Friday, May 25, 2007

Is There Help In Preventing Foreclosure?

It is one of the most feared words in any homeowner’s vocabulary: foreclosure. And because of subprime mortgage loans, you are hearing about it more and more.

Foreclosure occurs when you have missed a set amount of mortgage payments, which can happen to anyone who doesn’t have help preventing foreclosure. These missed payments allows the bank or mortgage company to start taking complete ownership of your home, which means that they get to sell it, and you have to leave it, losing all of your equity that you may have built. Once the ball has started rolling on foreclosure, it is often hard to stop, but there is some home foreclosure help out there. You just need to look in the right places.

One of the best ways with help preventing foreclosure is to contact your bank or Mortgage Company as soon as you know that there might be a problem. If you lose your job, or some other catastrophe occurs, you will probably have a difficult time making your mortgage payments. If you contact your lender, there might be a few ways that they can find for you to help stop foreclosure free of charge.

Forbearance is one of the most popular ways to help stop foreclosure foreclosure. Free advice regarding forbearance can be given to you if you call your lender before your mortgage is a problem. Forbearance is when the mortgage company or bank allows you to put off your payments for a certain amount of time. Most of the time you will still be responsible for paying your interest, as well as your taxes and insurance, but having to pay a less than your normal amount may be enough to get you through the rough patch. When looking for help preventing foreclosure, this may be the best option for you.

A repayment plan is also a popular way to find help preventing foreclosure before it occurs. With a payment plan, you make a deal with your mortgage carrier to repay the amount of money that is due within a specific amount of time. A lot of carriers will have you plop down a large lump sum, and then will add a few hundred dollars to your monthly payment until everything is paid off. This is a good way to get home foreclosure help if you are only behind a month or two.

If, however, you do not anticipate having a large amount of money deposited into your bank in a short amount of time, and you have gotten past the point of getting a forbearance or repayment plan, there is only one thing you can do: sell. This is the best home foreclosure help you can get, because it is a win-win situation for you and your lender. If you can sell your home quickly enough, you will not have to deal with the foreclosure, or the pesky problem of bad credit that follows you around after the foreclosure. Selling your home on the open market can take months, so it is best, if you get to this point, to contact a company who purchases and resells homes as a business.

You might not get the same amount of money for your home as you would if you sold it through a realtor, but selling quickly will give you help preventing foreclosure and will allow a fair value for your home. When a company specializes in home foreclosure help, you can rest assured that you are in good hands. Help stop foreclosure free of charge and without throwing away your good credit and home ownership dreams by selling.

John Panico is the author of this article. John is an active investor of properties throughout NE Georgia. He is the General Manager of Local Guys Equities, LLC, one of the fastest growing real estate investment companies in Georgia. John founded the NE GA Real Estate Buying & Investing Group and wholesales properties to real estate investors around the country. Feel free to contact John about selling your house or other information.

Keywords: "home foreclosure help", "help preventing foreclosure", and "help stop foreclosure free"

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Need Help To Save Your Home From Foreclosure?

Mortgage lenders and banks are in the game for one reason: money. If you think that they are lending you a huge amount of money in the form of a mortgage just because they want to see you happily settled down, you had better think again. This is why, if you have a mortgage and have missed several payments, the lender starts to get testy. Missing one or two mortgage payments is bad enough, but when you miss enough payments that your lender is intending to foreclose on your home, things can get scary. Fortunately there is help to save your home from foreclosure, before it even gets to that point.

While there is no one specific foreclosure help program, stop that irritating lender in their tracks by actually sitting down and calling them. Often, if you have only missed a few payments, there are ways that you can get yourself back on track. First of all, your mortgage lender may be willing to refinance your home. Refinancing is basically when they pay off your current mortgage and issue you a new one. There are fees involved in this, however, and if they are not willing to add these fees onto your new mortgage, you may still need foreclosure help. Preventative steps take time, and if your mortgage lender is unwilling to refinance, you might need to try something else.

To help save your home from foreclosure, ask for a forbearance. Forbearance is one sort of foreclosure help program. Stop that large sum of money you owe by breaking it up into smaller pieces. Specifically, a forebearance is when the lender agrees to give you a specific amount of time to regroup yourself in order to start paying your mortgage regularly again. Often, college students get a forbearance when they are first entering the work place so that they can establish themselves first, before they have to start paying off their mountainous debts. It is basically the same principle. The only difference in a mortgage forbearance is that often you will be required to still pay the interest fees, as well as your insurance and taxes.

If all else fails, and there is no way to use a foreclosure help program, stop that train of thought and start thinking outside the box. If there is no way you can pay your mortgage lender the amount of money they want, in the time frame that they want, then it is best to sell your home as quickly as you can. By selling the home, you can pay the lender their money and hopefully salvage your credit in the mean time.

Selling your home through a realtor is a long process. Often now, realtors expect home owners to “spiff” up their home as much as possible before they will even think of taking on the home to sell. They may ask you to paint the home, or re-floor a room. Things like this take time and money, which you may not have enough of. Add to that the amount of time it takes to fully sell and house and you will start to realize that selling your home through a realtor is not the best way to help to save your home from foreclosure.

There are businesses that purchase homes, though, just the way they are. Businesses, or investors, that will give you a fair market value for your home in its current condition in order to help to save your home from foreclosure. This option allows you to pay off the lender in one lump sum. Frequently, when home owners have built up equity, these investors are able to give them enough money for their homes that they have a little bit left over with, after the mortgage has been paid off, to use as a nest egg on their next home.

John Panico is the author of this article. John is an active investor of properties throughout NE Georgia. He is the General Manager of Local Guys Equities, LLC, one of the fastest growing real estate investment companies in Georgia. John founded the NE GA Real Estate Buying & Investing Group and wholesales properties to real estate investors around the country. Feel free to contact John about selling your house or other information.

Keywords: “help to save your home from foreclosure", "foreclosure help program stop that", real estate, real estate investing, foreclosure help, we buy houses

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

How Can A We Buy Houses Company Help Me?

This was an article that I was asked to write for our local real estate investment group.

Real estate can be a real drag for a lot of people, especially if you are trying to sell your home quickly and without a great deal of fuss. For a lot of people, the price that you get for your home is not what you feel the home is worth, and even if you get your asking price, the buyer might make additional demands on you that require time, effort, and extra money. A sign that says “We buy houses in any condition and will buy your ugly home fast” may attract you, but often times, once you talk to the actual buyer, you will realize that the company is being unfair or dishonest. If you are not willing to deal with these hassles, it is important to turn to an honest real estate buyer to sell your home as is, right now, for cash.

You might be worried about scams and real estate fraud, and that is good, it pays to be cautious. Local Guys, LLC is not a real estate agency. They are simply a few guys who have banded together to form a real estate investment company, which means that they buy houses from people like you for profit. Signing up is easy and it costs you nothing to sell your house or ugly home as is for cash.

All you have to do is fill out the informational page about your house, and a representative from Local Guys will contact you to set up a meeting. They will want to look over the house, and can quickly put together a fair offer for you that is hopefully a win-win offer for all parties involved. If you do not like the offer, you are under no obligation to sell your house to Local Guys, and they will not pressure you to sell.

No matter what kind of house you are trying to unload, real estate investors like Local Guys have seen homes just like it and are willing to work with you. We buy houses in any condition and will buy your ugly home fast, while still giving you our full support and a price that works for all parties. Even if your home is in need of repairs, they will be able to make you a fair offer with the cost of the repairs deducted from the home values of the area and you can sell quickly and easily.

The threat of foreclosure may make it necessary to sell your house or ugly home as is for cash, and you may not have a lot of time to do it. Being in a hurry is not a problem. In certain cases, Local Guys can close the deal on a house and get you your cash within just a few days, freeing you up to do whatever you need to do. There are no judgments and no bad deals with Local Guys, just an investment company that wants to do what is best for their clients as well as for themselves. They make it easy to sell your house or ugly home as is for cash.

The best part about Local Guys is that it is totally free to you. You don’t have to worry about paying a real estate agent, dealing with fees, or any of the other common problems that drain money away from the seller of a home. Your house value will be determined, an offer made, and the decision to move forward or not can be taken from there if you are interested. Local Guys make the extra effort to make every deal a win-win deal for the seller. Contact us today; we buy houses in any condition and will buy your ugly home fast—and will do it honestly.

John Panico is the author of this article. John is an active investor of properties throughout NE Georgia. He is the General Manager of Local Guys Equities, LLC, one of the fastest growing real estate investment companies in Georgia. John founded the NE GA Real Estate Buying & Investing Group and wholesales properties to real estate investors around the country. Feel free to contact John about selling your house or other information.

Keywords: sell your house or ugly home as is for cash, we buy houses in any condition and will buy your ugly home fast, Georgia real estate, real estate, rentals, renting, georgia properties, georgia apartments, georgia leases,georgia apartment locators,georgia rental market,georgia properties,georgia,for rent in Georgia, rentals in georgia,real estate in georgia,for lease

Monday, May 21, 2007

7 Marketing Mistakes Real Estate Investors Make

When you are new to real estate investing, you underestimate just how important marketing is. For those who have been at it awhile, you may not be marketing yourselves properly to get the results you want. Marketing challenges are quite common for businesses of all sizes and affect equally those who are new to real estate investing as well as established pros.

Most times you know if your marketing is getting the desired objective. Sometimes, you aren’t as sure. Take a moment to look at the 7 biggest mistakes that are made in relation to real estate marketing. Keep these in mind and learn how to avoid having these costly mistakes eat up all of your profits.

Mistake #1: Not Developing a Marketing Plan

Whether you know/understand it or not, “Those who fail to plan, plan to fail” is law. No matter what type of business you are in, a marketing plan is a critical component of your success. It makes you come to grips with SWOT (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities,Threats). From there, you can design the objectives and tactics to further develop your marketing efforts in the future.

Mistake #2: Not Planning a Marketing Budget

This business can be done inexpensively. However, that doesn’t mean that you won’t spend anything either. You need to spend money to publicize, market, and advertise your business to make it successful. As a general rule of thumb, you may spend at least ten percent of your revenue on marketing efforts. No matter what size your company, you need to have a marketing budget. In the beginning, it isn’t the size of the budget, but the consistency. Better to spend $50 @ month over 6 months than to spend $300 in one month.

Mistake #3: Not Targeting a Specific Target Audience

Trying to appeal to everyone doesn't work. Gary Keller’s Millionaire Real Estate Investor talks to the idea of “know your criteria”. Essentially it means to know and understand the types of properties you want to invest in. You need to understand that your market doesn't include everyone or every price range of home. So decide your target demographic and use appropriate media outlets to reach that audience. For example, if you have a small, 2 bed/1 bath low end condo, advertising it in the family oriented newspapers is probably not going to get you the results you want.. Perhaps advertising at the local grocery store might be a better target for your marketing efforts.

Mistake #4: Not Developing a Clear and Consistent Marketing Message

All your marketing materials, advertisements, and promotions need to convey a consistent look and message. You want your customers to know what you do or sell no matter where they see your name. This is part of building your brand. Logo’s are a part of your brand and should be included to help set you apart from your competition.

Mistake #5: Houses Do Not Sell Themselves


Many investors (both beginning and experienced) make the mistake of thinking that their house (or website to sell their house) is so great and so different that they don't need to market it at all. However, no one will know how great your property is, or that it even exists, if you don't tell them. Word of mouth and referrals can only take you so far. No matter how great your product, you need to advertise and market to get it sold.

Mistake #6: Not Clearly Defining the Product Benefits

We live and work in a highly competitive marketplace that is constantly changing and offering customers more and more choices. Were Lease Options a typical sales option 10 years ago? Today, the paper is full of them. Put yourself in the potential buyers’ shoes. Something has to get your attention to make you choose one house over another. Be clear to let people know why your house is better.

Mistake #7: Not Diversifying Your Media Mix

There was a time that you could put your house on the MLS with the keywords, “needs TLC”, “Handyman Special” etc and your house would sell. Media today is very fragmented, so you need to reach your audience through more than one outlet. So, if you plan on relying on bandit signs alone (or any one media), you are limiting your opportunity for success. If you are doing signs, then add flyers, car wraps, pizza boxes, direct mail, and any other form that you can think of. Each form of media helps to reinforce your message from #6 above.

Avoiding Marketing Mistakes in the Future

If you have been able to answer the marketing challenges above, don’t think you can stop there. Marketing is one area where you can’t rest on your laurels. Once things are going well, there is a tendency to let good marketing practices slide at times. This can have a devastating effect on your business.

Marketing is not a light switch. It is something that builds over time and then gets momentum. Stop it and see how hard it is to get it going again.

John Panico is the author of this article. John is an active investor of properties throughout NE Georgia. He is the General Manager of Local Guys Equities, LLC, one of the fastest growing real estate investment companies in Georgia. John founded the NE GA Real Estate Buying & Investing Group and wholesales properties to real estate investors around the country. Feel free to contact John about selling your house or other information.