Beese Properties

Home ownership is the most exciting prospect facing young couples and individuals today. Unfortunately, keeping your home is not as easy as it once was. The fluctuating interest rates, shaky economy and high cost of home ownership puts many people in financial jeopardy. If you’re having financial difficulties resulting in being unable to keep up with your mortgage payments, you may be facing foreclosure and repossession of your home. Fortunately, there are ways to stop repossession.

The most important way to try to stop repossession is to stay in contact with your lender. Explaining your financial situation to your lender can allow them to work with you in finding ways to help you including deferral of payments or refinancing for better loan terms. However, sometimes even with these options available, you’ll still find yourself facing repossession. Options you may want to consider to stop repossession is the sell and rent back or the sell and buy back option. Although this process may seem unfamiliar to many, it’s becoming a widely used practice with many advantages, the most obvious being able to stay in their home.

Sell and rent back involves selling your home to a cash buyer. When you’re facing repossession, you usually don’t often have much time from when the foreclosure process begins to when the actual repossession takes place. Keep in mind, however, that you can also stop repossession at any time by paying the arrears on your mortgage. Arrears are the amount that you are past due plus any late fees and fines. Once the repossession takes place, the bank will usually sell your home at public auction to the highest bidder. Many times the home is sold for less than you owe, leaving you still owing the bank money for many years. The best way to stop repossession is to sell your home quickly for cash. This enables you to pay off your mortgage and, often, have leftover cash to do with what you want.

Many sell and rent back companies are available today to help you. They purchase your home at less than the market value and rent it back to you. Although you will be losing equity by selling your home at less than market value, you’ll be able to stay in your home. With the sell and buy back option; you have the option to buy your home back when your financial situation improves. In most sell and buy back options; you can buy your home back below market value. Although this is the most common method used, each company may have a slightly different principle involved. For instance, one company may allow you to buy back your home at the same price they purchased it from you, while another may use a certain percentage such as 85% of market value. Whichever method they use, make sure you get this in writing.

It’s important to always have a contract in sell and rent back or sell and buy back options. Check out the companies you’re considering doing business with. Many unscrupulous companies will offer you full price on your home and a very low rent on your home. They’re not making any money this way so they’d have no reason to offer you this other than to rip you off. What they do is offer you a high price for your home, but any profit after paying off the mortgage will be kept for a few years while you’re renting from them. However, after a year or, possibly less, they evict you for some reason. Because you’re no longer their tenant, you’ve lost the rights to the profit from your home sale as well as the rights to buy back your home. Therefore, be sure of whom you enter into a sell and rent back or sell and buy back offer. Always, insist on a contract and insist they pay any legal fees.  If they’re a trustworthy company, they’ll agree to this. One method of determining if you want to do business with this person or company is to ask yourself if this is someone you would want as your landlord for a few years.

If possible, you may want to check with other people that have been involved with this company or person in a sell and buy back or sell and rent back procedure. The internet is a great source of information. Use it to your advantage and do some checking.

There are advantages and disadvantages to sell and rent back or sell and buy back options, so you may want to speak with an attorney for legal advice. In some situations, these options may be your only way to stop repossession and preserve your credit rating. With a good credit rating, you may be able to get a mortgage in the future to buy back your home.

Beese Properties offers all of this to their customers and more. They offer advice on ways to stop repossession. They base their rents on the current rental market, so they do not overcharge their tenants. They work with their tenants to find a solution which meets their needs and offer the buy back solution to them once back on their financial feet. For more information, visit them online at www.beeseproperties.com.

The economic instability and uncertainty the world is living in right now can dangerously blur people’s ability to see things in a clear and rational way. In these troubled times people tend to focus on the problem and feel hopelessly trapped rather than focusing on a solution to get themselves out of the problem.

A classic example of being able to focus in the correct way is when a person is training to be a racing driver. The first thing they are taught is, ‘if you ever lose control of the vehicle, don’t focus on any walls or trees, just focus on the empty space’. The reason is very simple. Focussing on the problem – the wall or tree – will inevitably cause the driver to hit it.

Procrastination is the greatest enemy to people in times where quick decisions need to be made. This is especially true for homeowners with financial problems who are trying to hold back the bitter flavour of repossession from knocking on their doors. Most struggling homeowners pass up an opportunity which will help them simply because they believe a better solution will turn up later. Unfortunately for them, this very rarely happens and what can be even harder to swallow is that in the time it has taken them looking for a better solution, the original one is no longer available.

Focussing on finding a solution is imperative in times of crisis. Taking action must be decisive in order to stop repossession and gain control over the situation. There are numerous property companies which offer a very good solution for people to avoid losing their home and this is known as ‘Sell, Rent and Buy Back’. The idea of this scheme is to offer the homeowners an alternative exit rather than repossession or bankruptcy.

The concept of this scheme is very simple. The house is purchased at a trade price and then rented back to the previous owners at the local market rent. In addition to renting the property back there is also the option to buy it back in the future at a pre-agreed price. Some concerns can arise such as does this scheme really offer the security to the homeowner over the long term?  

The Sell and Rent Back scheme is relatively new to the property market and like everything new and unknown there is always a fear factor associated with it. It is very important to think about each individual situation and make the right choice at the time.

A very famous example of the fear factor of the new and unknown is the statement made by Ken Olson founder of Digital Equipment Corporation in 1977: “There is no reason why anyone would want a computer in their homes”.

A combination of current events such as: the ghost of recession haunting the UK, house prices falling faster than the last recession in the early ‘90’s and the banks being overly cautious about lending makes the act of selling a house on the open market an heroic attempt worthy of a prize.

According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders over 120 houses will be repossessed in the U.K each day in 2008. The Sell and Rent Back scheme is contributing to decrease these rising numbers with the extra advantage of the Buy Back Agreement. It allows the homeowner to buy the house back when the crisis is finished and they are back on their financial feet.

Entering the Sell and Rent Back Scheme enables the homeowner to stop repossession immediately even if a court order has already been received. However, it is not wise to wait until the very last minute when a court date is looming. This will generally cause more stress and unnecessary heartache which can easily be avoided. Waiting until the last minute to speak to someone about the sell and rent back scheme usually puts the homeowner in an even tougher situation as there is less room for negotiation due to time constraints.

Bear in mind that the best time to start looking into this scheme and possible solution is at the first signs of a financial struggle. Knowing that there will be serious trouble ahead if nothing is done to prevent it will give the homeowner more time to research the companies that are operating the Sell, Rent Back and Buy Back option.

Some very clear signs leading to a financial struggle which has a direct path to repossession are credit card debts, unsecured loans and expenditure larger than income.

For more information on the scheme please visit www.beeseproperties.com