Foreclosure Scams: What You Need to Know

By Doc Schmyz

Home foreclosure is a common problem that people face today. More often than not it starts from one missed payment which the spirals out of control. Before you know it you have missed three or four payments and the mortgage lender or bank wants you to pay everything you owe all at once. When the homeowners realize that they have made a grave mistake they resort to anything they can to get out of a tight situation.

This is when the swindlers and crooks find their way into your mailbox or give you a call. Foreclosure scams are as common as the problem itself. Since homeowners believe that they have no choice they fall for these traps and make their situation much worse than it was before. It is not uncommon for these scams to lead to even greater financial problems then the homeowner faced in the first place. In some cases the homeowner ends up becoming a identity theft case as well.

Scam operators also distribute flyers,advertise online, publish advertisements in the local newspaper, and call homes which are included on the foreclosure list. They call themselves mortgage consultants who offer foreclosure services or advertise with "We buy houses" slogans and signs.

Common scams:

Bankruptcy Foreclosure Scam

This scam operates by promising the homeowner that their house will be saved. In return they will either ask for the homeowner to pay their mortgage directly to them, hand over their deed and pay rent, or obtain refinancing. Of course these crooks never do anything for you...they contact NO ONE on your behalf. They keep all the money and file bankruptcy without your knowledge. Eventually they just skip out on you.

Since the homeowner is not aware that bankruptcy has been filed, they fail to participate in the case. The case is dismissed and the house continues onto foreclosure. Apart from loosing money and your home, you will also have a bankruptcy on your record.

Equity skimming

The scam artist poses as a buyer. They then promise the homeowner to pay the mortgage or given them a sum of money once the property has been sold. The operator then convinces the homeowner to sign over the deed and move out. The homeowner can stay but they have to pay rent. If they opt to move out the operator lets a third party rent the property. The operator does not pay the mortgage and lets the mortgage lender foreclose. and of course they skip town and are never seen/heard from again.

If the house has equity, the operator sells the property and pays off the debt. Then the operator keeps the equity that the homeowner could have had if they sold it. In few cases, the scam operator actually finds a buyer or sells the house. Normally they just set up a p.o.box with a forwarding address for the "rent check". - 23208

About the Author:

Doc Schmyz has invested all over the US. He built a free free website shares Real estate investing information for all over the US. Find real estate information by state

Property Management

By Layla Vanderbilt

Now that you have bought a small apartment building, you have to decide if you should try and manage it yourself or should you have a property management company to manage it for you. In order to make the best decision, you should determine what your goals are for the building and also what your skills are.

When deciding our goals for the apartment building, first you should decide on if you want to be an investor or a landlord. Each role, either landlord or investor, has their own set of requirements. If you want to be an investor, you will need time securing investment properties and selling them. If you want to be a landlord, your time will be spent handling the everyday tasks required to manage the apartment building. This will include advertising, application processing and also maintaining the apartment building, to include fixing repair items.

Successful investors hire someone to manage their properties in order to free up their time to finding and selling properties. Hiring a good property management company will free up your time to allow you to focus on investing.

When you first start out in property investments, you are tempted to try and be the landlord and an investor at the same time. If you are able to do both successfully, you will save money by not hiring a property manager and have more cash flow for your investments.

If you have to be the landlord because you cannot afford to hire someone to manage the property for you, you should review your business plan and cash flow forecast. You should also look to see if you paid and financed the property correctly. When buying rental investment property, the income should cover all expenses, including property management, even if you do it yourself.

Also ask yourself whether you have the skills to manage the property yourself. It takes a special temperament to be able to collect from late tenants. It takes special skills to be able to perform many repairs.

It takes knowledge and connections to be able to negotiate cleaning services, repairs, and other services that your property will need. A good management company already has the expertise and connections to perform such services, often at a lower cost.

Finally, with the services of a property management company any vacated room will be prepared for re-renting within days. For instance if they get the room re-rented one or two weeks quicker than you would have done you end up getting extra income therefore the management service actually pays for itself with regard to the time and money saved. - 23208

About the Author:

Layla Vanderbilt is the webmaster for a leading property management software review website which connects people with the leading property management tools.

The Process Of Debt Consolidation

By Layla Vanderbilt

When you are in too much debt, a debt consolidation program is a good way to stay afloat. The program begins with an evaluation of your current financial situation to establish whether its debt consolidation or bankruptcy you really need. The analysis will give you an estimate of any savings you might get with the consolidation process.

With a deal struck between the debtor and the debt consolidator, the duty is now left to the consolidation firm to discuss with the creditors to reduce the interest rates and thereby reducing the monthly payments. The result should be an amount that the debtor can be able to come up with.

The interest rates can be reduced or eliminated completely. Sometimes with good negotiation skills from the debt consolidator the creditor can even reduce some of the principle amount.

Debt consolidation also has other added advantages such as stopping the creditor from pursuing any further legal actions against the debtor. This means that the debtor can now live with no fear of being taken to court. Since the creditor will be receiving payments the debtors credit rating will also start to rise.

Added to the above benefits the debtor will no longer get any embarrassing phone calls from his creditors. The debtor will not receive any bills from the creditors nor pay the creditors directly. On the contrary, the debt consolidation company will directly take control over the creditors. The debtor as per the new agreement with the debt consolidation company will pay a single amount to the consolidation company for every month. This arrangement does not allow any transaction between the debtor and creditor.

Due to this system the enjoyments of the debtor are great, because the fees are paid by the creditors as the creditors would get something in return than loose all money the debtor owes them. Use of a debt service company or consolidator is indeed a great solution for debt reduction. This program works for those with good or bad credit. It does not mean that you should do things at random and stand for the mercy of debt consolidation companies. Let us do things properly and systematically and be careful to avoid pitfalls. - 23208

About the Author:

Layla Vanderbilt is the webmaster for a leading website that offers for bad debt consolidation advice and guidance.

Forex Signals and Alerts

By Bart Icles

Forex signals are among the most important aspects of forex trading that traders need to understand. Being able to understand trends and read forex signals will enable traders to make more reasonable decisions. In doing so, more profits can be made and less damage can be incurred. These signals are typically based from actual proven techniques which are associated with the technical analysis of several macroeconomic indicators. Oftentimes, signals are sent to subscribers through email ? although there are several other ways by which trading signals are released or published. These other ways include traditional newsletters and forex trading signals.

More often than not, it does not really matter if you choose to receive forex alerts in a method that is far different from the others. What is important is you are able to process and use these signals or alerts so you can make more sound trading decisions.

But before you can receive alerts in your email or on your mobile, you will first need to subscribe to a forex trading signal service. Usually, forex trading signal service companies offer various methods for sending alerts. One way is through email. Signals can be sent to your email several times a day that in some cases, traders would mistake them as spam or junk mail.

Another way of keeping you updated with the latest trends in the forex world is through your mobile phone. Yes, your mobile phone can easily become a powerful forex alert tool these days. Most forex signals and alerts sent to mobile phones contain real time information on the actual currency pair you are looking out for. This means you can have the most up to date idea on how your selected currency pair is performing in the market.

The bottom line is that forex signals are generated as soon as a technical analysis has been done. In the same manner, forex alerts have come into place so that currency traders will not miss out on the latest trends in the forex world. Forex alerts serve as early warning devices so that forex trading brokers and traders can almost instantly read the clues and decide whether or not to enter or exit the market. In this manner, more profits can be generated and the losses that can be incurred can be kept at a minimum. While the foreign exchange or currency market remains unpredictable, forex alerts are there to keep us informed of important things right when they arise. - 23208

About the Author:

The best forex strategy starts with a desire to learn and a drive to become a great trader. Learning blade forex strategies takes dedication and a good teacher. But once you learn how to trade and do so successfully your life will change and you have options and financial resources you never had before.

Puts and Calls, Should You Be A Buyer Or Seller?

By Maclin Vestor

To buy options, or sell them?

If you are a seller of options, you have a fixed amount of income that you can collect. You will always receive this portion of the option. Now, there is another part of the option that you may or may not receive. You always receive the theta or time value. Now the rest of the option is based on what the stock does. If a $50 strike priced option expires at $49.99, you collect that entire premium. Now if you were to sell a $40 strike priced option for a $50 stock, you might receive $10.50 per share. This .50 per share is what you will always get. You will also technically get the $10 per share, but you will have your shares "called" in, and that means that you have to sell them at $40, but you keep the $10.50 so if it expired at the same price, you would only gain the $.50. Now say you instead sold a $50 strike price. Now the value might be $1.00. The theta value is now $1, which is much greater. However, in the last example, if the stock dropped from $50, to $40, you would still end up with a slight gain. In this example, if the stock fell to $40, you would incur a $9 a share loss.

Now lets say you buy a stock with $50 a share, and sell an option at $60 a share. Now this option might cost you $0.50. Again the time value is 0.50. The difference is, now you have room for your stock to go up and less of your upside is capped. However, Now if your stock goes to $40, that's a $9.59 loss. These aren't real numbers based on a real stock and real options, but they illustrate the point. The point is that whether you buy or sell a stock option depends on your outlook, and what strike price you are looking at.

Buying and selling options have advantages.

As the buyer of a call option, you are saying, I believe this stock will go up. You would buy an at the money option because you want the full leverage per 100 shares and you want to get as close to a gain as 100 shares as you can. You would buy a deep in the money option because you want to pay less for theta, allow you to lose a smaller amount percentage wise, keep actual money tied up so you aren't tempted to put more leverage on or if you do you have better money management. You need less of a move to make money with a deep in the money option, and it's practically buying the stock for a discount if you buy deep enough in the money.

As the buyer of an out of the money option, you first must have enough money on the side, but you believe that if you can get a stock to move big, that you should bet big, you allow yourself to buy more shares and diversify while still keeping a lot of capital on the side (which you will have to do). If you can manage your larger swings, these have limited time value, and very high upside. Now a covered call is when you own the actual stock so things will be different.

A covered call you would sell a deep in the money call if you want to collect the theta, but want to insure against greater losses and are willing to accept less for this protection. You would sell an at the money option because you want to collect the maximum theta, don't believe the stock will decline much in value, but you don't believe the upside will be that great. You would sell out of the money options if you bet on the stock being slightly bullish. This is just a start which tells you what to consider when determining what strike price to buy an option at, it does not tell you what to consider when determining whether you want a long term, or short term option, but thats another story. - 23208

About the Author:

Maclin Vestor teaches about varioustrading systems and teaches you how to buy stock that works for you.