Living near a vacant home doesn’t have to mean putting up with overgrown grass and unshoveled snow. Does your community use these eight common local laws, programs, and regulations to force owners to maintain vacant homes?

With the foreclosure crisis, you may have noticed a vacant home or two on your block. Rather than see the home free-fall into disrepair, push local officials to take action before the untended house lowers the value of your own home.

Here’s a list of common vacant-home laws, rules, and programs. Call your local elected official’s office to find out what your community has in place and how you can get those laws enforced:
•    Special assessments charged to owners of vacant homes to cover the cost of added police and fire protection.
•    Mandatory fire, safety, or code inspections of vacant homes.
•    Laws forcing a foreclosing lender to maintain vacant homes during the foreclosure process—especially important in states where foreclosure takes a year or more.
•    Rules that let your local government make repairs to vacant homes and charge the owner for the work.
•    Vacant-home registries listing contact information for owners of vacant properties.
•    Housing courts that hear cases filed against owners of vacant homes.
•    Programs that transfer vacant homes to community development corporations, housing nonprofits, or government housing agencies.
•    Property codes that make owners of vacant homes secure their properties and add exterior lights.

Mariwyn Evans has spent 25 years writing about commercial and residential real estate. She’s the author of several books, including Opportunities in Real Estate Careers, as well as too many magazine articles to count.

Visit Houselogic.com for more articles like this. Reprinted from HouseLogic.com with permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.

With foreclosure rescue scams widespread as more homeowners fall behind on mortgage payments, be smart if you seek help.

A record high 2.8 million properties were hit with foreclosure notices in 2009, putting even more Americans at risk of facing foreclosure rescue scams. Homeowners who fall behind on mortgage payments need to tread carefully when seeking assistance, since foreclosure rescue scams come in many guises. A day spent researching legitimate options, from a mortgage modification or principal forbearance to a short sale or deed-in-lieu, could keep you from becoming a scam victim.

Foreclosure rescue scams run rampant

Homeowners facing foreclosure are prime targets for scam artists. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission identified 71 companies running suspicious foreclosure rescue ads, and the Better Business Bureau counts foreclosure rescue rip-offs among its top 10 scams. Understanding how these scams work can help you avoid becoming a victim.

The variations are seemingly endless, but one popular foreclosure scam involves a representative of a so-called foreclosure rescue company promising to negotiate a deal with your lender. The rep, vowing to take care of everything, will instruct you not to contact your lender, lawyer, or credit counselor during the supposed negotiations. The more brazen ones will even tell you to pay your mortgage directly to them.

Once you pay an upfront fee or hand over a few months’ worth of mortgage payments, the scam artist will disappear. You’ll be left with an emptier wallet and a mortgage that’s in even deeper trouble because no deal was cut and no payments were made on your behalf. According to John Riggins, chief executive of the Fort Worth, Texas, office of the Better Business Bureau, upfront fees can range from $500 to $5,000.

Rip-offs come in many forms

A bankruptcy foreclosure scam can involve a promise to fend off foreclosure in exchange for an upfront fee. Instead of getting you legitimate relief, the fraudster will pocket the fee and secretly file a bankruptcy case in your name. The scam may seem to work initially, because a bankruptcy filing will stop foreclosure proceedings temporarily, but they’ll resume. Compounding your problems, a bankruptcy can mar your credit report for 10 years.

Another common scam, called the bait-and-switch, results in a scam artist taking ownership of your home. You sign documents supposedly for a new loan that will make your mortgage current. What’s really happening is you’re signing over the deed of your house. In this scenario you would still owe on your mortgage but no longer own the home.

In a rent-to-own scheme, you’re told to surrender a home’s deed as part of a deal that lets you stay put as a renter. The scam artist, perhaps claiming to be able to refinance at a better rate with you off the title, promises to sell the house back to you in the future. However, terms of the deal may make it all but impossible for you to repurchase the home, or the scammer may get you evicted by raising the rent beyond your means. Either way, you end up losing the home while remaining on the hook for the unpaid mortgage.

Look out for red flags

Being aware of the warnings signs can protect you from foreclosure rescue scams. Red flags include:
•    Demands for high upfront fees.
•    Guarantees to stop a foreclosure.
•    Instructions to make mortgage payments to someone other than your lender.
•    Pressure to sign over a deed.

Legitimate foreclosure counselors won’t put on a full-court press, nor will they guarantee that you won’t lose your home to foreclosure. What they will do is review your financial situation and offer up options. Foreclosure counselors approved by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development won’t charge you a fee either.

Legitimate ways to get foreclosure help

There are a number of legitimate ways to contend with foreclosure. If you’ve missed mortgage payments, start by getting in touch with your lender. Ask to speak with someone in the Loss Mitigation Department and explain your situation.

Your lender may be able to arrange a repayment plan, called a special forbearance, based on your current economic circumstances. The lender could even give you a temporary reduction in your monthly payment or suspend payments for a period of time.

With a principal forbearance, the lender will reduce the amount of your mortgage, thus reducing your monthly payments. However, the amount of the principal reduction doesn’t disappear. Rather, it’s tacked on to the end of the loan, effectively creating a balloon payment.

A federally facilitated mortgage modification could also help. The Making Home Affordable modification program pays lenders to re-work loan terms and lower monthly payments. Be prepared to gather lots of paperwork and undergo a trial modification.

If all else fails, you may need to give up your home. If so, look into the federal Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives program. HAFA offers lenders financial incentives to opt for a short sale or deed-in-lieu rather than a foreclosure. In a short sale, a lender agrees for a home to be sold for less than the outstanding mortgage, and then considers the debt paid off. In a deed-in-lieu, a homeowner turns over the home to the lender, and the mortgage is closed.

Donna Fuscaldo has written about personal finance for Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, and Fox Business News for more than a decade. Like many homeowners, her mortgage is precariously close to being underwater.

Visit Houselogic.com for more articles like this. Reprinted from HouseLogic.com with permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.

Foreclosure counselors can make the difference between losing your home and keeping it. Here’s how they work and how to choose one.

If you’re facing foreclosure, your foreclosure counselor will be a key part of your foreclosure team. As you start looking for one, however, you need to know what exactly they do, what they don’t do, and how to choose one who’s legitimate and qualified.

What a foreclosure counselor does
•    Reviews your finances
•    Helps you establish a budget
•    Explains your non-foreclosure options, such as loan modification, short sale or deed in lieu of foreclosure; helps you navigate the process with any chosen option
•    Advocates on your behalf with lenders and loan servicers

Counselors should also be upfront about discussing their own track records as well as the track records of the agency they work for.

Expect to spend two to 24 hours with a counselor, depending on the complexity of your foreclosure situation, including how many lenders you have to provide documentation to and negotiate with.

“Be sure the counselor is looking at your entire situation,” and not just your foreclosure, adds Martha Viramontes, director of housing at ClearPoint Credit Counseling Solutions in Los Angeles. “When counselors focus only on your mortgage, they’re fixing only one aspect of your financial situation.” They should give you an action plan containing the tasks you are going to perform to change your financial situation.

What a foreclosure counselor doesn’t do
•    Give tax advice
•    Give legal advice
•    Give guarantees regarding a particular outcome
•    Create miracles

For additional advice, add a tax adviser and attorney to your team.

Finally, “don’t expect a counselor to be a genie,” says Douglas Robinson, a spokesperson for NeighborWorks America, a nonprofit community development corporation in Washington, D.C., that provides foreclosure counseling. “If you’re in a home that under the most aggressive scenario you can’t afford, but maybe you got into it because of some toxic loan that should never have been available in the first place, you’re probably going to have to move. It’s best you get out smoothly.”

How to choose an agency
Seek only HUD-approved agencies. HUD makes it easy:

 Type in your state or ZIP code at www.findaforeclosurecounselor.org or call HUD’s foreclosure counseling hotline at 800-569-4287 or its foreclosure prevention hotline at 888-995-HOPE (4673). HUD-approved agencies are all nonprofit, community-based organizations that have administered a housing counseling program for at least a year.

HUD-approved agencies also are required to:
•    Employ counselors who are knowledgeable about federal housing programs
•    Have a staff of counselors of which at least half must have two or more years of counseling experience. At least half must also have received housing counseling training in the past two years
•    Provide you with certain documents, such as a privacy agreement explaining how your personal information will be handled

In addition, at the agency you work with, see if you can find a foreclosure counselor who has certification through the NeighborWorks Center for Homeownership Education and Counseling Look (NCHEC), which has a Foreclosure Intervention and Default Certification Program. Certified counselors must follow NeighborWorks counseling standards and code of ethics and conduct.

They also are required to:
•    Have at least one year of experience in foreclosure counseling
•    Attend three foreclosure prevention courses

G.M. Filisko is an attorney and award-winning writer who has seen the sad effects of foreclosure on friends and neighbors. A frequent contributor to many national publications including Bankrate.com, REALTOR® Magazine, and the American Bar Association Journal, she specializes in real estate, business, personal finance, and legal topics.

Visit Houselogic.com for more articles like this. Reprinted from HouseLogic.com with permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.

Add attic insulation to lower heating and cooling costs by as much as $600 per year.

Save about $600 per year by boosting the amount of attic insulation from R-11 to R-49. Depending on the type of materials you use, figure on paying an insulation contractor about $1,500 to insulate an 800-square-foot attic, which pays back your investment in three years. You’ll spend about half that to do the job yourself.

Do you need more attic insulation?

A good, quick way to check if you need insulation is to look across your attic floor. If the existing insulation comes up just to the tops of the joists, then you probably need to add insulation. If you can’t see the joists and the insulation is well above the tops of the joists, you’re probably okay and you won’t recoup the cost of adding more.

Types of attic insulation

Add insulation to your attic one of three ways:

Roll-on or blanket-type insulation comes as rolls of fiberglass batts, either 15 or 23 inches wide—designed to fit between the width of typical framing. If your attic already has some insulation in the attic floor, roll out the batts at right angles to insulate over the framing members.

If you’re doing the job yourself, blanket-type material is easiest to work with. Be careful not to compress it or it won’t be as effective.

Loose-fill or blown-in insulation requires a machine that shoots a stream of loose-fill cellulose over the existing attic floor framing. This is typically a job for an insulation contractor. The advantage is that loose-fill insulation does a great job of filling in small crevices and other hard-to-reach areas.

Sprayed foam polyurethane is a good choice if you plan to turn your attic into a finished room. In that case, you’ll want to insulate the roof—not the floor. Sprayed foam polyurethane molds to rafters, blocks water vapor, and has a high R-rating per inch. Expect to pay about double the per-square-foot cost of roll-on and loose-fill insulation.

How much attic insulation is enough?

To determine how much to add, look up the recommended amount for your area, then subtract the value of your existing insulation. If you don’t know, you can figure it out using the Home Energy Saver online energy audit tool. 

No matter which method you choose, federal tax credits of up to $1,500 are available until the end of 2010.

Jeanne Huber is the author of 10 books about home improvement and writes a weekly column about home care for the Washington Post.

Visit Houselogic.com for more articles like this. Reprinted from HouseLogic.com with permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.

No one likes a ditty house, and your what “lived in” is to you might be someone else’s “messy.” When in doubt, clean. It’s the least expensive way to improve your home’s initial appeal, and it’s a good way to get a jump-start on your move.

Basic: The first thing you need to do is de-clutter. If your moving company offers storage, this is the time to use it. Extra furniture, oddball art, pots and pans that don’t fit in the kitchen—it all needs to go. Don’t go overboard—your house should still look like a home. It just needs to be airy enough for a buyer to put his or her mental imprint on it. Your hackey sack collection from college won’t help. Next up is a good, solid scrubbing. Spend a weekend washing the floors, baseboards, and bathrooms. Be sure to get the tops of cabinets and corners behind furniture. Clean every piece of glass in the building. Too many people ruin a pristine home with spotty mirrors and doors. Don’t forget the outside of the house. Hose down your exterior walls and driveway, trim the lawn and hedges, and remove any trash cans and clutter from sight. If your neighbors are less-than-tidy, you might want to offer them some free help, as well. And while you’re cleaning the garage, wash your cars, too. They make an impression.

All-Out: If you have money to spend, install space-saving storage solutions in the garage, kitchen, and bathroom to reduce clutter. Consider paying a service to do the deep cleaning you’re bound to miss. Rent a pressure washer for the driveway or (if it’s a real mess and you’re feeling generous), repave.

Fix

Part of the joy of buying a new home is starting with a clean slate. No one wants to buy an existing to-do list of nagging little fix-its. Making small fixes now can put the buyer’s mind at ease.

Basic: Focus on inexpensive, highly-visible problems. Doorbells, window glass, cabinet handles, and holes in walls are all easy to spot and cheap to fix.

All-Out: Take aim at long-term maintenance projects, such as pool pumps, water heaters, and air conditioning servicing. Buyers probably won’t notice these on their own, but your agent can call attention to these facts to help reduce worries about long-term costs.

Brighten

Buyers like to see what they’re viewing. Good lighting, vivid color, and a few visual cues can go a long way toward making your home a memorable one.

Basic: Repaint interior walls, particularly those in the bathroom, kitchen, and extremely bright areas. White walls are particularly important, as they get dingy quickly. Replace traditional incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents, which put brighter lights in your existing sockets while saving money. Tie back curtains to let in the maximum amount of sun, which makes a house look more inviting than artificial light. Spruce up empty or colorless zones with potted plants. They add character to a room, but are obviously disposable if a buyer dislikes them. Repaint your front door, mailbox, and any street numbers.

All-Out: Repainting the entire interior if it’s been more than a few years since the last paint job. Install additional lighting in cabinets and closets. Add new cabinet doors and counter tops.

What Not to Do

While you can certainly overspend on any of the above suggestions, their value is well-established. Making a home cleaner, better-functioning, and more attractive is a no-brainer. However, some improvements can go too far, and actually hurt your investment. As a general rule, don’t build for the sake of building. Bigger isn’t always better, and if you take a project too far, you risk going in a direction the buyer will have to undo. For example, adding an extra bedroom might seem like a great investment, but a retired couple may prefer to use that space to install a pool in the back yard. Upgrade the home you have, but don’t try to make it something else.

By Cormac Foster

Ask detailed questions about their experience and skills to help you find the right agent for your home sale.

Working with the right real estate agent can mean the difference between getting prompt, expert representation and feeling like you’re going it alone when selling your home. Here are 10 questions to ask when you’re interviewing agents.

1. How long have you been selling homes?

Mastering real estate requires on-the-job experience. The more experience agents have, the more likely they’ll be able to handle any curveballs thrown during your home sale.

2. What designations do you hold?

Designations like GRI (Graduate REALTOR® Institute) and CRS® (Certified Residential Specialist), which require that agents complete additional real estate training, show they’re constantly learning. Ask if agents have designations and, if not, why not?

3. How many homes did you sell last year?

Agents may tout their company’s success. An equally important question is how many homes they’ve personally sold in the past year; it’s an indicator of how active and aggressive they are.

4. How many days on average did it take you to sell homes?

Ask agents to show you this data along with stats from their local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) so you can see how many days, on average, their listings were on the market compared to the average for all properties in the MLS.

5. How close were the asking and sales prices of the homes you sold?

Sometimes sellers choose their agent because the agent’s suggested listing price is higher than those suggested by other agents. A better factor is the difference between listing prices and the amount homes actually sold for. That can help you judge agents’ skill at accurately pricing homes and marketing to the right buyers. It can also help you weed out agents trying to dazzle you with a lofty sales price just to get your listing.

6. How will you market my home?

The days of agents putting a For Sale sign in the yard and hoping for the best are long gone. Look for an agent who does aggressive and innovative marketing, especially on the Internet.

7. Will you represent me exclusively?

In most states, agents can represent the seller, the buyer, or both in a home sale. If your agent will also represent buyers, understand and consent to that dual representation.

8. How will you keep me informed?

If you want weekly updates by email, don’t choose an agent who plans to contact you only if there’s an offer.

9. Can you provide references?

Ask to talk to the last three customers the agent assisted. Call and ask if they’d work with the agent again and if the agent did anything that didn’t sit well with them.

10. Are you a REALTOR®?

Ask whether agents are REALTORS®, which means they’re members of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (NAR). NAR has been an advocate of agent professionalism and a champion of homeownership rights for more than a century.

G.M. Filisko is an attorney and award-winning writer who’s worked with many real estate agents in the past 20 years. A frequent contributor to many national publications including Bankrate.com, REALTOR® Magazine, and the American Bar Association Journal, she specializes in real estate, business, personal finance, and legal topics.

Visit Houselogic.com for more articles like this. Reprinted from HouseLogic.com with permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.

Have a plan for reviewing purchase offers so you don’t let the best slip through your fingers.

You’ve worked hard to get your home ready for sale and to price it properly. With any luck, offers will come quickly. You’ll need to review each carefully to determine its strengths and drawbacks and pick one to accept. Here’s a plan for evaluating offers.

1. Understand the process

All offers are negotiable, as your agent will tell you. When you receive an offer, you can accept it, reject it, or respond by asking that terms be modified, which is called making a counteroffer.

2. Set baselines

Decide in advance what terms are most important to you. For instance, if price is most important, you may need to be flexible on your closing date. Or if you want certainty that the transaction won’t fall apart because the buyer can’t get a mortgage, require a prequalified or cash buyer.

3. Create an offer review process

If you think your home will receive multiple offers, work with your agent to establish a time frame during which buyers must submit offers. That gives your agent time to market your home to as many potential buyers as possible, and you time to review all the offers you receive.

4. Don’t take offers personally

Selling your home can be emotional. But it’s simply a business transaction, and you should treat it that way. If your agent tells you a buyer complained that your kitchen is horribly outdated, justifying a lowball offer, don’t be offended. Consider it a sign the buyer is interested and understand that those comments are a negotiating tactic. Negotiate in kind.

5. Review every term

Carefully evaluate all the terms of each offer. Price is important, but so are other terms. Is the buyer asking for property or fixtures—such as appliances, furniture, or window treatments—to be included in the sale that you plan to take with you?

Is the amount of earnest money the buyer proposes to deposit toward the downpayment sufficient? The lower the earnest money, the less painful it will be for the buyer to forfeit those funds by walking away from the purchase if problems arise.

Have the buyers attached a prequalification or pre-approval letter, which means they’ve already been approved for financing? Or does the offer include a financing or other contingency? If so, the buyers can walk away from the deal if they can’t get a mortgage, and they’ll take their earnest money back, too. Are you comfortable with that uncertainty?

Is the buyer asking you to make concessions, like covering some closing costs? Are you willing, and can you afford to do that? Does the buyer’s proposed closing date mesh with your timeline?

With each factor, ask yourself: Is this a deal breaker, or can I compromise to achieve my ultimate goal of closing the sale?

6. Be creative

If you’ve received an unacceptable offer through your agent, ask questions to determine what’s most important to the buyer and see if you can meet that need. You may learn the buyer has to move quickly. That may allow you to stand firm on price but offer to close quickly. The key to successfully negotiating the sale is to remain flexible.

G.M. Filisko is an attorney and award-winning writer who has survived several closings. A frequent contributor to many national publications including Bankrate.com, REALTOR® Magazine, and the American Bar Association Journal, she specializes in real estate, business, personal finance, and legal topics.

Visit Houselogic.com for more articles like this. Reprinted from HouseLogic.com with permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.

Over time, roofs sag, mortar cracks, and furnaces lose efficiency. Beyond this normal wear and tear, older homes can harbor mold, water damage, termites, or other structural threats that can cost tens of thousands of dollars to fix.

New homes need inspections, too

New or old, a house isn’t a car—you can’t just trade in a lemon. Regardless of its similarities to neighboring structures, every home is different. Each home is build by different hands, at different times, on different land, and each responds differently as it settles. A home inspection before purchase your new home can alert you to long-term risks, identify immediate problems your builder must fix, and help you get the most from your new home warranty before it expires.

There’s no such thing as a perfect home. Even if there were, it wouldn’t last long. Climate, material flaws, poor workmanship, and even gravity conspire to tear every home apart. Home maintenance is a necessary cost of home ownership, but homebuyers need to make smart decisions about acceptable costs. A home inspection is the most cost-effective way to go into a purchase with your eyes open.

What they won’t cover

When you schedule an inspection, have the inspector outline special conditions he or she does not cover. Lead, radon, asbestos, and other toxic substances are generally not covered, and may require an inspector with a special certification.

Inspecting the Inspector

Finding a good home inspector can take some work, but it’s worth it. When you’re comparing inspectors, remember TEN—Transparency, Experience, and Neutrality.

Transparency

There’s nothing magic about home inspection, and good inspectors will be completely forthcoming about what they look for, how, and why. If you don’t understand something, ask. Professional inspectors will always answer your question to your satisfaction. Ask to see the home inspection, or better yet—go along on the inspection. It’s your house, after all. If the inspector hedges, walk away. Don’t be shy. Your home is worth more than their pride.

Experience

Every home inspector should have references. Call them.

Neutrality

Inspectors work for you, not the agent, the owner, or a contractor. A well-established inspector will have worked with all sorts of real estate and construction professionals, but recommending those professionals is a conflict of interest.

Certifications

Not all states require certifications, and a certification doesn’t guarantee There are dozens of certification associations, but some of the older and larger include ASHI, the National Academy of Building Inspection Engineers, and the National Association of Home Inspectors.

by Cormac Foster

Here’s how to clean up your credit so you get the least-expensive home loan possible.

Getting the loan that suits your situation at the best possible price and terms makes homebuying easier and more affordable. Here are seven ways to boost your credit score so you can do just that.

1. Know your credit score

Credit scores range from 300 to 850, and the higher, the better. They’re based on whether you’ve paid personal loans, car loans, credit cards, and other debt in full and on time in the past. You’ll need a score of at least 620 to qualify for a home loan and 740 to get the best interest rates and terms.
You’re entitled to a free copy of your credit report annually from each of the major credit-reporting bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Access all three versions of your credit report at www.annualcreditreport.com. Review them to ensure the information is accurate.

2. Correct errors on your credit report

If you find mistakes on your credit report, write a letter to the credit-reporting agency explaining why you believe there’s an error. Send documents that support your case, and ask that the error be corrected or removed. Also write to the company, or debt collector, that reported the incorrect information to dispute the information, and ask to be copied on any materials sent to credit-reporting agencies.

3. Pay every bill on time

You may be surprised at the damage even a few late payments will have on your credit score. The easiest way to make a big difference in your credit score without altering your spending habits is to diligently pay all your bills on time. You’ll also save money because you’ll keep the money you’ve been spending on late fees. Credit card or mortgage companies probably won’t report minor late payments, those less than 30 days overdue, but you’ll still have to pay late fees.

4. Use credit carefully

Another good way to boost your credit score is to pay your credit card bills in full every month. If you can’t do that, pay as much over your required minimum payment as possible to begin whittling away the debt. Stop using your credit cards to keep your balances from increasing, and transfer balances from high-interest credit cards to lower-interest cards.

5. Take care with the length of your credit

Credit rating agencies also consider the length of your credit history. If you’ve had a credit card for a long time and managed it responsibly, that works in your favor. However, opening several new credit cards at once can lower the average age of your accounts, which pushes down your score. Likewise, closing credit card accounts lowers your available credit, so keep credit cards open even if you’re not using them.

6. Don’t use all the credit you’re offered

Credit scores are also based on how much credit you use compared with how much you’re offered. Using $1,000 of available credit will give you a lower score than having $1,000 of available credit and using $100 of it. Occasionally opening new lines of credit can boost your available credit, which also affects your score positively.

7. Be patient

It can take time for your credit score to climb once you’ve begun working to improve it. Keep at it because the more distance you put between your spotty payment history and your current good payment record, the less damage you’ll do to your credit score.

G.M. Filisko is an attorney and award-winning writer who keeps a close eye on her credit scores. A frequent contributor to many national publications including Bankrate.com, REALTOR® Magazine, and the American Bar Association Journal, she specializes in real estate, business, personal finance, and legal topics.

Visit Houselogic.com for more articles like this. Reprinted from HouseLogic.com with permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.