The Map View

The number one reason to utilize Google Maps when looking for a new home outside of your area is that it is free. All you have to do is log onto Google Maps and type in the address for the property you are considering purchasing. Instantly you will see a map view of where your home is located, complete with street names and some of the surrounding businesses.

The great thing about this version of the maps offered by Google Maps is that you can often determine everything from the nearest grocery store to nearby schools. You can then click “directions” to quickly find the directions from the home you are considering and other areas of interest such as work, school, and shopping.

The Satellite View

Along with the map view of Google Maps, you can also click “satellite” on the upper right hand corner of the screen in order to see an actual satellite view of the area. Zoom in to see details such as the neighborhood layout. Plus, some addresses will even enable you to take a street view of the property providing you with a better idea of what your home looks like from the road.

While utilizing the satellite feature, you can also determine the general neighborhood condition, including the upkeep of nearby homes. However, when opting for the satellite version of the map it is important to remember that it does not stream live; as a result, the maps are often rather dated.

Join Features

Regardless of whether you are using the map view or the satellite view, you are able to use the plus (+) and minus (-) signs on the left size of the screen to zoom in and out. In addition, you can click on the “A,” which is the address you entered, and then click “search nearby.” By simply typing it something like “pizza” local pizza restaurants will appear. This search feature is a great tool to help you determine how far away the home you are considering is from places you visit frequently.

In the end, Google Maps is a great asset when looking for a new home.

How to Use Google Maps When Looking for a New Home is a post from: Foreclosure Magazine - Read more about how does foreclosure work.

Trying to sell a home, or thinking about it in the near future? If so, you have somewhat of a challenge ahead of you, as today’s housing market is definitely a buyer’s market. Selling a home isn’t nearly as simple as it was prior to the housing bubble popping in 2007; now, sellers have to take extra steps and pull out all the stops to make their home as presentable as possible.

One way you can put your home in the best light possible is to stage it appropriately, taking into consideration what people desire when they look for a home. Here we’ll discuss what goes into a successful staging that’ll catch eyes and attract interested buyers eager to buy your property.

What Potential Buyers Look For in a Prospective Home

There are a few factors you will need to consider when staging your home, to take advantage of what most prospective buyers look for when searching for an ideal property.

Layout

Buyers these days love a nice, open layout – a layout that allows freedom of movement and ample living space. A buyer wants to see how a home will look, and a lot of that comes from how the layout is arranged. Try to emphasize clear and open lines of travel from room to room, with a lack of major furniture pieces in the middle blocking traffic and clear lines of sight throughout the house. If you can walk from one end of your home to the other easily, your layout is attractive.

Open Space

To go along with the layout of the home, a buyer wants plenty of open space – space where he or she can use to truly customize the home. Open space makes a home appear larger than it really is. It also reduces feelings of being cramped and cluttered, especially with larger households. Emphasizing open space through a clean and streamlined layout helps immensely.

Special Features

Of course, any special feature that your home has should be prominently featured. Do you have exquisite countertops? Nothing should be obscuring their view or distracting the gaze away from your polished granite beauties in your kitchen. Have a spa or a Jacuzzi? Make it easy to see. Play up to your home’s special features, things that are considered “bonus” features or items and make sure your layout is designed to incorporate them fully.

The Purpose of Staging a Home

Now we will get into the nuts and bolts of staging a home appropriately for a potential showing and for any prospective buyers who come by.

Creating a Better Image

Staging a home involves putting your home in order in a way that makes it look its best – and no home looks its best when it looks empty. You want to create the best possible image for your home, and that involves highlighting its selling points while minimizing its weaknesses.

For example, if your dining room has a beautiful, full-length dining bay with French windows, stage your home with carefully-selected furniture, curtains, and other furnishings to highlight the area. Accent your vaulted ceilings with artwork and other pieces of décor that draw attention upwards. Creating a better image is all about creating an ideal appearance for your home.

Giving an Impression of a Livable House

Staging a home also involves giving your prospective buyer an idea of what the home may look like once it has been set up. A properly-staged home features just enough furniture, décor, and fixtures to make the living space attractive, draw attention to the open space and layout, and present a possibility for the buyer. When you do this, though, try to avoid putting in personal effects; you want to create something of a blank canvas for your buyer’s imagination to use.

A living room with a couple of couches, a coffee table, and a throw rug, accented with a candle or two and soft music is a welcoming and comforting staging for that living space. A warm kitchen with a pleasing aroma and cooking implements casually placed around on the countertops and table is another way to highlight this particular room.

Creating Helpful Suggestions

When you stage a home, you also help the buyer see what he or she should do when fixing up their own home. This doesn’t mean they’ll take your indirect advice, but subconsciously, they will appreciate the appearance of a well-kept home that looks ‘lived in’ – and may even keep the same arrangement.

Home Staging as a Good Selling Tactic

Home staging is a great selling tactic for a variety of reasons, primarily because it presents your home in the best possible light for a wide variety of buyers who want to see the ideal version of a home – not a home that is stripped bare with white walls and no character or personality.

A staged home is an exciting home, full of possibilities. It gets the buyer’s creative juices flowing, instead of presenting the buyer with a completely blank canvas without any suggestions or hints as to what makes the home really come alive.

Staging a home also encourages the homeowner to play around with the layout and furniture as you have presented them. It is guaranteed that any interested buyer will start to mentally place his or her furniture in the rooms instead, to see how it would look versus what you have – and that automatically starts them down the road of a purchase.

At the end of the day, staging a home gives your buyers every incentive to want to buy your home, all things considered equal. It is a must and something worth perfecting when selling your property.

How Home Staging Helps Sell a Home is a post from: Foreclosure Magazine - Read more about how does foreclosure work.

In this day and age, however, this lack of relationship may mean lots of potential for investors looking to manage risk and round out a portfolio.

Risk mitigation is all about finding a way to reduce your exposure when a market goes bad. In other words, it is a way to profit – or at least limit your losses – when stocks, bonds, and other traditional assets go south or enter into periods of uncertainty, like today.

When looking for risk mitigation and the proper asset, you want to find one that is negatively correlated to stocks and bonds. You also want one that is not tied into the performance of the stock market, bonds market or other asset markets.

Real estate fits this profile perfectly because it involves buying and selling properties independent of any other asset class that is usually a part of a person’s portfolio. It is also negatively correlated, which means if the stock market plummets, real estate stands a good chance of remaining the same or even growing – which means the losses you handle in the stock market are lessened considerably.

How can you use real estate to balance out your portfolio? If you are an investor, the best way to use real estate is to actually engage in the buying and selling of property itself. Foreclosure deals offer great opportunities to do this. They are relatively cheap, abundant, and easy to find and obtain.

Plus, the general outlook for the stock market is uncertain at best. The general outlook for the real estate market is promising over the same time period. Additionally, you know what factors can impact real estate investment because most of these factors are local and relevant to a neighborhood, district, city, etc. In that manner, you can control your investment much more closely than you can a stock or mutual fund portfolio.

Finding foreclosure deals is your ticket to balancing your investments and providing much needed loss mitigation in an uncertain market.

Why Real Estate Should Be in Your Portfolio is a post from: Foreclosure Magazine - Read more about how does foreclosure work.

Housing industry analysts stated that a single family home or a townhouse for sale takes a long time to get sold at the current condition of the real estate market, leaving owners free to occupy these houses without payment for more than a year. This, in itself, sounds negative, but some economists claimed that this is actually benefiting the overall economy of the country.

According to them, empty and unsold bank owned houses do not do much for the economy, but a distressed home with occupants does have its benefits. Homeowners who have decided to stop paying mortgages and are staying in their distressed homes are usually able to rebuild their finances and spend the money that they would have used to pay their mortgages on other things. Consequently, this improves consumer spending all over the U.S. Consumer spending, economists explain, accounts for around 70% of the nation's economy and is the most important factor behind an economic recovery.

Economists also reported that the amount of extra income generated by the owners of foreclosure homes for sale who have stopped paying their loans and are currently staying in their unsold houses can reach up to $50 billion within 2011. This amount, they asserted, can provide consumer spending with a boost equal to 50% of the savings that can be generated from the payroll withholding cuts formulated in the bipartisan tax plan.

With a lot of homeowners living in their distressed homes free of rent, analysts stated that consumer spending can increase by around 2.8% this year. Moreover, the strategy is allowing a lot of homeowners to fix their financial situations and rebuild their credit records, which could help them purchase another home in the future. Deciding not to pay mortgages sounds bad, but some economists admit that it does help some homeowners save money and pay their other debts.

Economists stated that some live-in owners of foreclosure homes for sale have stopped paying their mortgages simply because they are unable to do so. Some have lost jobs, while others are facing financial emergencies. For others, particularly those with negative equity, the decision was consciously made.

Owners of Foreclosure Homes for Sale Contributing to Economy is a post from: Foreclosure Magazine - Read more about how does foreclosure work.

According to housing market observers, the way pre foreclosures cases are dealt with vary from one state to another and from one judge to another. In the regions of New Jersey, New York, Maryland and Florida, Supreme Courts have required lawyers representing banks to swear that they personally examined claims made by their clients and were able to verify their veracity.

This practice resulted in the decline in foreclosure-related filings in these areas and consequently cut down the number of distressed houses for sale during the first few months of 2011. According to housing analysts, a lot of the cases were dismissed after lawyers were unable to file certifications required in these states. Meanwhile, other states went so far as to name specific banks that they consider responsible for the filing of faulty documents in courts. One example was New Jersey where the Supreme Court asked six lenders to explain why their cases should not be dismissed by the courts and why they should be allowed to continue filing new ones.

Experts have revealed that the problem of faulty documents not only affects owners of foreclosure homes for sale, but also other areas of the home market since errors in filing can create problematic property records; the impact of which can be passed on to future owners and other entities involved in the property.

Analysts have cited certain examples wherein documents of repo properties and foreclosed dwellings have become "clouded" or unreliable after a bank that has no legal right to foreclose on these properties has been allowed to do so. Analysts claimed that these scenarios hurt the whole real estate industry and the only way to minimize the damage is to address the actual foreclosure process itself.

A number of analysts have asserted that a big number of foreclosure homes for sale have ended as such because of faulty documentation and errors in filing. They argued that judges who handle foreclosure cases should be more vigilant since fraudulent practices in foreclosing on properties not only affect the homeowner, but also the whole industry.

Rising Foreclosure Homes for Sale Prompted Judges to Take Steps is a post from: Foreclosure Magazine - Read more about how does foreclosure work.

A number of new single family and multi family homes for sale were built during the month, with homebuilding rising by 7.2% when compared with February 2011. This brings the seasonally adjusted total new units to 549,000 according to a report issued by the U.S. Commerce Department. Meanwhile, future home construction activities are also projected to rise in the coming months as home building permits jumped by 11.2%.

Although the figure is still way below the 1.2 million housing units usually seen in normal market conditions, some market analysts are optimistic that the rise in construction activities shows that homebuilders are gaining confidence that the new home market will be able to compete with cheaper properties offered at a foreclosure house auction. However, a lot of housing experts argued that the new home market is still in a depressed state.

They asserted that the oversupply of home foreclosures for sale will continue to push down prices and foreclosure numbers will continue to rise for the rest of the year. Moreover, they are worried that new homes will continue to lack buyers since lending standards have made it difficult for most consumers to secure financing to complete a home purchase. Furthermore, a big number of would-be buyers are still staying away from the market and waiting for prices to drop even lower.

The high level of distressed properties for sale in the U.S. and the slow pace of activities in the home construction sector are weighing down the national economy, analysts have claimed. According to them, the housing market traditionally accounts for around 20% of economic growth and with the rate the residential market is going, the economic recovery is also expected to stutter. Also, housing construction creates jobs, something that the country badly needs at this time.

Analysts believe that the number of home foreclosures for sale in the country will continue to expand in the coming months. Because of this, they are also predicting that housing prices will continue to tumble and construction activities in the residential market will continue to be slow.

Home Foreclosures for Sale to Face Competition from New Homes in Spring is a post from: Foreclosure Magazine - Read more about how does foreclosure work.

The number of existing single family and multi family homes for sale that were purchased during the month went up by 2.5% to reach an annual rate of five million. The increase though, was unable to compensate for the February decline of 9.6%. However, some other good news was recorded during the third month of the year, with homebuilding activities reportedly rising by 8.6% in March.

However, the figure was again short in terms of making up for the decline in February homebuilding activities when the sector posted a 23% decline in new home construction. In addition, the nation is still facing an oversupply of distressed property for sale and foreclosed homes, which would mean difficulties for new home sellers and builders in terms of finding a market for these newly-built dwellings. According to most analysts, the residential property market is still weak and it is unlikely that things will improve for the rest of the year, despite the positive numbers recorded in March.

They also stated that the continuous decline in the prices of houses for sale is hurting not just the housing market, but also the overall economy. Other economic indicators are showing improvements, but the housing industry is still in a slump, which further depresses consumer spending, a factor considered to be one of the driving forces behind the nation's economy. With the residential market still considered weak, analysts stated that significant improvement in the economy is unlikely to occur this year.

Housing analysts also claimed that residential prices are unlikely to recover in 2011 as foreclosures and repo houses continue to dominate the market. The median selling rate of existing residences declined in February, reaching a level that has not been seen since the year 2002. Prices are expected to continue to plummet as more foreclosures enter the market in the coming months, mainly from the shadow inventories of various states.

The oversupply of houses for sale, weak buyer demand and tight lending standards are all conspiring to pull residential prices down, analysts further revealed. They claim that trends in the housing sector will remain the same as last year and could even be worse in 2011.

U.S. Houses for Sale Market Posted Positive Numbers in March is a post from: Foreclosure Magazine - Read more about how does foreclosure work.

The issue affected not just homeowners and lenders, but almost all sectors tied up with housing, including real estate investments and home buying as a big number of would-be buyers reportedly stayed out of the foreclosure market for fear of acquiring distressed properties that do not have proper documentation. Although distressed property buying seemed to have picked up in the past few months, states' officials are still calling for banks that were proven to have committed documentation errors to be sanctioned.

However, recent reports revealed that several federal agencies have already made a deal with banks and servicers, with the core of the agreement reportedly based on getting the financial institutions to promise that they will improve their procedures in handling foreclosures and properties offered to buyers and investors who purchase repossessed homes. The deal with the federal agencies also allegedly includes demand for better communication with borrowers. These provisions are also included in AGs' initial demands. However, the proposed financial sanction was reportedly omitted.

Reports that appeared during the early part of the year have revealed that the attorneys were seeking a $20 billion fine from mortgage servicers for alleged faulty processing of homes foreclosures for sale. However, recent reports have intimated that the fine was not part of the deal struck between the federal agencies and the banks.

A number of legal practitioners have questioned the soundness of the agreement, asserting that a deal between federal bodies and lenders will undermine the efforts of state AGs to derive financial payment from banks that were accused of using faulty documents in processing home foreclosure auctions for sale. They further added that the deal between the government and the lenders can set a precedent and limit what states can demand from lenders. However, they also added that the recent agreement will not prevent regulators from seeking financial penalties later.

Sources have revealed that the agreement was made in an effort to provide immediate relief to troubled homeowners who are about to see their properties become homes foreclosures for sale. They also stated that more will be done in the coming months, both by federal regulators and attorneys general.

Alleged Faulty Processing of Homes Foreclosures for Sale Still an Issue is a post from: Foreclosure Magazine - Read more about how does foreclosure work.

With bank foreclosure and HUD homes listings still dominating housing sales in the U.S., new home sales for the month of February declined by 17% to an annual rate of 250,000 units. The total represents the lowest sales record for the new home market, analysts have revealed. In addition, every price category in the housing industry recorded plummeting sales in February, except those that are priced between $150,000 and $199,999.

Among the very few buyers that ventured into the housing market in February, majority purchased properties in listings of distressed homes and non-foreclosed dwellings within the cheapest price range. A U.S. Census Bureau report has revealed that sellers in this low-priced category unloaded around 6,000 units during the month, twice the number of sales posted in January for the same price category.

Data for the month also showed that it is not only homes in foreclosure for sale that are being sold at such low prices, even new homes are getting priced below $200,000, with 48% of sales in this price category accounted for by newly-built dwellings in February. Back in July of 2007, new homes at this price only accounted for 37% of total sales. Buyers' preference for cheap houses was also highly evident in February data for luxury home sales, with dwellings priced over $750,000 accounting for only 1% of total residential sales.

Industry experts have explained that, aside from the difficult condition in the lending market, majority of buyers are going for cheap new houses and repossession homes for sale mainly because of the down payment issue. Majority of sellers are now requiring up to 30% of the actual price of a home as down payment; which means that a buyer will have to pay an outright $75,000 for a house worth $250,000.

With such a huge amount of cash needed to secure a purchase, experts asserted that the choice is easy for most buyers. In the coming months, most analysts expect homes in foreclosure for sale and low-priced new houses to continue to account for a large percentage of housing sales.

Homes in Foreclosure for Sale Were Hot Commodities in February is a post from: Foreclosure Magazine - Read more about how does foreclosure work.

A total of 255,101 bank foreclosures, federal government homes for sale and foreclosure-related filings were recorded in the country in February, representing a decrease of 14% compared with the previous month and a 27% drop from one year ago. The figure includes houses up for auction, repossessed homes and homeowners in default. Although the cold weather was partly blamed for the slowdown in foreclosure processing, most analysts believe that the robo-signing controversy is the primary reason for the decline.

They stated that most lenders have held off putting properties into public foreclosure home auctions for sale category while they review foreclosure documents or re-file paperwork for cases that were questioned by borrowers, their lawyers and government officials. The impact of the slower processing can be seen in the number of initial notices of default as it declined by 16% during the month compared with January 2011.

When compared with February 2010, default notices dropped by a huge 41%. In terms of home foreclosures for sale scheduled for auction, the number decreased by 10% from January 2011 and posted a decline of 21% compared with February 2010. Repossessed homes totaled more than 64,600 in February, fewer by 17% than the total number of repossessions recorded in January 2011.

Compared with February 2010, the number of bank owned home properties last month declined by 18%. Nationwide data also showed that repossessed homes in judicial states, or regions where foreclosure is required to go through the courts, dropped by 35% from year-ago levels. Housing market experts stated that the slowdown in foreclosure will benefit a lot of homeowners as they are given more time to find a way to save their homes. However, they also stated that the decline will hardly help alleviate the nation's foreclosure problems.

According to experts, home foreclosures for sale will reach record highs this year and the slowdown in February was only a delay. They predict that lenders will foreclose on more properties in the coming months at a faster pace than what was seen since the robo-signing controversy emerged in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Number of Home Foreclosures for Sale Declined in the U.S. is a post from: Foreclosure Magazine - Read more about how does foreclosure work.