Need To Protect Your Credit Rating? Consider Cutting Your Investment Losses
Some people think of investment properties as being much different from other properties that you have - including the home you're living in - but when it comes to making payments on them they are essentially the same. If they are about to be foreclosed upon you must do something quickly, because foreclosure of an investment property will appear on your credit just like foreclosure of your main home will. It's very important that the payments on an investment property stay up to date, and in the tight credit market and the recession that this country is facing it can be hard to know from month to month whether you'll be able to make the payments or whether you'll get behind.
When the property market was going so strong there were all kinds of people buying investment properties. They were renting them out or flipping them and re-selling them for a lot more than they had paid. It was working well because people were eager to rent or buy them and sometimes there were waiting lists or 'highest bidder' scenarios.
Now there are properties all over the place that no one seems to want and the people who have them as investment properties can hardly give them away. In Detroit and some of the other hardest-hit cities there are properties that aren't going for tens of thousands or even for thousands of dollars, but that are going for only a few hundred dollars, instead. People who were lucky and bought and sold when the market was good made a lot of money, but there were people who got stuck with a lot of properties and it left them wondering: what were they supposed to do next?
If you're stuck in the situation where you've got investment properties and you don't know what you're going to do with them, you are definitely not the only one and you'll find that there are a lot of people with whom you can talk and commiserate about what happened to the market at exactly the wrong time for you. You might also find that things aren't improving for you just yet and that you're starting to get behind on the payments that you're making to the mortgage company for the investment property that you can't sell, can't rent, and can't seem to do anything with. If you're facing this kind of problem your options are limited mostly to hanging on (if you can) until the market improves and trying to get out of the property in any legal way possible before it completely ruins your credit rating.
When it comes to your credit rating there might have already been damage done, but lessening that damage by stopping it from continuing will be helpful later on when you're looking to be approved for credit for something else, so it might be wise to take steps to protect the credit rating that you have left. Cutting your losses is the next best thing to completely avoiding any damages that would otherwise be taking place, and doing damage control by clearing out investment properties is becoming more common today with so many foreclosures out there. When you want to avoid foreclosure, though, you usually have to get rid of your properties quickly, and you can do that through a short sale, a deed in lieu of foreclosure or other methods if your bank agrees - so find out what you owe on these properties, what they're worth, and what your bank is willing to do to help you.
Talking with your bank or lender and being honest about your financial difficulties is one of the best and smartest things that you could ever do when it comes to an investment property that otherwise might be facing foreclosure. Ideally, you should talk to your lender before you really get behind, but a lot of people wait much longer than that because they think that things will turn around and they're embarrassed to admit that they're having a problem. Don't let embarrassment or discomfort ruin your financial future and your good credit rating - talk to your lender right away as soon as you see that there might be a problem.
Being up front shows the lender that you're making a good faith effort, and that makes most lenders more willing to work with you and try to get you a better rate, a longer term, or something else that will let you keep the property and make the payments. If it's obvious that the property can't be paid for, talk to your lender and see what options the two of you can come up with. It's very important to try to keep an actual foreclosure off of your credit record, so checking with your lender and talking through all issues is vital to your financial life. - 23212
When the property market was going so strong there were all kinds of people buying investment properties. They were renting them out or flipping them and re-selling them for a lot more than they had paid. It was working well because people were eager to rent or buy them and sometimes there were waiting lists or 'highest bidder' scenarios.
Now there are properties all over the place that no one seems to want and the people who have them as investment properties can hardly give them away. In Detroit and some of the other hardest-hit cities there are properties that aren't going for tens of thousands or even for thousands of dollars, but that are going for only a few hundred dollars, instead. People who were lucky and bought and sold when the market was good made a lot of money, but there were people who got stuck with a lot of properties and it left them wondering: what were they supposed to do next?
If you're stuck in the situation where you've got investment properties and you don't know what you're going to do with them, you are definitely not the only one and you'll find that there are a lot of people with whom you can talk and commiserate about what happened to the market at exactly the wrong time for you. You might also find that things aren't improving for you just yet and that you're starting to get behind on the payments that you're making to the mortgage company for the investment property that you can't sell, can't rent, and can't seem to do anything with. If you're facing this kind of problem your options are limited mostly to hanging on (if you can) until the market improves and trying to get out of the property in any legal way possible before it completely ruins your credit rating.
When it comes to your credit rating there might have already been damage done, but lessening that damage by stopping it from continuing will be helpful later on when you're looking to be approved for credit for something else, so it might be wise to take steps to protect the credit rating that you have left. Cutting your losses is the next best thing to completely avoiding any damages that would otherwise be taking place, and doing damage control by clearing out investment properties is becoming more common today with so many foreclosures out there. When you want to avoid foreclosure, though, you usually have to get rid of your properties quickly, and you can do that through a short sale, a deed in lieu of foreclosure or other methods if your bank agrees - so find out what you owe on these properties, what they're worth, and what your bank is willing to do to help you.
Talking with your bank or lender and being honest about your financial difficulties is one of the best and smartest things that you could ever do when it comes to an investment property that otherwise might be facing foreclosure. Ideally, you should talk to your lender before you really get behind, but a lot of people wait much longer than that because they think that things will turn around and they're embarrassed to admit that they're having a problem. Don't let embarrassment or discomfort ruin your financial future and your good credit rating - talk to your lender right away as soon as you see that there might be a problem.
Being up front shows the lender that you're making a good faith effort, and that makes most lenders more willing to work with you and try to get you a better rate, a longer term, or something else that will let you keep the property and make the payments. If it's obvious that the property can't be paid for, talk to your lender and see what options the two of you can come up with. It's very important to try to keep an actual foreclosure off of your credit record, so checking with your lender and talking through all issues is vital to your financial life. - 23212
posted by X - Men @ 9:06 AM
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