Any experience with United First Financial's Money Merge Acc

ednorton52 · Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 3 3.34 Dollars($)

I was wondering if anyone had experience using United First Financial's Money Merge account program. The program is designed to pay the mortgage off more quickly by depositing your paycheck into an equity line of credit account then using the equity line to pay your bills. Is it a ligitimate program? Does it work? Any concerns with using the program? Thanks for your time...

larry · Joined: 27 Jun 2007 Posts: 2951 411.26 Dollars($)

Hi Ednorton,

Welcome to the forum.

United First Financial Money Merge account program uses a sort of calculator which will tell you that if you increase your mortgage payments, the loan will be repaid faster. But paying off your mortgage faster is not a good idea as you may have to face prepayment penalty for the early repayment. Through this penalty charge, the lender will compensate for the interest and other charges that would otherwise be lost.

Guest 0.10 Dollars($)

I have used the Money merge account and it's wonderful. It helps you pay off your mortgage fast.

The major difference between the Money Merge Account (MMA) and other mortgage acceleration programs launched by lending institutions is that, the latter involves an entire first position HELOC. But United Financial has developed the MMA such that it is based upon a smaller second position HELOC.

An HELOC in a first position increases interest rate exposure to you because it is a variable rate loan. Also, it decreases the ability to accelerate your loan. This is because the HELOC is attached to the Prime Rate.

ednorton52 · Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 3 3.34 Dollars($)

Alex, Thanks for sharing your experince. Does the MMA account allow you to continue to invest (Stocks and Mutual Funds) outside of the account and can you stop at anytime?

bwfgllc · Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 10:33 pm Post subject: United Financial First MMA

I am a United Financial First representative and yes you can continue to invest outside of the account. When you do your analysis just include it as one of your expense so it is not recorded in your disposable income which is a main variable used in the calculations. If you are able to consider opening a MMA account I encorage you to do so! If you need help send me an email

0.10 Dollars($)

Hi Ednorton,

With a Money Merge Account, you can continue to invest in stocks and Mutual Funds.

kim · Joined: 19 Sep 2007 Posts: 1 1.27 Dollars($)

Hi there,

I am on the MMA for about 4 months now. I am very happy with it. So happy with it I have become an agent as well. Please let me know if you have any questiuons.

livinginnky · Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:07 am Post subject:

Ok seriously I need some clarification.

evolovik26 · Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:11 am Post subject:

Hi, in the end its all about managing your money correctly you need to follow through with the program if you want it to work for you. What happens is you use your HELOC to pay all of your bills and your mortgage and then deposit all of your paycheck minus the money you plan to invest and some nessesary cash into the HELOC (you need a positive cashflow in order for this to work and you need to be responcible enough to do what is nessesary

livinginnky · Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:27 am Post subject:

upon seeing their website I would like to add...

This is not unlike any other heloc or home equity line of credit.

You can not save money by paying off debt with debt unless the interest rate and closing costs are significantly lower than the first debt.

You can right checks and make payments with any equity line of credit. However this is like paying bills with a credit card.

Why would you pay interest and fees to them when you could pay out of your own interest bearing checking account?

Do not fall for this I see from other forums that the consensus unless you work for them is that this is A SCAM.

Do a google search for "money merge account"

Guest 0.10 Dollars($)

I am a rep. with them and it makes a lot of sense.

Most people do not have large amounts of monthly disposable income to make additional payments so by using a small line $10,000.00 max you are able to make an additional payment toward the principal on the mortgage effectively each quarter canceling years of interest owed. So you ask what is the magic, there is none! It is called leverging your disposable income by paying little interest on a Interest only Heloc which outstanding balance is always managable and drawn down on small increments, thus costing you the least amount of interest per month. For example if your disposable income is $500.00 a month the software will ask you to take $1,500 off your line and make an extra payment of principal to your mortgage, this $1,5000 may cost you $20.00 in interest. Then the software will wait till you pay HELOC down some more and then ask you next quarter to pay another $1,500.00 thus canceling more interest to be paid and so on and so on. So there is no scam it is just like using a loan to buy a house you cannot pay cash for.
As it relates to middleman comment there is no middleman just the client, the software and financial discipline. One last note when you do this program without a HELOC you can never use the money again if you need access to it because of an emergency. However with the MMA and HELOC you can choose not to make the extra principal payment to deal with your emergency and the effect is instead of paying off in 10 years you may pay off in 11.5 years or so. This is very practical and straight forward no gimmick!!

ednorton52 · Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 3 3.34 Dollars($)

Livinginnky your are right the world is flat.

I can assure you I have no relationship with this program other than a desire to pay off my mortgage more quickly.

For the rest of the forum I spoke to my financial planner who assured me it would be a beneficial program. He did say the company's claim that you can pay your mortgage of in 8-11 years is overstated. He said through his research it is probably closer to 11 years.

Thanks to everyone...

Caron · Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 5:34 am Post subject: RE:

I agree with you Eugene here. The thing is, one should follow a disciplined plan to manage his finances. From what Tim explined I found the program quite interesting thoiugh I haven't used it. But, what I am concerned about is, I am paying one debt using another debt - a point raised by Eric. And, it's with a HELOC, the rates of which keep changing. So fine, it pays off my mortgage faster but don't I pay more due to rising payments? Any thoughts..

livinginnky · Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 1:18 pm Post subject:

Wrong wrong wrong... directed at anyone who agrees with this program.

I am going to break it down once and for all for those that need this...

and any salespeople want to come with real facts not just "you will save big" or "everybody that is smart enough understands" I would welcome anyone with facts not "retoric".

[b]FACT[/b] If you pay additional payments to your 1st mortgage you will pay it off early. This is not disputable in any way. [b]FACT[/b]

Now to get to the truth we need more facts and not speculation so here we go...

The Real Deal-

Home Value = $100,000
1st Mortgage = $90,000 @ 7% for 30 years fixed with lender paid mortgage insurance
1st mortgage payment = $598.77
Other Bills = $500
Income = $5000 per month
Extra Payment every 3 months = $1500
Total Payments = $123,196.86 after 114 months or 9.42 years.
Or a savings of $92,363.19 compared with paying over 30 years.
Anyone can do this and it is the best way to pay off a mortgage. All you do is pay extra instead of following the 30 year payment plan.

Now the scam version Same criteria only now with a heloc-

Home Value = $100,000
1st Mortgage = $90,000 @ 7% for 30 years fixed with lender paid mortgage insurance
1st mortgage payment = $598.77
Heloc @ 9% interest = $1500 balance every 3 months
Other Bills = $500
Income = $5000 per month
Extra Payment every 3 months = $1500 which adds $1500 to heloc
Total Payments = $123,196.86 after 114 months or 9.42 years.
Or a savings of $92,363.19 compared with paying over 30 years.
BUT
Now we add the cost of the heloc =
$1500 rolling balance that you pay off every 3 months. Which has a payment of $507.52 in order to keep the balance at $0.
Total Payments = $1522.56 every 3 months..
Month Payment Interest
Paid Principal
Paid Remaining
Balance
1 $507.52 $11.25 $496.27 $1,003.73
2 $507.52 $7.53 $499.99 $503.74
3 $507.52 $3.78 $503.74 $0.00

Not to mention that many heloc's require you to take a minimum draw in the beginning. This may be something like $5000 which you have to pay extra uneeded interest on.

So after the 114 months to pay off you pay an extra =
$857.28 for nothing at all AND add the cost of whatever your "software" costs which ranges from $1000-$8000.

So there is no reason why you would use a credit line to pay with money you already have. All of your sales pitches seem to rotate around taking advantage of desperate people. You could also do this same thing with a credit card. But that wouldn’t make as good of a sales pitch would it?

Extra:
I also find it puzzling that user Ednorton posted this as a question for advice from the forum. When I gave him advice later he chimed in that and I quote

livinginnky · Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 5:33 pm Post subject:

It's been hours and now that the facts have been posted all the sales people have disappeared. I notice that I can't comment on most of the other forums that these trolls well troll.

I still want someone to show me some better math.

ps. If I use the figures used in the main sites examples the situation is even worse for the customer. I apparantly was being to fair and unfortunately the costs to take part in such a program will be higher than what I stated.

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