Home Options For Those Who Just Came Out Of Bankruptcy

When you are starting life all over again from scratch, you may not be able to afford to buy a home immediately until you have sufficient savings and are able to prove your credit worthiness with the bank. For a few years you might have to rent or lease an apartment or a home in the meantime.

You have two options while looking out to rent an apartment. You can either rent out a flat from a property management company or directly from a landlord. In both cases the approach to the business would be different and their terms would also vary.

If you approach a property management company, they are likely to check your credentials including your credit worthiness. Your background and past records may not work in your favor in such cases.

There may be other property management firms who have rented out apartments to many others who have recently come of out bankruptcy. Such firms will be able to consider your application too on similar grounds. You would have to draw up a list of all firms and find out which ones fit the bill.

Instead of a property firm, it would be much better for you to approach a landlord, for you would be able to appeal to him and explain your disposition. Your chances of getting the apartment on rent are much higher dealing with an individual. But one word of caution, do not go dressed and appear as if you are bankrupt. It can damage your chances.

Have a pleasant appearance when you go to meet the landlord and be neatly dressed with neat hair cut. It helps if you explain to the landlord and show him that you have learned lessons from your mistakes and are now honestly working towards building your future.

Second time round, you should be honest to yourself and make up your mind to work hard to build a new future for yourself and improve your credit worthiness. If you are so determined, then be honest with the landlord and convince him of your intentions. If you are not serious enough then it is better you do not move forward on renting out. It is not worth it.

Do not waste your time and of the others unless you truly intent to move out of your past life and live more responsibly in future and work towards a financially secure future. Until you are ready and committed, any effort is of no use.

Reasons Why You Should Check Your Credit Score

If you are considering qualifying for a loan the first thing you should do is check on your credit score. So what resources do you need to check your credit score? Contacting a credit agency is the proper way to get your credit report. Only three credit agencies can distribute copies of a credit report and they are Experian, Equifax, or Trans Union. Customers can request a free copy of their credit report from each of those websites.

Your credit score could range from 350 to 830 points and the higher it is, the better. If you discover your score is below the 700 range it is an indication you need to do something to improve it. Be sure to review your credit score after you find out what it is. You may discover mistakes on your report and if you do try and get them corrected. Call your credit agency immediately if you notice errors and be sure to find any documentation you may have to support your findings. It is not a good idea to mail the original copies because if they lose them you have nothing left to support your claims so instead send photocopies.

After you send in your documents the credit agency will investigate the errors you reported. If your creditor cannot produce anything, then the error is immediately removed from your record and a revised copy will be sent to you free of charge. But if the report is correct, then you will have to take the appropriate steps to remove it. Your credit score may go down depending on your credit history. If there are unpaid bills in your history including late payments, you will need to pay them. Remember that these things will be in your credit report for the next 7 years while filing for bankruptcy lasts for about ten so you ca not run from it.

If you are already in need of money you may need to take drastic action to be sure you can afford to pay all of your past debts in order to increase your credit score. If you have no other ways or ideas to generate the extra cash to pay your past debts then it may be a good idea to consult financial advisers. If things are not that bad, perhaps you can make a deal with your creditor so this will not appear on your record thus having no effect on your credit score. Just be sure to commit to the arrangements because if you do not commit, do not expect them to be so generous the next time this happens.

After a years time you can submit a request to receive your credit report to see if the steps you have taken have paid off. If you see a big improvement over last year then you know you are headed in the right direction and you will not have a problem anymore applying for a loan. Checking your credit score is something people should do regularly by getting a copy from a crediting agency. There are three reporting agencies to choose from and you can be sent a copy from all three agencies at the same time or every few months. The 3 credit agencies have different ways of calculating credit scores but they all prove whether or not a person has good credit.

Fundamental Specifics Relating To Your Credit Score

Money is the stuff that makes everything possible in today’s world. And believe it or not, most of the stuff you own was bought with borrowed money. Your house, your car, many of the items in your house. And one thing that can have a dramatic effect on your ability to borrow money is your credit score. That’s why it’s absolutely essential to understand this.

Naturally, your credit score isn’t only used to borrow money. Many people are shocked when they learn this simple fact. For example, if you go to a job interview and they employer really likes you and wants to hire you, they may not because of a poor credit score.

Of course, knowing the importance of your credit score is only half the battle. When you understand how your credit score is calculated, that will allow you to make some changes that can increase your score if you need to do that.

Every time you borrow money, in any way, this goes onto your credit score. It doesn’t matter if it is a car loan, or a credit card, it goes on your record. And how well you pay this off also goes on your record. If you pay if off on time, that’s a plus. If you pay if off late or not at all, this is a big negative.

One thing they look at is your debt to income ratio.This is calculated by dividing the amount you have to pay for your bills every month into the amount of your salary. If your debt to income ratio is less than thirty percent, that’s considered pretty good. Anything higher than that, and you are starting to send up some red flags.

It goes without saying that everybody wants to keep a good credit score. And the easy way to do this is to simply pay cash for as many things as you can, and only use your credit cards when it’s an emergency. And keep close tabs on your debt levels, to make sure they don’t rise above thirty percent.

Keeping a good credit report is an important thing. By paying in cash, keeping close watch on your spending, and sparsely using your credit cards, this should be easy.

Comfortably and rapidly discover the money you need with discount advances.

How A Bankruptcy Plays A Role In Mortgage Approvals

When it comes to getting qualified for a mortgage loan, a bankruptcy can play a crucial role in your ability to get approved. There are many factors that a bankruptcy has on the mortgage process. Knowing what to expect can help you improve your chances for a loan approval.

The Waiting Period

If a person has filed bankruptcy, it will be more difficult to get approved for a mortgage loan. Many mortgage loan programs will require a waiting period from the time the bankruptcy has been discharged before the mortgage can be approved. Depending on what type of bankruptcy that you filed will depend on how long the waiting period will be. If you filed a chapter 7 bankruptcy, then you will have to wait at least two years from the discharge date before the mortgage loan can be approved. The two year waiting period is based on a FHA home loan. A conventional mortgage loan will require a four year waiting period.

If you have filed a chapter 13 bankruptcy, the waiting period is still the same on a conventional home loan, but on a FHA mortgage loan, there is a way to finance a property while still in chapter 13 bankruptcy. FHA loan programs will consider the filing date when calculating the waiting period. A chapter 13 bankruptcy customer can qualify for a loan after one year from filing the bankruptcy. Since many clients are still in chapter 13 bankruptcy after one year, you must get approval from the trustee of your case, that you can add an additional debt like a mortgage loan. Without the trustee approval, you will not get approved for the mortgage loan.

All home loan approvals with clients still in chapter 13 bankruptcy require manual underwriting and must follow the FHA loan guidelines.

Reestablishing Credit

For many clients that file bankruptcy, the hardest step in getting a loan approved is that many loan companies require that the client has reestablished a positive credit history since the bankruptcy. Reestablishing credit history must also show no new derogatory accounts since the bankruptcy. For example, if you have a bankruptcy that was discharged in 2009 and in 2010, your car was repossessed, then you will not qualify for a mortgage loan.

Reestablishing credit history usually consists of at least a vehicle loan and a revolving credit account. Make sure to keep your credit card account balance below 10% of the actual credit limit. Home loans require the reestablishment of credit for qualification.

There are other mortgage programs besides FHA home loans and conventional mortgage loans that have different guidelines when considering a bankruptcy. These types of loans are considered non-traditional loans and many of these programs require a large down payment. Home loan rates on these programs are also usually 2 to 3 percent higher than a normal conventional home loan.

Avoid New Negative Credit

The most significant thing to remember after a bankruptcy is to reestablish credit and do not have any new negative accounts since the bankruptcy was filed. You want to show the mortgage company that the bankruptcy was an once in a lifetime event and will not happen again. If the loan company believes that there is a habit of bad credit or the likelihood of filing bankruptcy again, the mortgage loan will be turned down.

Bankruptcy is not a home loan killer, but if you have filed bankruptcy in the last seven years, it is important to make sure that you are doing everything necessary to have good credit, especially if you want to buy and finance a new house.

David White is a Sr. Home Loan Specialist who assist his customers with their Home Loans.

How To Save Your Home From Foreclosure

Banks are aware regarding the financial situations and troubles that might affect their customers. Lately, countless numbers of people have run into issues paying their mortgage loan, requiring them to confront foreclosure of their homes. If you’re seeking to avoid foreclosure of your home, you should consider a loan modification.

People typically think that their loan providers are interested in removing their properties. This is incorrect in the present financial situation. Due to the economy, foreclosed homes do not sell fast and they frequently have to be sold below the market value. So the banks often lose more money if the property goes into foreclosure.

For most people, the loan modification procedure isn’t straightforward. Every lender operates differently, with their own rules and regulations. Being familiar with these guidelines will improve your chances of approval.

For starters, get your monthly income stubs, tax info and any other financial documents. You will be required to write up a hardship letter, explaining the reason you fell behind (this could be from a loss of job, illness, sudden death in the family, etc). You should also say why a loan modification would help you. Make sure to be entirely truthful in your letter. You’ll have to present a financial worksheet. This is where you should record your monthly income and expenses. Make sure to include every little thing.

You may want to consider a loan modification service to speed up the procedure, as they’ll do all of the needed paperwork for you. Because these professionals speak your lender’s language, the odds of approval are higher.

A lot of loan modification services offer free evaluations, so I highly recommend you make the most of a free consult to establish the best plan of action. Halting foreclosure is doable, provided that you take prompt action.

Basic Mistakes To Prevent When Purchasing Your First Home

It’s exciting to take that first step to purchasing a home and no longer paying rent. This experience is new and scary as often most people don’t know what they are getting themselves into, let alone know what they are doing when planning for their dream home.

When emotions get involved in buying high-priced purchases, decisions are rushed and buying mistakes can happen. When buying a home for the first time, there are some common mistakes that are made by first time buyers.

Slip up number one is not really having a clear idea of what you want. To avoid this you should have an explicit list of features you desire so you can be ruthlessly precise.

Another mistake first time home buyers make is they don’t take time to figure out their financial situation. It’s always a great idea to figure out how much you can afford for payments each month so you can buy within your means. Making this mistake can lead to other mistakes, eventually digging you in a hole that could lead you into foreclosure.

Even though financially you may afford a home, don’t purchase it at face value. This type of thinking may make you undervalue the true costs of purchasing a home. For your monthly budget, you need to make room for property taxes, utility costs, mortgage payments, insurance, and repairs among other expenses.

Before you shop for a home, make sure you are pre-approved for a mortgage. If you don’t get pre-approved beforehand, you’ll just waste the agent and your time. You also don’t want to do things that could cause your loan application to fall through.

Buying a home for the first time without the help of an agent is also another mistake. Letting the agent do the negotiations for you will help in hiding your excitement, as letting your feelings show will lead to a high price.

Finally, you should always get a professional in to give your house the once over before your sign up. This will ensure that you will not face unexpected costs later on.

This writer takes pleasure in contributing information regarding New York real estate subjects, such as East Village apartments as well as Lincoln Center apartments.

Do Upside Down Mortgage Holders Have Options?

Have you been having problems meeting your payments and even found that no one wants to purchase your home for more than you owe or even merely what you owe on it? If this sounds familiar and your home’s mortgage is a lot more than what your property is valued at, you are what is called an “upside down mortgage holder.”

A lot of people are probably stunned when they fully grasp they are upside down, and till only recently, they probably never heard about something called a short sale, which is really just selling your house for anything you could get and then making an arrangement with the mortgage lender regarding the remaining balance due.

Most people usually are not happy with the short sale approach, but do upside down mortgage holders have a possibility other than short sales. The answer at this moment is yes. There is a different program offered now known as the Principal Balance Reduction Program.

A Principal Balance Reduction Program is essentially a program wherein home notes are sold to a hedge fund at a large discount, the hedge fund decreases the amount of principal owed to 95% of the market value and modifies a few terms and the interest rate for the homeowner.

Is this brand new option for you should you be an upside down mortgage holder who’s been contemplating a short sale? Potentially. The pros to you can be considerable savings, the ability to maintain your home by essentially short selling the house to your self, and keeping your tax incentives and not destroying your credit rating.

Should you discover yourself to be experiencing the housing problems head-on, you should understan about the principal balance reduction program. Can upside down mortgage holders have a choice rather than short sales? You bet. So, look into it in the event you have to.

Related Articles: hamp loan modification program | way to stop foreclosures

It’s Easy To Determine If You Qualify For A Loan Modification

Just last year we’d spend way too much time with our clients trying to determine whether or not they qualified for a mortgage modification. In 2010 it takes me just a few minutes and is about 100% accurate. That’s because the banks, in their rush to streamline, have become standardized and predictable.

Standardized – The Making Homes Affordable Program (MHA) Guidelines have become the standards. Other programs are modeled after the MHA. None of the other programs are as rich and all are harder to get. But the guidelines have become universal.

I say predictable because the sheer numbers of applications has forced the banks to routinize everything – including erroneous rejections – to a point where it is pretty obvious to us veteran loan mod freaks.

Homeowners will get a mod if they, 1) have a typical hardship, 2) the loan qualifies (non-jumbo, done before Jan. 1, 2009), have correct ratios, 3) live in the home, and are in default. That’s not to say that landlords are SOL…they just have less likelihood of approval and must have lower expectations.

Don’t mistake qualifying with getting approved! Thousands of qualified applicants get rejected every day! Being qualified is just the beginning of the journey. You have to know how to navigate this bureaucratic, convoluted, administriviated maze (don’t bother to right-click – I made up that word!). You can’t do that with advice crafted for the masses – advice you get from the banks themselves or from the government. You need to get advice from a source that has actually succeeded in getting throught he maze – time and again.

You should have the advantage of an insider, a street-smart advisor who has been at the game table for a long time. Someone who is unabashadly on your side – not a government entity and certainly not a bank employee or site. If you follow the advice of the government or bank sponsored entities you can only expect to get info tailored for the masses. That’s like going into a street-fight with training in only boxing. You are totally unprepared when the opponant kicks you in the ear! You’ll have to pay for such advice. But, you get what you pay for.

Rockwood is an author and outspoken homeowner advocate. Want more insider tips on Mortgage Modification? Visit Rockwood’s site about DIY Loan Modification at Home Loan Modification

Use These Four Tips To Improve Credit

Have you ever gotten a mortgage or car loan? Then you probably know the importance of a good credit rating. Having a mortgage rate of 7% versus 5% is a huge amount of money over the life of a 15 or 30 year loan. You will save yourself thousands of dollars every year if you have good credit. Here are 4 tips to improving your credit rating.

1. Pay off credit cards

Make a list of all of your credit cards and their balances. You need to do your best in getting these balances paid off. Tear up the cards if you have to. Don’t make the minimum payments as you will probably never get them paid off that way. Be disciplined in how you are going to get them paid off. If you have more than one credit card it would be best if to pay of the largest amount before paying off the smaller amount on other credit cards.

Credit rating agencies like to see borrowers with a low balance compared to the total credit limit. If you have a $5,000 limit your score will improve with a zero or low balance versus having a balance for $4,800.

2. Always Pay Debt Obligations On Time

Being a few days late is understandable and can happen to anyone. What you want to avoid is being 30 days late. If you have a decent credit score one 30 day late can drop your score by over 100 points. It seems a bit unfair but unfortunately that is how it works. If you cannot make a payment call your credit card company and tell them that you will not be able to make a payment. Ask them if they can refrain from reporting the 30 day late.

3. Remove Late Payments

Obtain a copy of your credit report and look who is reporting late payments. Call those credit cards companies or lenders and ask them to remove any or all late payments. If you are a good customer they just might do it. I was on vacation and missed a credit card payment one time. I called the company and told them the story and reason behind the late payment. They agreed to remove it.

4. Keep all of your credit cards

Applying for a new credit card account can hurt your scores. Oddly enough, moving balances from several cards to one card can hurt your score as well. It is better to have lower balances on several cards than one big balance on one card. Again, lenders look at the percentage of debt you are using on a particular loan. They don’t like it if you are using a high percentage.

Following this 4 steps will help improve your credit scores. These work best if your score is low to mediocre. If you have a score above 700 you may not see a huge increase in credit score. The bottom line is simply to spend what you can afford, do not be late on payments, pay off your balances quickly, fix any errors on your credit report and don’t stiff anyone. Do this for a long enough period of time and you will have good credit.

Slade Tanner – Mortgages in Sarasota

Short Sale 101, Basics Of A Short Sale

If the value of your home has declined below the amount you owe on it you are said to be “upside down” or “underwater”! Both terms conjure up negative thoughts, and, rightly so. With all the due diligence you put into the purchase, and all the business acumen, actuarial smarts, underwriting/appraising and brokerage experience put into the lender’s decision to accept the home as collateral it’s a strange thing indeed that the deal went south. But, it did go south. In fact nearly 20 million homeowners in the US are facing this scenario right now. It’s psychologically bad for all of them. It’s financially bad for those who must sell because of a job loss, reduction in pay, divorce, death or other reason. For them, it’s a financial disaster.

A short sale can be a great solution for such people. The lender has to approve such a sale because they have accepted the home as collateral for the debt. How the sale works, what happens to the “short” amount, what you tax liabilities are and how to be protected from future deficiency lawsuits are the right questions to ask. Let me start with question one, how they work.

This is How a Short Sale Works

Short sales work the same as traditional sales, with one additional step. When a solid buyer and a good offer are found, it must be submitted to the lender along with an explanation of your situation and a settlement summary (HUD-1) document showing the final payout to all parties if this deal is approved.

The application also includes a HUD-1Worksheet of the expenses involved in the execution of this purchase contract, and showing the net proceeds that the lender will receive. One of the items on the HUD-1 is the payoff amount of any “junior” lien holders. Typically, these lien holders settle for a small fraction of the amount owed as their claim on the collateral is subordinate to the 1st, or senior mortgage. That, by the way, is why they always charge higher rates – they are more exposed to loss.

Your lender then reviews the application and gets their assessment of the value of the home and the appropriateness of the offer. They do this by hiring a local Realtor to provide a Broker Price Opinion (BPO) or by using the Automated Valuation Model (AVM). The AVM is a computerized estimate of net proceeds if the home goes to foreclosure and the lender must sell it themselves. Usually this evaluation takes at least 30 days.

There are common misconceptions – myths – about short sales. Here are the most common ones I hear.

1. Banks would rather foreclose than approve a short sale

This is a common error. The reality is that banks do not want to foreclose on your property because the process is lengthy and costly. After all, the lender has to sell the property on the market eventually. Banks lose less through a short sale than a foreclosure.

Myth 2 – You have to be in default to get approved for a short sale

This is not true. The factors considered are whether or not the offer is reasonable and whether or not the buyer seems qualified.

3. Short Sales take too long to succeed after the foreclosure process has begun

This is a dangerous misconception. Many homeowners fail to pursue short sales believing that it’s too late. Actually, short sales are effective workout solutions right up to trustee sale (sheriff’s sale).

Lenders welcome the short sale application as an alternative to foreclosure. It’s just better for all parties, including the community (vacant, bank-owned homes are a real problem).

Myth #4 – Listing My Home as a Short Sale is an Embarrassment

It is understandable to have reservations about letting the world know that you owe more on your home than it is worth. However, according to recent estimates, one out of five homeowners in the U.S. is in the same situation. Estimates are that 40-60% of U.S. home sales in 2009 and 2010 will be short sales or foreclosures, you are not alone.

Myth #5 – Buyers are Not Interested in Short Sales

Smart agents and their buyer-clients evaluate deals based on the facts. The fact is that short sales are a significant part of the housing inventory and often the best deals are short sales. So, this is a misconception.

Short sales will continue to be an important part of the housing market stabilization. They are better than foreclosure, for all parties involved.

Want to find out more about actually getting short sales done? Visit Rockwood’s site at Home Loan Modification

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