Build Your Own Real Estate Empire By Using Free Foreclosure Listings
Posted on February 4, 2009
Filed Under free foreclosure listings, free online foreclosure listings | Leave a Comment
By D.C. Fawcett, Business Building Coach to the Foreclosure Industry
When real estate investors evaluate their options for securing deals and making profits, there are several things that may come to mind. Whether its preforeclosure, short sales, or bank owned foreclosures, investing is still based on similar principles, such as seller motivation. After all, real estate foreclosure sellers are naturally going to be more motivated and the motivated seller is the ideal client for most investors.
Where do most people turn when they seek opportunities in real estate foreclosures? Sure, they take a look at free foreclosure listings that comes from free or fee-based sources. They can then market their services and attract sellers in foreclosure by these means. While free foreclosure listings may lead to productive and profitable deals, they also can be time and cash intensive.
Another option to pursue is the world of bank owned foreclosures. When a property is lost via foreclosure it goes back to the bank and then becomes one of the now thousands of bank owned foreclosures (or REO properties) on the market today. How do you access bank owned foreclosures in your business?
The key is real estate training and also to work with a real estate agent who specializes in bank owned foreclosures. With the abundance of bank owned foreclosures out there, more and more realtors are promoting these opportunities and can provide you with free foreclosure listings to aid in your own pursuit.
Despite the leads you can generate from free foreclosure listings and the opportunities that exist with either preforeclosures or bank owned foreclosures, I think there is also a certain amount of risk for the investor because, without the proper foreclosure training, no amount of free foreclosure listings can properly educate you in the business. Profits can be lost and so too can foreclosure investing opportunities when you lack the proper real estate investing training.
I assure you that there are virtually unlimited deals to be found within the realm of real estate foreclosures. Whether you’re just curious how to make money with foreclosures or really dive in and engage in serious investing (made easier with both a steady source of free foreclosure listings and quality real estate training), there is a place for you in this business and you owe it to yourself to pursue it.
In today’s market, foreclosures as much as part of real estate investing as any other part of the business. Make sure you have a realtor on your team who can provide you with free foreclosure listings (or simply look for free foreclosure listings on your own) because the deals are out there to be had. Commit yourself to real estate training, and I wish you the very best in success in real estate foreclosure investing and in business as a whole.
Posted on March 9, 2010
Filed Under Home Foreclosure Investing | Leave a Comment
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Being Responsible in Your Foreclosure Procedure
Posted on March 8, 2010
Filed Under free foreclosure listings | Leave a Comment
Taking responsibility for the role you played. Now do not get me wrong here, I am not saying that your foreclosure is your fault. But what I am saying is that you need to take a look at how your foreclosure procedure developed and be honest with yourself about how your actions contributed to it.
I fully realize that my choice to move out of my home and let it sink into foreclosure was a stupid one. I also realize that there was a cost associated with that. A rather large and expensive one in my case because I decided to move back into the house and save it from foreclosure rather than letting it go. I paid a significant amount of money in fees and made some tough choices. I fully accept responsibility for my choice.
What choices did you make that contributed to your foreclosure? I know this is not an easy one and it can feel downright uncomfortable but if you want to stop your foreclosure procedure, think about this and be honest with yourself.
Being financially responsible. In an instant gratification kind of society like we live in, financial responsibility seems to have taken a back seat. Saving money and developing proper budgets to live on is not something popular or trendy. But if you want to stop your foreclosure procedure, you will need to take financial responsibility for your life. This means developing a budget that you can live with and a budget that is within your means. This also means tracking your money every month so that you know where it is going. The amount of money that you spend on stuff that you really do not need might surprise you.
Taking responsible action with your mortgage company. This means talking to them and trying to workout a solution to your foreclosure with them. Your foreclosure procedure will move forward whether you talk to your mortgage company or not. The responsible choice is the one where you choose to try to work with them. And if they refuse to work with you, the responsible choice is seeking help to deal with your mortgage company.
Jill Borash
http://www.articlesbase.com/mortgage-articles/being-responsible-in-your-foreclosure-procedure-736934.html
Abandoned Properties - One Of The Best Kept Money-Making Secrets - Part 2
Posted on March 8, 2010
Filed Under Home Foreclosure Investing | Leave a Comment
In part one of “Abandoned Properties, One of the Best Kept Money-Making Secrets”, we explored the great profit potential in this unique real estate investing niche. Although some of these properties might be the result of a foreclosure or other distressing event, remember that we’re helping the owner with his/her “house headache” when we invest in an abandoned property.
How Do We Find Abandoned Properties?
Here is one of the easiest ways to find abandoned properties. The first thing to understand is that the more affluent the area is, the fewer the abandons you will find. The less affluent the area, usually the more abandons you will find. I encourage you to find an area somewhere in between the two extremes.
If you keep your eyes open, you will find properties that might have the windows broken out, they might be boarded up, you might see the grass and shrubs overgrown, you might see trash, handbills, newspapers and other signs that this property might be a good candidate for a profitable abandoned property.
Keep a pen and a pad of paper with you at all times. I teach my students to take different routes to and from their normal destinations and write down the addresses of any properties that might be abandon property prospects. This might require that you leave home a little earlier than usual, but it is certainly worth it if it brings you just one abandoned property deal.
Using A Little Known Government Program With An Abandoned Property
Several years ago, I was taking my aunt to an appointment with a dialysis center when I came across an abandoned four unit building. This property showed all the classic signs of abandonment: boarded up windows, tall grass, trash and such. I wrote the address down and called my title company as soon as I got a chance. I gave them the address, and they gave me the owner of the property and the mailing address. I wrote an offer and bought the property for $82,000. We fixed the property up using a little known government program called the Rental Rehab Program to maximize our profits.
This program provided a 3 to 5% loan when the prevailing interest rates were 12% The program also allowed any qualifying tenants to drastically reduce the amount of their out of pocket monthly rent by going on the Section 8 Government Subsidy Program after the rehab was complete. The average wait for the Section 8 Program at the time was 6 to 8 years. This was truly a win-win deal for everyone involved. We kept the property for a number of years, putting a positive cash flow in our pockets every month. We eventually sold the property and made a lot of money.
The Best Financing In the World
With the property needing as much work as it did, it would have been almost impossible to get a conventional bank loan to finance it and, at the time I was in no position to pay all cash. So, what is the solution? As I mentioned before, seller financing is the best financing in the world. The seller of the property financed the entire deal for us.
Here is the point: Abandoned properties are one of the best kept money-making secrets in our industry. They are very good candidates for many of the government loans and grants that can super charge your profits. Tap into this area of real estate and watch your profits soar.
Reggie Brooks
http://www.articlesbase.com/real-estate-articles/abandoned-properties-one-of-the-best-kept-moneymaking-secrets-part-2-741187.html
How to Handle Your Foreclosure Procedure
Posted on March 6, 2010
Filed Under free foreclosure listings | 4 Comments
Every foreclosure procedure is different because the laws that govern foreclosure in every state are different, because every mortgage company handles foreclosure differently and because every person that goes through foreclosure is different. If you want to handle your foreclosure procedure well, there are a few things that you need to do.
One of the biggest things that helped me handle my foreclosure procedure was getting informed. When I first decided to save my home from foreclosure, I was in a state of panic. I had no idea what to do and no idea where to start. I knew that if I stayed in that frame of mind, I would never save my house from foreclosure. So I decided to start doing some research. The library and the internet are great sources of free education about foreclosure. So is your mortgage company. One of the first things I did was call my mortgage company and tell them that I wanted to save my home from foreclosure. As soon as I did that, they started to work with me and told me what to expect next. Being informed also helped me keep the feelings of panic at bay during my foreclosure procedure. When you know what to expect next, it is a little easier to handle.
Another thing I did that helped me handle my foreclosure procedure was to remain calm. I admit it, no I did not remain calm though the entire process, but I did for a lot of it. And when I was calm, I had a much easier time dealing with the mortgage companies. It also made it easier to deal with the other people who were a part of my foreclosure procedure. It is easy to get angry or depressed during foreclosure. But keeping in control of your emotions is one of the best things you can do. Not only for the people that you deal with but also for yourself. Getting stressed out or depressed will not solve your problem and will only make you feel bad. So do whatever you can to make sure that you do things that make you feel good during your foreclosure procedure.
Jill Borash
http://www.articlesbase.com/mortgage-articles/how-to-handle-your-foreclosure-procedure-705918.html
Loan Modification for Do it Yourselfers
Posted on March 6, 2010
Filed Under Home Foreclosure Investing | Leave a Comment
Visions of a glamorous lifestyle, back yard barbecues and pool parties that were fueled by teaser loan rates, not to mention negative amortization loans, wooed millions of homeowners into a false sense of security in the early years of this millennium.  House prices soared overnight and the dream of having a solid piece of real estate in a safe neighborhood, close to good schools, took on the utmost importance in the minds of millions of would-be homeowners.
The results of years of unchecked desire to become a buyer combined with irresponsible loan management have put American homeowners into a financial panic.  Over 2.2 million foreclosures were filed in 2007 and that was up 75 percent over the previous year.  The year 2008 is certainly sliding into the record books as well.
If these facts threaten to include you this year, STOP!  If you donât want to join them, then this is the time to make some clear determinations about what you will do.  It could take approximately 30 days for you to gather and present your case to your lender with the expectation that in the end you will have renegotiated your loan to include figures you CAN live with.
         You can request a modification from your lender without having to use an attorney or loan modification company. You will need to gather all the same documentation that they would request from you to handle your case, so why not save the $2500 - $4500 that would be charged by using an attorney or loan modification company.Â
         You may ask if it wouldnât be better to pay a financial expert to do this for you.  Maybe, but if you had the extra money to do this, you probably already took that route. And, like everything else in life, they cannot guarantee that this will work.   On the other hand, and without investing a lot of money, you can do this yourself and save thousands in the process.  The Loan Modification experts could not proceed without a great deal of input from you, so before you prepare to part with any more of your hard earned cash, consider handling the process yourself.
         Do not wait until the lender is ready to complete the foreclosure on your home, it may be too late to save your home by that point. You will want to contact your lender as soon as you know that you are running into a problem with your payments.Â
         There are many options that the lender may present to you other than a loan modification. If your financial loss was due to some hardship, an illness, divorce, death of spouse, or some sort of unexpected tax levy, sick child or disability or other hardship, you can talk with your lender about a loan modification or one of the other options explained below.
         FOREBEARANCE - Forebearance happens when you have fallen behind in payments and are moving into the dangerous area of foreclosure.  It is designed to bring your past due payments current over a specified period of time.  As one of the most common options, it encompasses a written agreement that you will make your full payment each month and a partial payment on your delinquent amount.
         An example of this is that if you have missed three payments you will agree to make the full payment and then you will spread the amount of the missed payments over a 6 to 12 month period in order to catch up and be completely current.
         Do you have an FHA/HUD loan? You may want to consider PARTIAL CLAIM, which is an interest free loan available to owners of that type of loan.  If this is negotiated, the delinquent portion can be tacked on to the end of the original loan and will go into effect after the first loan is paid in full.
         Next, look at SHORT SALES. Your lender may allow you to sell your home to someone for less than you currently owe. The main focus in this scenario is to talk with your lender first because he MUST agree to take a payoff that is lower than the current mortgage balance before the sale is final.
Last, but not least, is the LOAN MODIFICATION. This changes the terms of the loan to include lower payments, longer term loans, interest only, principle reduction or any combination that the lender is willing to work out with you. Â
It is very important to present a complete package to your lender when requesting any type of modification from your lender. You need to be prepared to document every hardship you claim with all of the encompassing legal paperwork.
 âThe Complete Handbook on Loan Modificationâ that is presented by LoanModificationDIY deals with helping you get a successful Loan Modification.Â
To learn about the different options that the lender may propose to you and how to prepare the best loan modification package, please visit <a href:”www.loanmodificationdiy.com”>LoanModificationDIY.com. </a>
Eli Zaken
http://www.articlesbase.com/mortgage-articles/loan-modification-for-do-it-yourselfers-736604.html
Posted on March 6, 2010
Filed Under Home Foreclosure Investing | Leave a Comment
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Stuck With McMansion
Posted on March 4, 2010
Filed Under foreclosure investment training | Leave a Comment
Were you lured by low mortgage payments into buying a palatial mansion, only to be stuck with a big house and earth shattering mortgage payments? You are not alone. Many well-educated individuals are in the same position.
The subprime mortgage crisis and its foreclosure cousin has affected more than the less than perfect credit borrowers the media has presented. Subprime lenders expanded their market base by offering products exclusively for borrowers with good to perfect credit. These mortgages - option arm, no money down, and 125% home equity - were offered to improve families’ home ownership opportunities. They did. Homeownership peaked at an all time high of 69.2% in 2004 from 64%.
The subprime crisis has become national as it affecting 60% of the American population. People are losing their dream homes and their sanity. They are stressed, attempting to cover mortgage payments that are increasing wildly, they cannot afford. Property values nationally are dropping sharply trapping people into a negative situation. Their American dream of owning a home, a major investment in America, is being crushed. People are stressed, depressed, and frustrated. People are in a financial funk.
Ida Byrd-Hill, President of Uplift, Inc. a 501(c)3 Idea Incubator has published a book, Breakin’ Out of Your Financial Funk, to help people mentally and emotionally deal with the financial panic they are now feeling due to the mortgage crisis.
Ida Byrd-Hill spent 15 years as a financial advisor and mortgage lender attempting to educate people to view their mortgage as a part of an integrated financial plan and not the plan alone. She believes when property values increased double and triple fold, Americans were baited into the false sense this boom would continue forever. People secured adjustable rate option arm, no money down and 125% home equity mortgages, not realizing greedy mortgage companies would increase their rates astronomically even when interest rates remained low.
Affluent well-educated people have been bamboozled by the trusted financial industry. Affluent well-educated people were baited into low mortgage payments with option arm mortgages. Option arm mortgages is the street term for the negative amortization loan which promised start interest rates as low as 1.25% to 4% compared to 5.25% to 8%. See the difference in the table below.
$500,000 Loan Amount
Rate
1.25% $1666.26 5.25% $2761.02
2.25% $1911.23 6.25% $3078.59
3.25% $2176.03 7.25% $3410.88
4.00% $2387.08 8.00% $3668.82
People trusted mortgage companies when they should not have been trusted. Adjustable rate mortgages once adjusted annually. Along the way, mortgage companies slipped in semiannual interest rate adjustment. Instead of a maximum rate increase of 2% annually, people are realizing a 4% rate increase annually. If your rate began at 3.25% and every year the interest rate is increased 4% a year, in three years, a person will reach the maximum legally allowable interest rate of 13.99 %. For a $500,000 mortgage, the payment in three years would jump to $5920.40 almost triple the original payment of $2176.03. Most people cannot handle an adjustment of that magnitude especially not over 3 years. The interest rate cap was once 9% but the mortgage companies lobbied Congress to increase it to make more money.
Option arm mortgages were designed for the super wealthy, who understood there would be balance of interest left over from paying only 5 percent of the interest due. The super wealthy gambled that their property value would increase faster than this interest balance increase and they would generate a sizable profit from this real estate transaction. The common individual would not be so lucky. Property values nationally have rapidly declined. People can not even refinance themselves out of this situation as their mortgage balance is higher than the worth of their house. Hence, they are stuck with a big house, a declining investment, earth shattering payment and an increasing mortgage balance.
Even when the foreclosures began to mount, mortgage companies could have renegotiated mortgages to adjust the rate annually rather than semiannually. They were not going to cut into their profits to save America.
Before you react irrationally and enter into a business decision that will ruin your life forever. Fight the funk. Read Breakin’ Out of Your Financial Funk, a book written to ease people out of the financial panic into a thinking, dreaming, and planning mode again. Or, better yet, give yourself a mental break at one of our Breakin’ Out of Your Financial Funk seminars coming soon to your region. Purchase the book or register for the seminar at http://www.upliftinc.org or http://Amazon.com.
Ida Byrd-Hill
http://www.articlesbase.com/finance-articles/stuck-with-mcmansion-580983.html
Stop Home Mortgage Foreclosure - Your Best Approach If You Think You Don’t Qualify For Obama’s Plan
Posted on March 4, 2010
Filed Under free foreclosure listings | Leave a Comment
How to stop home mortgage foreclosure in the kind of business environment that we’re living right now? Downsized keep coming by the thousands, and on top of that we have GM Bankruptcy is getting thousands of more people out of work, and beginning a domino effect that nobody can predicts.
How to stop home mortgage foreclosure when each time you turn on your TV or your favorite radio station all you listen is how things are getting worse by the minute.
Now with Obama’s mortgage loan Refinancing Program working at full speed, householders who are facing the possibility of foreclosure and have been trying to get a way to stop home mortgage foreclosure, now notice that the program isn’t going to find help those that are really in need the most.
The number of families being foreclosure at this instant is just beyond comprehension. There are numerous reasons why this is occurring ; most of the money will go to the banks as inducement, no to the homeowners is just one of them.
It isn’t important to say, that they will only work with those loans that are financially worthwhile for them.
The homes values, sadly continue dropping, and while some families will have son kind of success making an attempt to stop home mortgage foreclosure, most families will keep losing their houses.
The query that most of the homeowners are asking themselves is : How do I stop home mortgage foreclosure if I don’t qualify for the president’s loan alteration plan? What about if I my earnings has been cut in half? What happens if I have not revenue whatsoever?
You can find more help and advice on my blog by clicking the link below-
Â
Freddy Burton
http://www.articlesbase.com/loans-articles/stop-home-mortgage-foreclosure-your-best-approach-if-you-think-you-dont-qualify-for-obamas-plan-1094752.html
Bank Foreclosed Homes for Sale: Profit Guaranteed
Posted on March 4, 2010
Filed Under free foreclosure homes listing | Leave a Comment
One of the most profitable real estate investments is buying bank foreclosed homes for sale. You are guaranteed of a maximized profit as you can get these homes at below market level prices and sell them later at much higher prices.
There are different types of foreclosure homes for sale. Most of them are owned by either government agencies or banks. When a borrower fails to pay three consecutive installments on his/her mortgage, banks or other lending agencies are legally entitled to get back the principal unpaid balance. To avoid foreclosing on property, banks may at first try to arrange alternatives such as refinance. If the homeowner still fails to make payments, the lender then takes away the due in the form of the property against which the mortgage was secured. This is how a bank foreclosed homes for sale appears on foreclosure listings.
Buying foreclosure home has many advantages other than its cheap price. The concerned bank will take care of things such as property taxes and eviction hassles, and certain obligations. The property will be purely yours since the bank had wiped out all liens it bought the house. So the property that comes to you is clear of all legal obligations and you acquire a clear title.
Certain things should be kept in mind while buying foreclosure home. First, you should negotiate with the bank to get it at the lowest possible price. Even banks want to get rid of such properties quickly. So you have a better negotiating power. Secondly, you should always apply for a loan from the same bank. This will help in speeding up the whole process. Thirdly, you should always inspect before buying foreclosure home. Banks are not involved in fixing or repairing properties. If you find damages upon inspection, you can renegotiate the price.
The Internet is a great place where you can find bank foreclosed homes for sale. There are many portals dealing in such properties. They provide you with a listing of these properties to make your job more convenient. If you can acquire one, you are assured of getting maximum profit out of it.
Anirban Bhattacharya
http://www.articlesbase.com/real-estate-articles/bank-foreclosed-homes-for-sale-profit-guaranteed-976429.html
