I know many of you, including myself, have made numerous repairs to your home. Things like new roofs, gutters, siding, and other repairs have been made thanks to the April storms. Now that these repairs are finished or will be shortly, what a great time to put your home on the market. Interest rates are at record lows and there is a fantastic selection of homes for sale. So, why is now a great time to be home shopping? It is true that home values are down and you may not be able to sell your home for what you could have a few years back. No denying that fact. However, combine the facts that you can buy a home at a great value with a low interest mortgage. You may be able to upgrade and have payments near or below what you are paying now.

The market will improve and with it will be higher prices and interest rates. That new home you just purchased will be valued much higher and your payments will remain the same. With the volatility of the stock market, it seems that real estate would be a very smart investment. Not to mention the enjoyment you and your family will have from owning a new home.

Give me a call today and let me give you a fair market value of your current home and show you what is on the market. You may be pleasantly suprised.

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