TACTIC #1: SELL YOUR HOME – The BEST way to STOP FORECLOSURE
Selling your home is the very best way to cure a pending foreclosure regardless if you have a lot of equity or you have NO equity in the property.
If you have equity, than selling is the best way to get CASH for the equity that you have before the bank get's their hands on it.
If you have NO equity, or even if you owe more than the home is worth, selling your property in conjunction with getting a Short Sale approval might be the best strategy to avoid foreclosure.
Often real estate agent will try to get you to sign 6 month or longer listing agreements and promise to have a buyer in 30 days, even though they cannot rightfully make such a promise. Once the 30 days has passed, they often tell you that you need to drop your price, remind you the market is slow, and give you a whole bunch of other reasons to stay listed with them, while your potential buyers are buying someone else's home. Remember, no one can predict the future, and your real estate agent cannot either. Many homeowners facing foreclosure have found they simply do not have the time to wait to work with a real estate agent.
The second option is to market your home for sale “By Owner”. The key to every successful home sale is getting your home noticed by enough potential buyers. This means advertising! Additionally, there is the concern of showing the house to potential buyers. This means that the home will always have to be in “visitor ready” condition, should you get that last minute call that an interested buyer is in the area. Not to mention that often times, buyers want to see homes when it's not convenient for you, meaning that you will have to have someone available at all times and especially on weekends when most buyers want to look.
Once you have shown the home to a number of buyers, some even 2 and 3 times as they bring back other family and friends, you must begin the inspection and negotiation process, where they are likely to want detailed home inspections, electrical and plumbing surveys, roof certifications and the like. While this may sound like a simple process, if these inspections find anything of concern, you can bet your buyers will want a big discount and for you to repair the problem before they will agree to go forward with the transaction, and this doesn't guarantee they will close the purchase.
Many of our National Prevention affiliate companies are well funded and can purchase your property quickly before the foreclosure sale, and many specialize in Short Sales as well, and can facilitate that process if contacted in time.
There are two ways to sell your home if you are interested in a quick sale. The first involves selling the home through a qualified realtor; the other involves you selling your home yourself, or what's known as “By Owner”. Let's spend a little time discussing both options.
In the first option, you would engage the services of a qualified realtor who specializes in listing homes. Either through a personal contact, or recommendation of a friend or family affiliate, you will likely be able to find one or more realtors to choose from. Make sure that you are asking these realtors to show you their marketing plan before engaging them, as this will tell you if they are a professional at what they do. Often, because of circumstances beyond their control, working with even the best realtor may take 30, 60, 90 or even 120 days or more to find a buyer, and then you begin the tedious process of waiting for the buyer to get qualified for the mortgage and pray that deal doesn't fall through if they don't have perfect credit. It is not unheard of in this economy of hearing that a home falls out of escrow 2 or 3 times before a qualified buyer can be found. Then the process starts all over again.