector) so I can show 4:3 images height while also showing 16:9 (or other widescreen images) full width (vs 4:3 as a subset of 16:9, and therefore much smaller).

I have a dedicated home theatre so I was able to use an existing wall for the screen.

In brief, I figured out the maximum width of screen I wanted based on my seating distance (You want the screen to cover a 36-40 degree angle left to right). In my case this was 96" wide. So for a 4:3 screen I needed a 72" height (more than possible with 54" blackout cloth). I made sure the drywall was smooth and then painted a 98" x 74" rectangle with three coats of a 3:1 mix of Behr Siverscreen and White Opal Pearlescent paint (wet sanding between coats).

I then fine tuned the projector to centre the image on the slightly oversize painted "screen" and masked the surface to a 96" by 72" size by painting the surrounding wall a medium blue-grey (the colour of the room).

I did not bother with black masking because:
- I project a wide range of image sizes and aspect ratios, so no single masking size works, and I was not interested/willing to build a motorized masking system
- I have not found a black border to be necessary.

So ... I made a fixed screen in several hours over a couple of days for about $50 in paint.

How does it perform? I'm very satisfied. Movies and HDTV look great. I even taped samples of commercial screen material on the surface and compared, and frankly could see no difference. As far as I'm concerned I have a screen equivalent to at least a $500 commercial screen, for 1/10 the price.

Ok, to the advantages and disadvantages of the blackout cloth and paint approaches:
- blackout cloth is limited in width and you can't vary the screen colour.
- paint can be any size and adjusted for specific conditions (e.g. I wanted a light grey screen rather than white).
- The paint approach doesn't require carpentry skills, but does require some familiarity with drywall and painting skills.
- The blackout cloth approach yields a portable, or at least movable, screen, while paint is fixed in place.
- Arguably paint is cheaper.

See the links below for some pictures / screen shots and the AVS DIY Screen forum.

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