The number of mortgage products that require a deposit of 10% or more has steadily increased over the past year. This time last year there were 214 90% loan-to-value products, compared to 343 today, which is good news for first-time buyers.

Here is a selection of some of the best five year fixed rate deals with a 90% loan-to-value.

Chelsea

• This five year deal offers a rate of 4.69% to 31 March 2017.
• The maximum loan-to-value is 90% and purchase and remortgage customers can borrow between £75,000 and £500,000.
• A fee of £1,495 is payable.
• There is also the option to make overpayments of up to 10% of the mortgage advance.

HSBC

• This five year product from HSBC offers a rate of 4.89% to 31 May 2017.
• The maximum loan-to-value is 90% and customers can borrow up to £400,000.
• A fee of £599 is payable.

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Obtaining a business loan is an important part of bringing your business to fruition. No matter how great your idea is, your business is not going to get off the ground without funding. There are a variety of business loans available to help your company get the funding it needs. What do you need to get a business loan?

Look To Online Lenders

Online loans could be a viable way to get the funding your company needs. There will be a variety of lending options that may not exist from a typical bank. Most of the exotic loans that a business will apply for are only offered online. Your bank is not going to offer a factoring loan in most cases. The Internet may also allow you to find loans that offer better interest rates if your company doesn’t have great credit yet.

Having the proper level of funding is going to be critical to the survival of your company. You have to have the money to pay suppliers, employees and for equipment. Read more…

Since the implementation of the CARD Act, banks are no longer allowed to recruit student applicants on campus. Solicitations can occur, but bank representatives must remain at least 1,000 feet off of campus if they are offering food or other enticements. Furthermore, they are restricted from offering gifts in return for people filling out new applications for credit. Unfortunately, the law only specified “tangible gifts,” which many banks have interpreted in such a way as to allow the distribution of online coupons or bonus reward points.

Another practice that the authors of CARD Act sought to curtail was the granting of credit to college students and young adults who lacked a means to repay their debts. Too often, college students who incurred substantial credit card debt would rely on their parents for repayment. The CARD Act prohibits banks from extending credit to adults between the ages of 18 and 21, unless they can obtain a co-signer that is above 21. Oth

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If you have been marked by a fair credit rating, then you are somewhere in the middle. This is not essentially a bad score, but it is certainly not a very good either. It would basically mean that you missed several payments, when you did not have funds or your debt to income ratio is quite low. Some credit card offers for people with fair credit are balance transfer cards, cash back cards and rewards cards. Read more…

This week, Marc Andreessen announced that Ning, the social networking platform company he co-founded in 2004 and that went on to raise nearly $120 million, had “agreed to merge” with the lifestyle blog network Glam Media. Yet few believe it will be a marriage of equals.

“Merger” was almost uniformly put in wink-wink quotations in press accounts of the deal. Outside investors didn’t buy it, either. “My guess is that Glam thinks it is gaining some credibility by adding Andreessen to its board, and in return Glam is putting Ning out of its misery,” said one VC who asked not to be named.

Andreessen seemed further undermined – if unintentionally so — by Ning’s CEO Jason Rosenthal, who published his own announcement at Ning’s site, writing that Ning had “signed an agreement to be acquired” by Glam.

If Andreessen gussied up the deal a bit, can anyone really hold it against him? Andreessen clearly wanted to be respectful of Rosenthal and Ning’s founding team. He had investors to conside

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Updated with current price quotes for 2012!

Now, I always love every gift card that I get but what if youre trying to simplify your life and wanted to convert your Overpriced.com gift card to good ole fungible cash?

Well, the old-fashioned way was to sell them on eBay. A couple years ago, I tested out eBay and found after eBay auction costs and Paypal transaction fees ranged from 81% for Gap gift cards to 90% for Amazon gift certificates. However, the eBay route adds in hassle and potential for fraud. What if some buyer from across the country says your card arrived empty?

A bunch of new websites have popped up that (1) provide upfront quotes for your gift cards, (2) provide a prepaid mailer to send in your cards, and (3) send you a check. The most popular ones appear to be , , , and .

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