While Banks and Savings and Loan associations nationally have been busy lining up to the public trough for bailout money. Another establishment has been busy composing home mortgages, your own local credit union.
Credit unions are non-profits that exist to make money, just not profitable. Their basic business plan is simple: credit unions receive deposits and use that money to make loans. They then charge more on those loans than is paid on deposits. You can also get credit union e-statements and credit union online statement via PSFCU.
And of course, they are very conservative when it comes to their lending standards. Subprime and option ARM mortgages have never been in their portfolios, nor did they sell and repackage loans as investments on the secondary market.
What credit unions did do is a loan only to credit-worthy members on mortgages that truly were not greater than what the member could afford. They also did this without creating fraudulent applications and wildly inflated appraisals-just like banks used to do in the old days.
Joining a credit union is generally based on membership requirements such as living in a certain area, working for a particular employer or industry, or belonging to a certain group.
The largest advantage of credit union membership is that loan rates are lower and returns are greater on savings and CD's than usually found at banks.