Navigating Adjustable Rate Mortgages and Loan Options

If, like me, you check mortgage interest rates like an expectant parent checks their wife’s contractions, you doubtless will have analyzed every type of loan product in an attempt to inch the currently high rates down. 

Famed financial guru Suze Orman recently appeared on CNN extolling the virtues of an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM). But to many American homebuyers, mentioning an ARM is like the Ghost of Christmas Past returning to haunt us once more: Weren’t ARMs partly to blame for the 2008 financial crash? 

ARMs were derided in 2008 because many Americans got into financial trouble. Once their interest rates adjusted upward after three, five, or seven years, borrowers could not refinance down to a lower rate and fell into foreclosure. So why is Orman—whose monetary advice tends to be conservative—suggesting we go ice skating on a financial frozen lake?

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