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Make Your Home the Best it can be by Staging

admin — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 16:02:45 +0000

With the housing market groaning under its own weight these days, potential home sellers need every advantage they can get. One way that a family can help move their home faster is with a practice called home staging. The logic behind home staging is simple: try to make your home look as special as possible when people view it and you will have an increased chance of selling it.

Some tips on how to stage your home properly include simple things like picking up after yourself and taking out the garbage. But there are hundreds of other things that you can do to make your house more memorable.

Try baking a batch of cookies about 30 minutes before you show your home. The inviting and pleasant smell can make people remember your home over others they might have seen.

If you have pets, try to either board them at a shelter or groomer, or at the very least, have a neighbour watch them for an hour to have the home pet-free. You never know when you’ll show the house to someone who might be allergic or someone who simply doesn’t like pets.

The same can be said for a baby or kids. While you can’t board your children (unfortunately), see if a friend can watch them while you’re showing your house. You don’t need little Johnny creating a mess or baby Sue crying at the top of her lungs when you’re trying to show your place.

Vacuum everywhere. There probably isn’t a bigger turn off when viewing a home than dirt. Although logic would suggest that the first thing you do when you move into a new home is clean every last inch, the sight of a dirty floor or carpet can lower people’s opinions of your home.

If you have rooms that are barren, spend a few dollars on basic decorations or plants to give a room a warm, inviting look. The same goes for other rooms in your house. Stay away from clutter and dark, cool colours. Try to focus on warmth. You don’t want the people viewing your property to ever want to leave.

As you can see, the idea of staging your home for viewing makes perfect sense. Take away these added touches and the home becomes just a lifeless house. But integrate these basic steps into your house-showing routine, and you can expect to sell sooner rather than later.

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Home Foreclosure: 5 tips to keep you in your home

admin — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 21:31:34 +0000

The best time to prevent a house foreclosure is before your lender even suspects that you might have a problem. There are many things that you can do to save yourself from getting into the stressful situation of being faced with a possible foreclosure.

These five tips will help you to be sure that you can always stay in your home - until you choose to leave!

1. Budget And Save

Be sure to have a monthly budget that you keep to. Making sure that your spending is always a little less than your income is the way to financial security and a stress-free life.

Try to budget some savings each month - or at least, if you sometimes have higher income or lower spending, put the extra into a saving account rather than spending it on treats. To cover emergencies like unemployment, you would want at least 6 months of mortgage payments in your savings account all of the time.

2. Set Up A Home Equity Line Of Credit

A home equity line of credit can be a good way to make sure that you will be able to make your mortgage payments even if you do not have money saved. If you set this up before you have any financial problems, you can then activate the line of credit if you need to.

A home equity line of credit will give you instant access to credit at a low interest rate so that you don’t have a late payment showing on your mortgage loan account and affecting your credit rating. All of the application is done ahead of time. Then you can pay it back as soon as possible so that you have it again if you need it another time.

3. Put Your Mortgage Payments First

Your home loan payment should always be the first payment that you make. Prioritize this over other bills, and cut any other expenses that you can to be sure of making this payment each month.

Missing one payment may not seem such a terrible thing but it immediately shows up and affects your future ratings. Your lender may start to take action as soon as 14 days after your first missed payment was due. Plus, when you have missed one payment it becomes much more likely that you will miss more.

4. Talk To Your Lender

Do not hide from your lender or hope that they will not notice that your payments are late, low or whatever problem you are having. They will instantly know if you do not make the right payment at the right time. Talk to them before you even have a problem if you can. For example, if you know that you will not be able to make next month’s payment, call them now, do not wait until the payment is due. This gives you a chance to negotiate without ever having a missed payment on your record.

5. Talk To Your Family

For many people this is even harder than talking to the bank, but it is important to swallow your pride and let your family know what is happening. If the worst happens and your lose your home, they are going to find out, so why not tell them while they still have a chance to help?

You may be surprised at what your family can offer. Even if they cannot help you out with money, there may be other things that they can do. Maybe you could live with them rent free for a while, and rent out your home to cover your payments. So do not wait until you have no more choices and are faced with house foreclosure.

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How to stop Foreclosure

admin — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 03:43:40 +0000

If you are faced with the question of how to stop foreclosure, your options will depend on your current financial situation. The best choice for one person is not necessarily the best for another. Take a look at the possibilities below.

If You Can Make Your Monthly Payments From Now On

If you are able to budget for monthly payments, but you cannot immediately make all the payments that you missed, you are in a very good position and you should be able to avoid foreclosure easily. These are your options:

- renegotiate your loan with your current lender for either slightly higher monthly payments or a longer loan term

- find a different lender to refinance your loan (but be careful not to end up in a worse situation)

- cover the missed payments immediately by borrowing from family or friends, using other funds that you have, or selling something; then be sure not to miss another payment.

To agree a deal with your lender, try to talk to somebody in the loss mitigation department. This is not necessarily the first person that you will be directed to, because loss mitigation tends to be involved later down the line. However, they usually have more ability to be flexible than the collections department that you will typically speak to first.

If You Can Make Payments, But Not Enough

In this situation you could consider filing for bankruptcy. You will need to agree a way to pay off your debts with the court, or pay whatever you can pay. This can be the best option for people who have many debts, which is often true of people who are facing foreclosure. It is a way that you can put your financial affairs into some kind of order and also keep your home.

You should definitely see a lawyer if you are considering this option, and try to find one who specializes in bankruptcy.

If You Cannot Make Monthly Payments

If you are in a bad financial crisis that is going to continue, then probably you will not be able to keep your home and the sooner you face up to this, the better will be the outcome. Once you see it this way, leaving your home voluntarily can be a good way to retrieve your situation when there seems no other way out.

For some people, there may be the option of renting out the house. This could work if the monthly rental will cover the loan payments. However, do not forget that you will have costs and there is also some risk - what if the tenant doesn’t make the rental payments? You will also need to have the lender’s permission before you do this.

If losing the house seems unavoidable, you should always try to sell it yourself rather than let the lender have it through foreclosure. Of course this may take a while but if you show the lender that you are doing this, they may agree to wait.

If your house is worth more than the amount that you owe, by selling it you can come out with a little money and still have a good credit rating if you want to buy a house again in the future. You may even be able to move to a cheaper property and continue owning your own home right now.

If your house is worth less than your loan, you may still be able to settle the debt by selling it. You need to talk to your lender about whether they will accept a ’short sale’. This means that they take whatever you get for the house, and agree to write off the rest of your debt. This is better for them than foreclosure where they have high legal expenses.

A short sale is likely to affect your credit rating because usually, it will show as less than full settlement of your debt. You may be able to avoid this by consulting a debt law specialist. But even if you cannot, this is still better for your credit rating than allowing the foreclosure to go ahead.

There are many ways to avoid home foreclosure and they all have merits in different situations. So when you are looking at how to stop foreclosure, be sure to consider all of your options.

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