Most new homes in America are built by builders or developers who build the new home with their own money or lines of credit in order to sell the finished home to the new customer. The new buyer simply obtains a regular "purchase money" loan and buys the house.

This is the simplest form of construction financing. Of course, the builder's borrowing costs are built into the price the new home buyer pays.

Nearly everyone who has ever searched for a mortgage has been asked if they would like to obtain a "pre-qualification" or a "pre-approval." In many cases prospective home buyers are told that they "need" a pre-qualification before they can even make an offer on a home. Typically, this is required by an over-zealous real estate agent. And, unfortunately, that same real estate agent often has no clue whether the submitted pre-approval letter is even worth the piece of paper it's written on.

Whether you are building your home as an Owner Builder or hiring a General Contractor, there are several people that will be involved with your loan process in addition to the loan officer with whom you choose to work. Knowing the roles of each of these people will make your loan process flow smoothly and quickly.

Here is a brief summary of each person and their job description.

If you enjoy working around the home and doing various DIY projects, then maybe you're ready for the Holy Grail of DIY - building your own home as an owner-builder. By eliminating the costs of a general contractor's overhead, you will save tens of thousands of dollars on your next home. And it's not as labor intensive as you might think.

Being an owner builder simply means you are overseeing the construction of your home without hiring a licensed builder.

The appraisal is just as important to your construction loan qualification as your income, assets and credit. The appraisal for a home to be built is even more important than an appraisal for a home that already exists. For a construction loan, the appraiser will do what is called a "plans and specs appraisal," meaning they will examine the plans and specifications for the home to be built and compare it to existing homes in the immediate area that are similar.

The number one mistake, hands down, that most people make when building their home is not allowing enough time to get through the process, especially for those people who are acting as an owner-builder and building without a general contractor.

Building a new home, and obtaining a loan to do so, is not as simple as going out and obtaining a mortgage to buy an existing home.

At one time, not too long ago, there was no such thing as a numeric credit score. Your credit report either showed that you paid on time or you didn't, and that was that. You were approved if you had a good rating and were denied if you had a bad rating.

Times have changed. Computerized credit reporting has made it possible to nearly instantly report good or bad information about you and your risk as a borrower.

My office provides owner builder construction loans. Never heard of them? That's okay, because owner builder loans are a very small niche within the construction financing industry. Basically, they are loans for people who want to build their homes without using a general contractor.

But, that's not really the point. The key is that our office works in a small niche in a large industry.

Do you know the main credit factors that affect your FICO credit score? If you don't know these nine key factors, you could be unintentionally damaging your credit score and chances at better financing terms.

Before discussing the Credit Scoring Factors, please keep one thing in mind: do not make any major changes to your credit before discussing it with your loan officer and chart the proper course.

When you talk to most business owners or entrepreneurs about email marketing campaigns, they will probably tell you that email simply won't work. In fact, many experienced marketers will agree.

And, I must admit that if you are using email campaigns incorrectly, they will prove to be ineffective - a large waste of time and effort. Indeed, if used improperly, they can even scare off potential customers.