Guardian Savings Bank Mortgage Review

Originally chartered in 1895, Guardian Savings Bank has expanded to 10 offices in Ohio and Kentucky and is considered one of the strongest performing banks in the Cincinnati Tri-State area. Guardian Savings Bank prides itself on its ability to offer personalized attention to its customers.

Although it services a small geographical location, this bank has over $3 billion in mortgage-related assets, a relatively large amount for an organization of its size.

This financial institution provides a variety of services, including checking and savings accounts, as well as its main line of service, mortgage products. In addition to fixed and adjustable-rate mortgages, Guardian Savings Bank offers government-assisted loans, such as VA and FHA loans.

Table of Contents: Guardian Savings Bank

• Guardian Savings Background
• Guardian Savings Mortgage Rates
• Guardian Savings Mortgage Options
• Guardian Savings Customer Service
• Guardian Savings Complaints
• Guardian Mortgage Qualifications

History of Guardian Savings Bank

Guardian Savings Bank was founded in 1895 in the city of Cincinnati. During its years of operation, the bank expanded from one location to 10 total branches throughout the states of Ohio and Kentucky. It offers plenty of affordable, flexible loan programs that can accommodate a variety of budgets, term lengths, and preferences.

This financial organization experienced a major controversy a few years ago when Guardian Savings Bank and another Cincinnati-based bank were accused of denying mortgages to predominantly African-American neighborhoods. Aside from this significant issue, the bank is not accredited by the BBB and has had seven complaints in the last three years.

Current Guardian Savings Bank Mortgage Rates

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Guardian Savings Bank Mortgages

Guardian Savings Bank offers many different types of home mortgages, from conforming loans to less traditional options. Here are Guardian Savings Bank’s various mortgage offerings:

Fixed-Rate Loans

With fixed-rate mortgages, interest rates stay the same throughout the lifetime of the loan. Fixed-rate loans are ideal for homebuyers who plan on staying in the home for several years. Individuals with secure finances who prefer predictable rates might want to take out a fixed-rate mortgage, particularly if interest rates are low at the time of purchase.

Guardian Savings Bank Adjustable-Rate Loans

Guardian Savings Bank offers adjustable-rate mortgages, loans that have low initial interest rates for a designated amount of time. After this period, monthly rates will rise and fall to reflect market trends. Many lenders provide their borrowers with interest rate caps to prevent these monthly costs from drastic increases.

Guardian Savings Bank recommends these types of home loans to buyers who plan on selling or refinancing their homes in the next five years.

Guardian Savings Bank Balloon Loans

Balloon loans do not fully amortize over their terms, so they require what is called a “balloon” payment at the end of the term to pay back the remaining balance of this loan. These can be desirable options for individuals with the financial standing to borrow for only a short amount of time, as these mortgages typically have lower interest rates than loans with longer terms.

Guardian Savings Bank Jumbo Loans

This bank offers jumbo loans for homebuyers looking to take out larger mortgage amounts than the typical limits set by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Currently, any loan that exceeds the amount of $484,350 is considered jumbo, or non-conforming. Jumbo mortgages can be helpful for homebuyers who feel comfortable paying larger monthly fees to cover high-value properties.

Guardian Savings Bank FHA Loans

The Federal Housing Administration provides these forms of loans to assist individuals who may have trouble putting 20 percent down on their homes. FHA loans are not available to all borrowers; instead, they will need to qualify based on certain factors, including household income.

Guardian Savings Bank VA Loans

Current or former members of the U.S. Armed Forces and their spouses can qualify for VA loans from Guardian Savings Bank. This type of mortgage allows borrowers to put a small amount down on their homes. Eligible individuals can benefit from the flexible term conditions and low costs associated with these mortgages.

Guardian Savings Bank Interest Only Loans

Guardian Savings Bank offers interest-only mortgages, with payments that do not contain principal costs. These kinds of home loans are particularly beneficial for first-time homebuyers who are not used to paying mortgage payments (and instead became accustomed to lower-cost rental fees). Interest-only loans give borrowers the opportunity to make lower payments during the first few years of the loan.

Guardian Savings Bank Bond Loans

These loans, which are issued by local and state authorities, subsidize the cost of homeownership for individuals who do not meet specific income requirements. They do so by offering cash assistance or decreasing increase rate costs. Guardian Savings Bank recommends these types of loans for low and middle-income families who may not qualify for FHA loans.

Guardian Savings Bank Construction/Permanent Loans

Buyers who know their home needs a lot of building and/or renovation work can take out construction to permanent home loan from Guardian Savings Bank. This type of loan can help fund the construction of a home; once the project has been finished, borrowers can convert their construction loans into permanent mortgages.

Guardian Savings Bank also offers construction only home loans, which can fund the building of the home for buyers who do not need a permanent mortgage.

Guardian Savings Bank Blanket Loans

Guardian Savings Bank offers these types of home loans for real estate investors with more than one property. Blanket loans prevent these individuals from having to handle multiple different mortgages, instead of allowing them to make payments to one bank with a single set of terms.

Guardian Savings Bank Mortgage Customer Service

At Guardian Savings Bank, borrowers can fill out a quick online form to get in touch with loan officers. They will need to provide their full name, address, phone number, email, and desired financial service product (such as home purchase, refinance, or lower loan interest rate). After submitting this information, a loan officer will get in touch and commence the mortgage selection process.

Borrowers will need to present Guardian Savings Bank with more information during the underwriting process. The following information may be needed and can impact individuals’ approval statuses and monthly payments with this financial organization:

• Employee W2 forms over the past two years
• 2 recent pay stubs
• 2 recent bank statements
• Copy of current mortgage note, if applicable
• Awards letters for pension income or social security
• Homeowner’s insurance declaration page
• Purchase contract and realtors’ contact information (for purchases only)

Guardian Savings Bank provides a limited amount of resources for prospective borrowers. For instance, it has an online mortgage calculator that helps estimate the approximate monthly fees associated with different types of home loans based on the amount borrowed, interest rate, and term length. Guardian Savings Bank also allows its borrowers to make their mortgage payments online.

Guardian Savings Bank Ratings and Complaints

Guardian Savings Bank was founded in 1895 as a regional bank that serviced the city of Cincinnati. Since then, the bank has expanded its service to individuals in the state of Kentucky. This organization is not currently accredited by the Better Business Bureau but has an A+ rating. With five customer reviews, the bank has a rating just short of 2 out of 5 stars.

While there have been seven complaints in the last three years, there have been four in the last 12 months.

A few years ago, Guardian Savings bank settled a suit that claimed they discriminated against black neighborhoods in Cincinnati from 2010 to 2014, according to Cincinnati.com, a news organization operated by the USA Today network. It was accused of violating the Fair Housing and Equal Credit Opportunity acts in the following ways:

• Situating branch locations away from black neighborhoods
• Training loan officers to focus primarily on white neighborhoods
• Failing to market mortgage offerings to black neighborhoods

This source stated that only 2.6 percent of mortgage applications for Guardian Savings Bank came from Cincinnati-area black neighborhoods between 2010 and 2014. This is significantly lower than the 5.7 percent of applications received by similar banks. Officials believe the bank did nothing to amend this situation at the time.

As part of this settlement, Guardian agreed to open additional locations in predominantly African American areas.

• Information collected Feb. 21, 2019

Guardian Savings Bank Mortgage Qualifications

Generally, lenders take credit score into account more than any other factor when qualifying individuals for home loans. When borrowers have a credit score above 760, they generally experience the best mortgage rates. However, those with credit scores above 700 should have no trouble securing a home loan.

Borrowers with credit scores below 620 or without a credit score may have trouble getting approved for traditional mortgages from Guardian Savings Bank.

Credit Score	Quality	Ease of Approval
760+	Excellent	Easy
700-759	Good	Somewhat easy
621-699	Fair	Moderate
620 and below	Poor	Somewhat difficult
No credit score	n/a	Difficult

Guardian Savings Bank Phone Number & Additional Details

• Homepage URL: https://ift.tt/33ENsn9
• Company Phone: 513-942-3500 or 513-842-0972 (for online mortgage services)
• Headquarters Address: 5901 Colerain Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45239

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States Where You Should Statistically Increase Your Auto Insurance Coverage

In 2017, there were more than 6.4 million car accidents in the United States. 

Thankfully, less than 1% (0.53%) of these accidents resulted in a fatality. However, more than 29% of these accidents resulted in injury and more than 70% resulted in property damage. 

Accidents happen every day. The causes linked to fatal accidents include speeding, driving under the influence of alcohol and other controlled substances, distracted driving, bad weather, decreased visibility of nighttime driving, and more.

Depending on the external factors in your state, you may want to consider purchasing additional auto insurance coverage. 

10 States Where You Should Statistically Buy More Auto Insurance Coverage

Taking factors such as rates of grand theft auto, annual precipitation, auto fatalities and drunk driving arrests into consideration, we calculated a score that indicates how risky it is to own and insure a car in every state. The higher the score, the more likely you are to need auto insurance. 

In this study, we found the top ten states you should consider having full auto insurance coverage:

1. Alaska
2. California
3. Kansas
4. New Mexico
5. Missouri
6. Montana
7. Mississippi
8. Arkansas
9. Colorado
10. Hawaii

Alaska had the highest score, largely due to its high rate of grand theft auto cases. If you live in Alaska, you’ll definitely want to use our free tool for comparing the best auto insurance rates.

Some states have less rainfall, fewer auto fatalities per capita, fewer cases of grand theft auto, and fewer DUI arrests, which lowers your chances of needing insurance but will never completely remove the need for auto insurance. 

Even in Maine, the state with the lowest score in our study, there were 172 car crash fatalities and 5,835 DUI arrests in 2017, 383 cars stolen in 2018, and more than 40 inches of rainfall annually. These conditions make even the safest state in our study dangerous for you to drive in. 

If you are uninsured or underinsured in your state, consider using our tool to compare affordable car insurance rateswithin your area. 

The State of Auto Insurance in the United States

There are more than 225 million licensed drivers in the U.S. who drive more than 290 million registered vehicles. In 2017, motorists drove a record 3.2 trillion miles in total, and this distance has increased by 1.34% per year on average since 1994. If Americans continue at this rate, in 2020 we will drive more than 3.3 trillion miles combined. By 2034, Americans will drive more than 4 trillion miles in a single year. 

As of 2015, there were an estimated 263 million registered motor vehicles. But in that same year, there were less than 203 million auto insurance policies. It is estimated that 13% of the U.S. population is driving without insurance.

It’s an unfortunate reality that nearly 1 in 8 drivers in the U.S. are uninsured, but this has led many to consider adding uninsured motorist coverage to their auto insurance policies. The disappointing part about uninsured and underinsured coverage is that we need to subsidize the 13% of Americans who do not have adequate (or any) auto insurance, but what’s perhaps worse than the reality of being hit by an uninsured driver, is being hit by a car thief.

States With the Most Grand Theft Auto 

In 2018, there were nearly 1 million (994,381) vehicles stolen in the United States.

Of these 900,000+ cars stolen, more than 54% of them were stolen within ten states. Although you may argue many of these states also have large populations, these ten states only make up 46% of the U.S. population. 

The top 3 states with the most stolen cars are: 

1. California: 163,391
2. Texas: 74,079
3. Florida: 47,217 

However, when you consider cars stolen per capita, Delaware, West Virginia, and Wisconsin top the list.

If you live in these three states, you will definitely want to consider purchasing a comprehensive car insurance policy that will cover the value of your vehicle in the event of theft. 

Some of the states with the lowest rates of car theft include Vermont, Maine, and New York.

States with the Most Auto Fatalities Per Capita

Another consideration when analyzing how much auto insurance coverage you should seek in your state is the number of fatal accidents per capita. It can be easy to look at the sheer volume of traffic-related deaths in states like Texas and California, with 3,722 and 3,602 deaths in 2017 respectively. What’s more shocking, however, is the states where car crash deaths per capita are high. 

The top three states with the most fatal car accidents are: 

1. Mississippi 
   1. The number of deaths 2017: 690
   2. State population 2017: 2,989,663
   3. Auto deaths per capita: 0.02%
2. Wyoming
   1. The number of deaths 2017: 123
   2. State population 2017: 578,934
   3. Auto deaths per capita: 0.02%
3. South Carolina
   1. The number of deaths 2017: 988
   2. State population 2017: 5,021,219
   3. Auto deaths per capita: 0.02%

Other notable states with a high rate of car crash fatalities include Alabama, New Mexico, and Montana. The states with the lowest number of auto fatalities per capita? Minnesota, Massachusetts, and New York are all places where the chances of being the victim of an auto-related fatality are lowest in the U.S.

If you live in Mississippi, Wyoming, or South Carolina, however, you may want to consider increasing your current auto insurance policy coverage. 

States With the Most Drunk Driving Arrests

Driving under the influence is a serious offense, and the statistics of drunk driving in the U.S. may shock you. In 2017, there were 797,259 DUI arrests in the U.S. This means that 0.25% of the U.S. population in 2017 was arrested for driving under the influence of a controlled substance. 

When you consider the states with the most DUI arrests for minors (under 18 years of age), the top states shift slightly. Two of the top three states for underage drunk driving arrests were not represented in the top 10 states with total DUI arrests per capita. 

Arizona has the most underage DUI arrests per capita with 198 minors arrested in 2017. Pennsylvania, the state with the second most DUI arrests of minors under the age of 18 per capita, had 349 arrests in 2017.  

The only state to have the most underage drunk driving arrests and total DUI arrests was Colorado. There were 239 minors arrested in 2017 for DUI and 23,664 total arrests made for DUI in 2017. 

States With The Worst Weather For Driving

Approximately 21% of car accidents are caused by adverse weather conditions.

The majority of these weather-related accidents occur due to wet pavement and during rainfall. In fact, 70% of weather-related accidents occur on wet pavement and 46% while it is raining.

With this in mind, we wanted to see which states are the most likely to have wet pavement or rainy conditions. Here are the top states with the most annual rainfall. 

If you live in states with a lot of rainfall, you are likely aware of how dangerous the road conditions can become. Even so, you may not have been aware of just how much rain can increase your chances of a car accident, which is why you should consider evaluating your current auto insurance coverage if you live in these states with the most rain per year:

1. Hawaii
2. Louisiana
3. Mississippi
4. Alabama
5. Florida
6. Tennessee
7. Georgia
8. Arkansas
9. Connecticut
10. North Carolina

Methodology 

In this study, we calculated a score based on four metrics: 

1. The average rate of auto theft in 2018 for every state
2. Total auto-related fatalities per state in 2017 divided by state populations in 2017
3. Average annual precipitation per state in inches 
4. Total driving under the influence arrests per capita in 2017

The score was calculated with equal weight given to the metrics. If there were more inches of rain on average in a given state, the score reflects that additional risk. If there was a higher rate of grand theft auto, similarly, the score reflects this risk of your vehicle being stolen. 

The post States Where You Should Statistically Increase Your Auto Insurance Coverage appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Controversial probate fee hike dubbed a 'stealth tax' on grieving families scrapped

Controversial probate fee hike dubbed a 'stealth tax' on grieving families scrapped

The extra death duty - which was set to come into force next year - could have cost the largest estates £6,000

Stephen Little Mon, 10/14/2019 - 11:01

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The government has decided to scrap the controversial probate fee hike introduced by Theresa May.

Probate fees were set to go up next year, potentially hitting 300,000 bereaved families a year.

Under the new system the charge would have gone up according to the value of the estate.

The changes would have seen the flat fee of £215 a year go up to £6,000 for the largest estates - raising around £155 million a year for the government.

The government will now review probate fees as part of the annual assessment of the fees charged for proceedings in the civil and family courts.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson says: “Fees are necessary to properly fund our world-leading courts system, but we have listened carefully to concerns around changes to those charged for probate and will look at them again as part of a wider review to make sure all fees are fair and proportionate.”

Jon Greer, head of retirement policy at Quilter, says: “A hike in probate fees has been on the cards for numerous months now, but just this weekend the justice secretary scrapped the controversial plan.

“The dispute was primarily because the tiered charge structure resembled a tax, rather than a fee. 

"Even the Office for National Statistics said that it expected to treat the charges as a tax in its evaluation of the UK’s finances. Scrapping the hike in favour of a review was an easy win that was hard to miss.”

Probate fees give legal control to the family over the estate of someone when they pass away.

Currently a flat fee of £215 applies in England and Wales - or £155 if you use a solicitor – on estates above £5,000.

Critics argued that the hike was a backdoor stealth tax that would hurt grieving families.

Under the original plan, the threshold for paying fees was set to be lifted to £50,000, exempting 25,000 estates annually from fees.

Estates valued between £50,000 to £300,000 would be charged £250, going up to a maximum £6,000 for estates more than £2 million.

Kay Ingram, director of public policy at LEBC, says: “I am delighted as we campaigned against this increase which looked more like a tax than a fee.

"We understand the courts have to be paid for but lumping that cost on bereaved families was an unfair burden and we are pleased that the government have listened.”

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