This is great news, but there is a down side.  In the process of saving your home, you may lower your credit score. Anytime you are delinquent, have your payment adjusted or loan terms adjusted, you take a credit score hit.

Some homeowners who opted into a trial modification under Making Home Affordable are finding this out the hard way.  They make a few payments at the lower amount, only to find out their score has dropped.  Being in the trial program is no assurance they will even be accepted for permanent modification, yet they are penalized about 100 points just for asking for help.

The credit industry is, of course, quick to defend this practice of penalizing those who even ask for a change in loan terms.  The government realizes this is a side effect.  Consumer advocates deplore the practice on the grounds that people should not be zinged for trying to do the right thing.  All of these parties encourage people in trouble to ask for help before their homes go into foreclosure, but the credit score drop is a disincentive to many.

However, for most who seek help, this is an irrelevant side effect, especially if they are already behind on payments and close to losing their home. It’s like telling people on the sinking Titanic that they will be billed more if they chose a red lifeboat instead of a blue one.  If you’re drowning, you might prefer the blue one, however, if the red one is the only one in sight, paying more for red seems pretty reasonable.

Remedies such as loan modification, bankruptcy, and even short sale or foreclosure are last resort remedies that you might choose when you have no other options.  In a perfect world, you would be able to pay your bills without needing help.  In the real world, if you need help, your best option is to use the help accessible to you.  The time to ask is - as soon as you need it.  There may be a credit score impact with any remedy, but the impact is less the earlier you ask.

Express Homebuyers will buy your home for cash.  Call us today at 1-877-804-5252 or check out our helpful website.  We will make you an offer on your first call, provide free reports to help you make your selling decision, and even offer options to chat with one of our helpful consultants.

Spring has announced her arrival at the onset of the Cherry Blossom Festival, which is set to start on March 27. It’s a beautiful time to walk outdoors, and look out for that perfect dream home. With only a little more than a month to use the Home Buyer Tax Credit, buyers are making up for lost time. Prospective buyers with children are even more ideal.  Many families like to time the acquisition of a new home to match their kids’ school schedules. Now wouldn’t it be so much more comfortable if you had the ‘SOLD’ sign on your porch even before school starts this year?  

If you want to sell your home, this is the best time of the year to do so.  But what if your home needs work that you can’t afford to do?  What if you are delinquent on your payments and ready to fall into foreclosure?  Or maybe you are underwater and can’t see the shore?  You could easily miss prime time if you aren’t ready when buyers are!

Express Homebuyers offers an alternative worth your consideration.  We buy homes as-is for cash, within DC, Maryland, and Virginia. What’s more, it all happens very quickly. Within two weeks, your transaction is complete.  We then do the repairs and renovations needed to present your home to buyers – so the whole burden of preparing for a sale and finding a buyer is our problem, not yours!

 Call us today at 1-877-804-5252 or check out our helpful website.  We will make you an offer on your first call, provide free reports to help you make your selling decision, and even offer options to chat with one of our helpful consultants.

The former first-time home buyer credit is now simply the “home buyer credit.”  It is up to $8,000 for first-time buyers and up to $6,500 for certain repeat buyers.  In either case, the deadline is April 30, 2010 for signing a contact and June 30, 2010 to close. The extra seven months give new life to short sales.  As long as a buyer has a contract in place by April 30, even if the closing does not occur till 11:59 pm, on June 30, the short sale buyer can claim the credit.

There is no guarantee as to how long a short sale will take to close, but if your buyer starts the process, you should have no problem.  The probability of success will decrease the closer time gets to the April 30^th deadline.

As it happens, there are may soon be incentives that will make short sales faster.  First, the government is now trying to promote short sales through the Making Home Affordable program.  That news is several months old, but the Treasury has been promising to release new incentives for lenders and sellers.  That should happen soon.

Second, lenders, starting with Bank of America, are beginning to implement a revamped short sale portal designed to centralize and streamline short sale processing.  Many of the 17 lenders that use the Equator (formerly REOTrans.com) program are expected to get on board.

If banks have any sense, they will embrace short sales and try to resolve as many as possible in the wake of continuing foreclosures.  That is not a done deal, however, as lenders and servicers are overwhelmed. Trying to selling your home at short sale could still be a prolonged process that results in refusals by the bank to accept your deal.  As the weeks and months drag on, you can find yourself under mounting mortgage pressure.

The Home Owner Credit offers you a chance to get a buyer; the extended time increases the likelihood the paperwork will go through, but there is still no certainty.

Can’t Wait It Out?

Express Homebuyers offers an alternative.  We will buy your home and guarantee completion of the process within a couple weeks.  We tell you up front what we will pay; if you agree, you are on the way to a quick resolution.  We even offer you a $2,500 upfront advance you can plan your fresh start.  Call us at 1-877-804-5252 or check out our Express Homebuyers website for more details.

You know, though, that preparing your home for sale will be a challenge.  The house needs a face lift to make it appealing to buyers.  To get the place looking as good as you’d like in time to get it on the market, sell it, and find yourself the replacement home you want will just take too much time. What do you do?

Maybe you inherited a home that would give you a chance to be a homeowner but it just isn’t what you want.  Even if you fixed it up, it is still too far from your job or maybe the schools aren’t what you want for your children.  You could list and sell the place on your own, but that’s seems like a lot of aggravation.  What do you do?

When you’ve been out looking at houses, you have found your new, perfect home.  The problem is, the house is so fine and in such a good location that other competing buyers are coming to the same conclusion.  The Realtor® mentions that there are other interested buyers so you have to move fast.  Maybe your existing home hasn’t sold yet or maybe you fear having enough cash up front to make your move on the new home you want.  The Bank of Mom and Dad is closed for big withdrawals and you need the cash quickly. What do you do?

You’ve just been transferred or maybe you’ve been offered a great job out of state.  You may want to buy in the new location, but in any case, you need to go!  Selling your home long distance is not want you have in mind. What do you do?

You may be in circumstances where buying another home is the last thing you want to do right now.  You know that your home is very salable but you’re on the verge of foreclosure, you’ve lost your job, you’re at the midst of a divorce, and you want or need to move on quickly.  What do you do?

Express Homebuyers can help you. We specialize in buying houses directly from home sellers like you who need a fast and reliable home-selling solution.  When you call us, you will receive an immediate offer, and you will be able to save time and money.  How do we do this?  Well, we’ve been doing this since 2003 and since then we have purchased 600+ properties in the DC metro area.  We have bought houses that needed repairs, houses that had tenants in them, houses that had been on the market for months and no one else wanted to buy, houses from people that were facing different situations (bankruptcy, foreclosure, divorce, relocation, job loss, death in the family) and needed to sell their house fast. We’ll buy your home as-is, without closing costs, commissions, or paperwork!

If you want to learn more about us or would like to get an offer for your house call us 1-877-804-5252 or check out our Express Homebuyers website for more details.  If you are looking for an affordable home, we can help you too.  Since our business is buying homes, refurbishing them into tip-top condition, and then reselling them, we have a number of refurbished homes we offer for sale. Check out the many other affordable new-home values we have to offer.

P.S. – Tell us you saw our free report Secrets to Selling your House in Seven Days or Less and if we buy your house we will give you a $100 gift card to Home Depot to help you get a few things for your new place.