Tuesday, September 8, 2009

You Can Cut Your Investment Losses And Save Your Credit Rating

By Sarah Bentley

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 housing market was doing so well, investment properties were a huge business and everyone wanted a piece of it. They were rented out for the income, and they were flipped and resold by people who could do the work themselves and save money. Some houses even had waiting lists and/or went to the highest bidder because they were so very popular.

It's become almost impossible to give some properties away now, though, and no one seems to want them. Some cities, like Detroit, have homes that can be bought for only a few hundred dollars, not the thousands or tens of thousands that they would normally go for. If a person was lucky enough to pick up and dispose of a lot of homes when the credit market was hot and everyone was buying he probably did very well, but what happened to those people and those properties when the market bubble popped and things weren't selling anymore?

If you're in that 'I don't know what to do with this investment property' situation, you're definitely not alone, and you'll find plenty of other people to commiserate with, most of whom have lost a lot of money to an uncertain and very volatile market. You could also be one of the people for whom things have gone from bad to worse and you're finding that your investment property is costing you so much that you're getting behind on the payments and can't make them for much longer. If that's where you are, you have two choices: you can try to stick it out because the market is showing some slow signs of improvement or you can try to sell the property and get out from under it before it totally destroys your credit rating.

Even if there's already been some damage to your credit, the less damage there is and the shorter the period of time where late payments and other issues show up the less costly it will be to you in the long run when your credit is checked by a company that you're trying to use to finance something. The main thing is to avoid the damage, but if you're not able to do that the next best thing is to cut your losses and do some damage control in the form of getting rid of your investment properties before they can harm your credit and/or your financial future any more than they already have. To do that you have to know what's owed on them, what they're worth, and how you can most easily and quickly get rid of them - either by a deed to the bank in lieu of foreclosure, a short sale, or some other method.

When you're honest about the financial problems that you're having, your lender will be more likely to try to work with you on them, and it's a very smart thing to do where an investment property is concerned. It's really better to talk to a lender before any problems get started but a lot of people are embarrassed about financial troubles or don't want anyone to know, so they just don't say anything until it's too late and they're really stuck. If you want to save your credit rating and your financial future, don't let your pride get in the way of talking to your lender at the first sign of trouble making your investment property payments.

When you're up front about things that are taking place financially a lender will generally be more likely to try to work with you and help you renegotiate a better interest rate, a longer term to pay back the loan, or something that will be able to help you continue to keep your property for investment. If it's obvious that there isn't any way for you to keep your property, you'll want to talk to your lender about the other options that you might have. Keeping a foreclosure off of your credit record is really important, so find out what all of your options are and choose the one that will be best for you financially and that will have the lowest chance of doing severe damage to your credit rating. - 23309

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