When to Hire an Attorney to Fight Your Foreclosure

Both the economy in general and housing market in particular have experienced major upheavals. This combined with a several additional negative economic factors has resulted in a record number of foreclosures throughout the United States, causing untold devastation for American families.

Innumerable homeowners and renters facing foreclosure have no idea where to turn to for help. Despite all the lawyer jokes, an attorney can actually be your best asset in the fight against foreclosure.

Renters Can Be Foreclosure Victims Too

Homeowners far outnumber renders in terms of the percentage of people affected by foreclosures. However, renters can certainly be foreclosure victims as well – and in no small measure – if their landlords lose their homes or apartments to the foreclosure process.

Being a renter in a property pending foreclosure can be extremely confusing, so contacting an attorney early on would be prudent – unless you are already prepared to leave anyway. You will want an attorney who specializes in real estate and foreclosures.

What is the Foreclosure Process for Renters

Renters must be provided advance notice of the foreclosure and impending eviction well ahead of the day they are required to move out. This is mandated by law in most U.S. states. Even if you have a new landlord, that person still must give you at least several weeks notice if they need to evict you.

Depending on the laws in your geography, they may even be required to honor your lease to its expiration. This would allow you to remain in your house or apartment until your lease is up, buying you much more time to locate an alternative living arrangement.

The Foreclosure Process for Homeowners

Homeowners should still consider seeking the assistance of a qualified attorney to help push back on the foreclosure. A real estate attorney – primarily one specializing in foreclosures – will certainly know the ins and outs of the foreclosure process, helping you take advantage of legitimate loopholes and small windows of opportunities available to you.

Why Hire an Attorney

Attorneys are familiar with foreclosure procedures and possible means of stopping one. They can provide you expert advice on prudent actions to take and can also assist in dealing directly with your lender, thus preventing you from making costly mistakes that would normally decrease your chances of holding onto your home.

The foreclosure process is a grim reality, but you almost certainly do not know the specifics of all the laws and procedures involved. This is why tapping into the expertise of a real estate attorney can be your best opportunity to fight foreclosure.…

Tips to Invest in the Real Estate Market

The real estate market is shaking at the moment, with dropping interest rates and an increasing rate of foreclosures. Of course, if you have the money, now is the time to invest in real estate.

Prior to these days, it was more common for individuals to do “house flipping.” This was a process where you bought a house, repaired it, and sold it for profit. This technique actually gave many people an excellent return on investment, and tax breaks.

Instead of the quick cash from flipping, people enjoy the steady stream of income through renting their property out. With a few different locations, this can add up pretty high.

The great thing about this is that it is almost a risk-free investment. As long as the property is managed correctly and the renters are chosen appropriately, all will remain fine.

Although you are the investor, you are also considered the landlord. This means you will be required to do upgrades and maintenance on a regular basis. It also means that overtime the property will drastically increase in value.

Of course, not only can you get a nice steady income from renting your property out, but you can also benefit from many tax breaks. In order to effectively take advantage of these, you will need to keep a good record of your expenses.

Some of the common tax breaks for landlords include mortgage interest payments deductions, repair deductions, and travel related to business deductions. These are just a few of the more well-known tax deductions that many landlords can take advantage of. Just make sure you have the proper paperwork.

In addition, if you purchased the property with financing, you can opt for fixed mortgage payments. As time continues, rent will increase. Once you have fully paid the mortgage off, you will increase the value of the property.…

Effective Real Estate Office Meetings for Agents Considered

One of the best ways to rally the troops at a local real estate office is to make the once a week office meetings fun and exciting, and totally motivational. It also helps to have refreshments, pastries, and things of this nature. It makes sense to allow the vendors such as; mortgage brokers, title reps, and other related real estate service companies join in on the fun, and also pay for the refreshments. Of course, this is nothing new and it’s been going on in real estate meetings across the country for decades. Not just the large franchised type realty companies, but also small local offices.

By getting all of the realtors together once a week, they can share information, show their listings, and even do a little caravanning after the meeting. If the local office, with all of the agents are canvassing the city or town properly, and if they have joined local service clubs, the Chamber of Commerce, and are involved in the inner workings of the city, along with all the nonprofit groups then it is amazing how much networking can go on. And this is all good for selling real estate, and it also makes the local office one with the community.

Indeed it makes sense to harness this energy for things like food drives, or help other realtors get involved in volunteer for community events, introducing them to more people. Remember, it is people who buy real estate, and it is people who need a good realtor when they’re ready to sell the property that they presently own. Despite what you might think local office meetings with the agents should not start exactly on time, it’s best when they start 10 or 15 minutes late. This allows everyone to get there, and a few extra minutes for conversations to continue, as the agents network with each other.

Just as with any other sales management meeting, it makes sense to reward the top sellers, and recognize peak performance. This should always be an integral part of any office meeting for the agents. Motivated agents sell more real estate, and that makes more money for the firm which gets a percentage of every transaction.

It also behooves a local office of realtors to have a mobile car wash come by and wash the agents cars while they’re in the meeting. Realtors who drive clean cars sell more property. No buyer wants to drive around and look out of a dirty window at all the homes they might be interested in, and perhaps making an offer on. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think about it.…

Retirement Accounts – Who Is In Control?

Are you in control of your retirement account? Who is making money from “your” hard-earned money that you have saved for years? Are you happy with the 1% to 3% return you have got? I am sure a lot of you are asking who is getting 3%. With these low returns do you really think that “you” are the one making the money?

Sure, the economy has something to do with your low return. Things are tough now, money is tight, and no one is setting the world on fire. I am sure I could sit here and give you a thousand excuses why your retirement investments are not performing but that is a job for your financial planner. Think in terms of golf, you could be having a terrible day on the course, but that one good shot is the one that you will remember, just like that one good quarter makes you forget about you retirement account’s past performances.

Now, I am sure that you “think” you are in charge of these accounts because you have picked how you would like your investments allocated, 20%in fund A, 30% in fund B etc. These Funds or Groups A,B,C etc. are recommended by your financial planning firm, these are good groups that have a consistent track record over the years (because if they did not the firm would not have any customers). Please understand I am not criticizing your financial planner (this is how they make a living), I am just saying that if your accounts are not performing well it is a little too easy to take the blame yourself for how the money had been allocated.

Are you familiar with True Self Directed Retirement Accounts? If you are not, now is the time to start to do your homework. If you are comfortable with the Government’s Social Security Program and that Taxes will not be changing the landscape of America just continue to follow yesterday’s path and hope for the best. 97% of retirement accounts follow this plan, allowing someone else to profit from their account. 3% make maximum returns by relying on what they know and investing for themselves.

Unfortunately “yesterday” is not “tomorrow” and tomorrow is what you need to be concerned with. Do the words “self-directed” scare you? Again I am telling you, you need to do your homework! The words “self-directed” should excite you, not scare you. There are so many investment options you have available to you that could be earning tax-free or tax-deferred dollars. Most of us fear the unknown; the more you know the less to fear. So to answer the question “Who is in Control”? Maybe we should be asking “Who Do You want to be in Control”?…

Commercial Property – How to Lease More This Year

Make no mistake; the leasing of commercial property is the bread and butter of the real estate industry. Leasing leads to both sales and property management opportunity. If you want a stable real estate business and more commissions, then leasing will help you get there.

Leasing is a service needing special understanding of the commercial property market, the premises, the landlord and the tenant. For this reason leasing should not be undertaken by the inexperienced real estate agent or property manager.

A good lease outcome is a product of balancing all the issues and capturing them in a good lease document. Think about these things and what you may know about them:

Rental levels for the type of property you are handling

The typical terms of leases required by the tenants today

Incentive levels and type given the market currently

The need for the property to be renovated and how that will be incorporated into the lease of vacant premises.

The services and amenities available for the given property.

The future of the area and the prevailing business sentiment.

The improvements in the property and how they match the needs of the market.

The supply and demand for lettable space in your area and by property type.

This is real market intelligence, the things that you must know and bring into your lease services and offering to the local businesses and landlords.

To lease more commercial property this year, you have to know your market so well and use that information to track the upcoming potential vacancies and tenant movement.

To get a sound leasing service up and running in your real estate business you have to monitor and track just two things. They are:

All the business tenants in your area and their future property needs

All the investor landlords in your area and their future leasing needs

This data has to be tabulated as you come across fresh information. The highly successful leasing agent is only that due to the facts and figures that they know about business movement and needs locally. They then use that information to keep in contact with the right people that need help in the future to find new premises or solve a vacancy issue.

One of the key indicators of leasing activity is business sentiment in your local area. Good or bad, the business sentiment will create churn and that is what you need as a real estate agent specialising in property leasing.

Know your lease rates and trends as mentioned earlier and the market deals will be easier. Your success in property leasing will give you more agency success all round.…

How to Make Money Quickly With Real Estate

In order to make money quickly with real estate you need to make sure you are following a proven system. For most people spending the few hundred dollars on a complete proven system is completely out of the question and there for they will never learn the right way to invest in real estate.

The first thing you need to realize is that in order to make money quickly you need to find great deals that you can fix and sell in a very short time frame. The biggest money maker in recent years was called “Flipping a house” which simply was buying a house at a discounted price in order to fix it up and sell it very quickly. The great thing about this method is it still works and works very well. The only thing you have to do in order to get into this business is to find a house that needs some work done to it and buy it at the right price. Then you need to figure out how much money you need to spend on the house to get it looking brand new and then figure out what you can sell it for. If you have a decent sized profit then you will want to make an offer on the house and lock it up.

The first rule I ever learned about buying real estate is to make sure you aren’t buying and selling out of emotions and that you need to keep your personal opinion and taste to yourself because putting personal feelings into real estate will often cause you to either overpay or undersell. “The money is made when you purchase the house, not when you sell it”, this is something I learned very quickly and the reason it is true is because as long as you buy the house at the right price you will make money quickly.

Just remember these couple things when it comes to making money quickly in real estate.…

Do you wish to get a new desktop computer? If this has been on your mind then you probably want to know what to expect for the money you spend. There are so many options out there at a really wide variety of prices. Read on to get a better grasp on the desktop world.

If you are buying a desktop computer online, be sure to see it in person if you can. For example, if you are going to buy a Dell computer online, attempt to see it at a store near you before you buy it. You may find that the keys are too close together for comfort, or that the screen is not as big as you thought. If you’re able to see a physical model, it will help make your decision easier.

Run a boot check if your computer runs slow. Click on Start, then Run and type and execute “ms config”. Then, check out programs that are starting when you start your computer. Stop programs that you aren’t using from launching at start-up. That helps the machine run more quickly.

Try to buy the desktop computer that you can afford with just the features that you need. People tend to buy the latest, greatest machine which has features they just don’t need. Think about necessary features so you can have the best value.

If you want to extend the life of your potential desktop computer, make sure you choose one that is upgradeable. There are more than a few desktops these days that seal access to the inner workings of the machine. That means no ability to upgrade. Check that you’ve got access prior to buying.

Consider upgrading your current desktop computer. If your computer is not doing what you want it to, or not working as fast as you’d like, you might want to consider making some internal changes to your computer. If you are not well-versed in this, you might have a friend who is or be able to learn how online.

Which processor you need depends on what you want to do with your computer. If you aren’t sure, then you are likely better off with something cheaper and less powerful, such as an i3 or i5. If you are playing video games, go for something bigger like an i7 instead.

If you’re planning to use your desktop computer as an entertainment device, don’t ignore the speaker quality. A monitor with small speakers may give you a poor, tinny audio experience. You may be better off with buying a set of external speakers rather than relying on the speakers in your monitor.

What you pay for a computer is going to have much to do with the timing of your purchase. You should definitely be taking advantage of the best sales and special deals. If it were something you buy all the time, it might be hard to make that happen. However, a computer is a less frequent purchase, so you should …

Bellevue, Nebraska – Affordable Living Close to Nature

Bellevue, Nebraska is a quiet residential community catering mainly to commuters who work in the Omaha metropolitan area, across the river in Council Bluffs, or at the nearby Offutt Air Force Base. Known as Nebraska’s First City, Bellevue was founded in 1822 as a fur trading post built by the Missouri Fur Company and is both the oldest city and the third largest city in the state of Nebraska. When the fur trade began to decline, the trading post was sold to the U.S. Government for use by the Bellevue Agency, also referred to as the Missouri River Indian Agency. It is from this early Indian affairs center that the community of Bellevue derived its name.

Bellevue continued to grow, but it was not until Colonel Peter Sarpy took an interest that Bellevue took on the status of a real city. Sarpy platted the town and helped organize public services, and in 1855 Bellevue was incorporated. Over the subsequent years, Bellevue experienced significant growth in both population and trade. This growth was undercut, however, by the rising influence of Omaha in the area, which drew away much of the commerce and residents that had formerly flocked to Bellevue. In the 1890s, the city offered cheap land to the U.S. Government in an effort to attract a proposed military base; Fort Crook, later renamed Offutt Air Force Base, was the result of this aggressive move on the part of Bellevue’s city fathers. This progressive move ensured Bellevue’s future, and the city grew and expanded as a support structure for the fort and base.

Today, Bellevue retains its own distinct identity while offering all the conveniences of nearby Omaha and Council Bluffs. Bellevue schools are academically well above the state average and provide a solid educational basis for local children. The quality of life in Bellevue is exceptional, in part due to the expansive 1,300-acre Fontenelle Forest nature preserve that borders Bellevue to the east. This lush green space offers recreational opportunities for local residents and is noted as a habitat for local wildlife including white-tailed deer, raccoons, and beavers. The close proximity of this unspoiled natural forest provides an additional attraction for residents of Bellevue. The median price for homes in Bellevue is $140,000, making it an affordable choice for families just starting out in the metropolitan Omaha area.…