It’s not new news. Real estate markets everywhere have fallen. If you’re trying to sell your home, or even thinking about putting your house on the market, pricing the home to sell quickly can be the trickiest part of all.

Our Money Editor, Stacy Johnson, has some advice on pricing your home to sell. This short video runs 1:37…

Trying to sell your home this fall? Thinking of buying a home now? Tell us what you think about the current market. We’d love to hear your comments.

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Best Buyer’s Broker Realty is an Exclusive Buyer Agent specializing in Long Island real estate (Nassau and Suffolk properties) and neighboring Queens County properties.

We don’t take any seller listings (yet we have more homes for you to see than most agents) and never have any potential conflict of interest like other agents who also represent sellers. We represent buyers only, 100% of the time. We can show you more homes for sale because we have access to MLS, FSBOs, Exclusives (homes that agents try to keep secret), foreclosures and homes not on the market that may be of interest to you.

We are not your traditional real estate agent. Our goal is to advise and protect home buyers and help them obtain the lowest price and best terms on their dream home. Call us at 516-887-6901 to see how we can help you save time and money. Or visit our sites at www.bestbuyersbroker.com or www.bestbuyerbroker.com

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Hope Now has helped more than 2 million at-risk borrowers stay in their homes during the past 13 months. Despite this progress, foreclosures continue to climb; 91,752 families lost their homes in July. That represents an increase of 14% from June and more than double the number of July 2007, when only 42,043 homes went to foreclosure.

But even now, after months of publicity, many borrowers still fail to respond to Hope Now’s offers to help. Of the nearly 1.6 million letters that have gone out since November 1, 2007 to borrowers 60 days past due, more than 80% of borrowers still had not called their lenders a month after receiving the letters.

Hope Now’s repayment plans simply give borrowers more time to pay lenders what they owe, either by extending the term of the loan or by raising monthly payments. They work best for borrowers who were thrown off the track by one-time events, such as an illness or temporary job loss. But by and large they’re considered to be fairly ineffective at preventing foreclosures in the long run, since borrowers often cannot afford the original terms of their loans.

If you’re in even the slightest bit of trouble financially where getting behind in your monthly mortgage is beginning to look like a reality for you, talk to your lender BEFORE it happens. Don’t wait until you’ve missed a payment or two. Lenders don’t want your home. They want you to stay in it and keep paying, so most will work with you if you just communicate to them that you need temporary help.

Questions or comments? We’d love to hear from you.

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Best Buyer’s Broker Realty is an Exclusive Buyer Agent specializing in Long Island real estate (Nassau and Suffolk properties) and neighboring Queens County properties.

We don’t take any seller listings (yet we have more homes for you to see than most agents) and never have any potential conflict of interest like other agents who also represent sellers. We represent buyers only, 100% of the time. We can show you more homes for sale because we have access to MLS, FSBOs, Exclusives (homes that agents try to keep secret), foreclosures and homes not on the market that may be of interest to you.

We are not your traditional real estate agent. Our goal is to advise and protect home buyers and help them obtain the lowest price and best terms on their dream home. Call us at 516-887-6901 to see how we can help you save time and money. Or visit our sites at www.bestbuyersbroker.com or www.bestbuyerbroker.com

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Historically, the fall season brings on slower home sale activity. So how do you make your home the highlight of the house-hunt? While curb appeal is still very important, what you do on the inside of your home can be equally as powerful. Here are a few tips to consider:

1) Decorate appropriately in warm fall colors: brown, orange and burgandy. Hang a fall wreath on the door, and use fresh pumpkins or gourds for a centerpiece in your dining area. But don’t overdo it. Come Halloween, what’s great for the kids isn’t good for home buyers. So limit the rotting skulls and paper skeletons or confine them to one small area of the home. No matter what season it is, clutter produces poor selling results because buyers cannot envision themselves in your home.

2) If you’ve got a fireplace, flaunt it. Fireplaces are big selling features in homes (particularly in climates that cool during the fall and winter seasons) and there’s nothing cozier to a buyer than a crackling fire.

3) Whether you have a fireplace or not, make sure your thermostat is at a comfortable temperature. A cold home can turn a buyer off, and get their mind reeling about astronomical heating costs.

4) Bake a pie. Seriously. Make it easy on yourself and use store-bought crust — their mind won’t know what their nose won’t find out. Use cinnamon in your recipe. If baking is completely out of the realm of possibility for you, purchase a frozen pie to cook… or at the very least bring in a cinnamon-scented candle. Yankee Candle has an excellent fragrant selection that overrules other smells in the house. You could also consider heating up apple cider and setting cider and donuts out on the table for a breakfast display.

5) When the days get shorter, make sure your home stays as bright as a summer day. Open blinds, turn on lights. For showing, table lamps often give off sufficient light. Make sure overhead fixtures are on.

6) You love your pet. Buyer’s don’t. If possible, take your pet somewhere else during a showing of your house. If the weather outside is too cool for keeping the windows open, chances are you could be harboring pet smells and dander that you may not notice yourself. Clean thoroughly and take your pet to a friend’s house if you can.

Other factors that could help you sell:

Consider offering seller’s concessions – particularly for first-time buyers. Helping them get in the door can be all the incentive they need to get into your home.

Create a highlight sheet of amenities that your home offers. Post copies by your sale sign for passersby.

Get a good real estate agent. Their expertise can help you get the visibility and purchase price you need to sell your home and move into a new one.

If you have any questions or comments about these tips… please use the “comment” link to contact us.

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Best Buyer’s Broker Realty is an Exclusive Buyer Agent specializing in Long Island real estate (Nassau and Suffolk properties) and neighboring Queens County properties.

We don’t take any seller listings (yet we have more homes for you to see than most agents) and never have any potential conflict of interest like other agents who also represent sellers. We represent buyers only, 100% of the time. We can show you more homes for sale because we have access to MLS, FSBOs, Exclusives (homes that agents try to keep secret), foreclosures and homes not on the market that may be of interest to you.

We are not your traditional real estate agent. Our goal is to advise and protect home buyers and help them obtain the lowest price and best terms on their dream home. Call us at 516-887-6901 to see how we can help you save time and money. Or visit our sites at www.bestbuyersbroker.com or www.bestbuyerbroker.com

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Short sales may mean major money to real estate buyers and easy exits for troubled homeowners. But if you’re a first time homebuyer, our Money Talks editor Stacy Johnson explains, it’s not as easy as some may want you to think it is. This video runs 1:33…

Know anyone who has bought a property in a “Short Sale” situation? We’d love to hear about it, and so would our other readers.

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Best Buyer’s Broker Realty is an Exclusive Buyer Agent specializing in Long Island real estate (Nassau and Suffolk properties) and neighboring Queens County properties.

We don’t take any seller listings (yet we have more homes for you to see than most agents) and never have any potential conflict of interest like other agents who also represent sellers. We represent buyers only, 100% of the time. We can show you more homes for sale because we have access to MLS, FSBOs, Exclusives (homes that agents try to keep secret), foreclosures and homes not on the market that may be of interest to you.

We are not your traditional real estate agent. Our goal is to advise and protect home buyers and help them obtain the lowest price and best terms on their dream home. Call us at 516-887-6901 to see how we can help you save time and money. Or visit our sites at www.bestbuyersbroker.com or www.bestbuyerbroker.com

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Some homeowners facing foreclosure are considering filing bankruptcy. Even though this might be an option for some people, there are a lot of other things you should try before filing bankruptcy to stop foreclosure.

The first thing you need to do is contact your mortgage lender. The sooner you do this the better. It’s best to contact your lender as soon as you realize you might miss a payment. not after you’ve already missed one or two. Then your mortgage lender will be more likely to negotiate other options with you so you will not have to consider filing for bankruptcy.

Some of the possibilities you can try to negotiate with your lender would be reinstatement, forbearance, or a repayment plan, all of which are options if your money problems are temporary. If your money problems are not temporary, before you can try to negotiate with your lender to get a mortgage modification or a partial claim.

If none of these solutions will work for you and you won’t be able to keep your home, before filing bankruptcy to stop foreclosure you should try to sell your home, or see if the mortgage company will allow assumption, a pre-foreclosure sale or short sale, or the deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.

All of these options require you to work with your current mortgage lender. If your mortgage lender is not willing to negotiate with you, you can try calling a HUD approved foreclosure counseling agency to get some assistance going over your options. These are usually free.

If at all possible you should avoid filing for bankruptcy as this will impact your credit rating and make things difficult for you in the future. Filing bankruptcy to prevent foreclosure is also not an option for everyone, and not all types of bankruptcies actually stop foreclosure.

A Chapter 13 Bankruptcy can stop foreclosure, so if you are thinking of filing bankruptcy, you should check to see if you quality for this type of bankruptcy, as not everyone does.

Be advised that filing bankruptcy to stop foreclosure won’t mean you no longer have to make any payments on your house. A part of Chapter 13 Bankruptcy is a payment plan to pay off at least part of the money you owe to creditors such as your mortgage lender.

Remember, don’t wait until you’ve already missed a payment or two before talking to your mortgage lender. Do it early!

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Best Buyer’s Broker Realty is an Exclusive Buyer Agent specializing in Long Island real estate (Nassau and Suffolk properties) and neighboring Queens County properties.

We don’t take any seller listings (yet we have more homes for you to see than most agents) and never have any potential conflict of interest like other agents who also represent sellers. We represent buyers only, 100% of the time. We can show you more homes for sale because we have access to MLS, FSBOs, Exclusives (homes that agents try to keep secret), foreclosures and homes not on the market that may be of interest to you.

We are not your traditional real estate agent. Our goal is to advise and protect home buyers and help them obtain the lowest price and best terms on their dream home. Call us at 516-887-6901 to see how we can help you save time and money. Or visit our sites at www.bestbuyersbroker.com or www.bestbuyerbroker.com

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Seems everyone these days thinks they can score a house on the cheap by buying a foreclosed property. There are good deals to be had, but we have to warn you, the process is complicated and risky. Foreclosure properties are much like fire, and you know the old saying, “play with fire, and you could get burned.”

There are three different stages of foreclosure, each of which presents different opportunities for buyers. The first step is to figure out which one makes the most sense for you, if indeed any of them do.

Pre-foreclosure

A home goes into pre-foreclosure when a borrower has fallen behind on his payments, but the house has yet to be auctioned off.

Buyers can find pre-foreclosures by sifting through the delinquency notices that lenders file with county courthouses when a borrower misses a payment.

Some owners are open to doing what’s called a short sale, which is when a buyer pays less for a house than the mortgage that is owed on it. Lenders have to agree to a short sale, and will then forgive the rest of the debt.

Often, banks are reluctant to approve of such deals since it requires them to take a loss. This process can take months and a lot of badgering before a deal goes through, and not every buyer is up for that kind of hassle.

Sheriffs’ sales

Another stage of foreclosure is when homes in default are auctioned off on the county courthouse steps. These homes can be real bargains, but the process is a crap shoot.

Bidders can’t inspect the property, so there’s no telling how much work it needs. And there is also no telling what kind of liens there are against the home, due to unpaid taxes and so forth, which can also jack up the cost of these homes. Finally, buyers need to come with cash, ready to put 10%-20% down on the spot, and able to pony up the rest in a matter of days. This method of buying a foreclosure is not for the beginner or first time homebuyer!

Post-foreclosure

After a lender takes back a house, the property goes on the market as what’s called an REO (real estate owned) property. These are treated like ordinary sales, listed with a broker. Typically, bargains are not as sharp.

If you want to dive into the foreclosure market, this is the only method we recommend you even think about. The process is fairly clean, the title is clear and the property is delivered vacant, even though the prices may not be as low as a courthouse steps auctioned property may be.

Talk to us if you feel brave and want to explore the foreclosure market. We’ll let you know if there are any such properties in the market and in your price range of affordability.

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Best Buyer’s Broker Realty is an Exclusive Buyer Agent specializing in Long Island real estate (Nassau and Suffolk properties) and neighboring Queens County properties.

We don’t take any seller listings (yet we have more homes for you to see than most agents) and never have any potential conflict of interest like other agents who also represent sellers. We represent buyers only, 100% of the time. We can show you more homes for sale because we have access to MLS, FSBOs, Exclusives (homes that agents try to keep secret), foreclosures and homes not on the market that may be of interest to you.

We are not your traditional real estate agent. Our goal is to advise and protect home buyers and help them obtain the lowest price and best terms on their dream home. Call us at 516-887-6901 to see how we can help you save time and money. Or visit our sites at www.bestbuyersbroker.com or www.bestbuyerbroker.com

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