Is Your Mortgage out of Balance with your Budget?

It can happen quickly.

An expensive car repair, an unexpected hospital visit, a missed week of work – just a few little things and the life you’ve worked so hard to build can feel like it’s tipping dangerously out of balance.

Once the scales turn against you, it can feel like it is impossible to ever tip them back in your favor again. When your financial problems reach the point where they threaten your home, it is difficult to manage the stress. Sometimes it is even difficult to force yourself to seek help.

As a real estate professional who has earned the Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE) designation, my mission is to provide financially-challenged homeowners with options to foreclosure, ensure that they steer clear of scams, and help navigate them through the solution that best meets their needs.

Choose to face the challenge with a professional on your side.

I can help you realign the balance in your financial life and tip the scales back in your favor. Call or email me and schedule your free, confidential consultation. We can work together to make sure you end up ahead.

New Year Offers New Opportunity for Financially Strapped Homeowners To Reach Out and Redirect Their Lives

Millions and millions of homeowners in the United States spent 2011 under a cloud of uncertainty caused by missed payments on an unmanageable mortgage.

My message to financially strapped homeowners in the Greater Lansing market is the expertise and resources to ensure that 2012 gets off to a far more positive start is close at hand.

A Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE), I am knowledgeable regarding foreclosure avoidance alternatives and experienced in negotiating with major banks and helping financially strapped homeowners to regain peace of mind and a sense of stability for the future.

My free report entitled, “Tipping the Scales toward Foreclosure: Resolve to Shed the Weight of an Unmanageable Mortgage in 2012,” is accessible on this website under the resources page.

As the report points out, the recovery of U.S. housing market, hinges on huge reductions to the current glut of foreclosed homes, and as such, all major players have taken foreclosure-prevention efforts up several notches.

The most important fact for financially distressed homeowners to keep in mind: the sooner help is sought, the better.

Contact me today at (517) 290-4493 or Karen@YourHomePros.com and let's get started!

Take action now to turn it around in 2012

Recent economic upheaval has taken a hefty toll. Looking forward to 2012, it’s impossible to know what’s next and the kind of an impact that an upturn or a downturn at the national level stands to have on your family’s finances.

Regardless of what happens in Washington or on Wall Street, two things are very clear: you are not alone and now is the time to prepare for a new normal.

With a national epidemic of unemployment or underemployment, and 25 percent of the homeowners in the country owing more on their home than they could net for it in today’s market, homeownership for many has become a financial liability. Not       being able to make payments on a home that you can’t afford to sell feels like an awful trap, but the fact is, there are solutions—and foreclosing on your mortgage is not one of them.

Loan modification is an option for many and banks are increasingly willing to negotiate short sales. In many cases, they’re offering sizable financial incentives to help financially strapped homeowners to get a fresh start on their lives.

As real estate professional who has achieved the Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE) designation, it is my mission to give homeowners the gift of a fresh start.

Contact me today at (517) 290-4493 or Karen@YourHomePros.com and let's get started!

Foreclosure fears foster true grief

Reports of foreclosures by the millions have been in the news so much over the past few years that to some, it might seem like the new normal. 

But as a real estate professional who is in the trenches with financially stressed homeowners every day, it never for a second feels to me like business-as-usual.

The prospect of losing ones home is right up there among the major sources of grief, and often, it goes hand in hand with other tragic setbacks such as the loss of a job, a divorce, death of a loved one, mounting medical bills or skyrocketing mortgage payments.

Unfortunately, the first stage of grief is denial, and that’s even more the case when the threat of foreclosure is looming. No one wants to talk about or admit financial troubles—even when millions of others have founds themselves in a similar spot.  It’s completely understandable, but for homeowners who are behind on mortgage payments, decisive action is often the most critical step toward ensuring the best possible solution.

As a real estate professional who has sought out the Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE) designation, I help homeowners to deal with every aspect of the grief and uncertainty that accompanies a mortgage which is no longer manageable. In the process, I help them to get on a path of financial solvency.

If you or someone you care about would like to change the course of a life that’s facing foreclosure, I get it and I can help.

Contact me today at (517) 290-4493 or Karen@yourhomepros.com

Short Sales

It’s time to take another look at short sales

  As recently as a few months ago, if you would have told a real estate agent who specialized in short sales that they’d be raving about a lender’s stellar service and rapid approval times—not to mention significant cash incentives for financially strapped homeowners for pursuing a short sale—you’d have gotten some strange looks.

  That’s all changed.  And it’s changed faster and to a greater extent than most real estate professionals ever could have imagined.

  With a glut of bank-owned properties dragging down the recovery of the real estate market, as well as the national economy, major lenders are more eager than ever before to avoid foreclosure. So they’ve sharpened their focus on short sales. Big time.

  The biggest lenders in the country have staffed up to ensure rapid processing of short sale applications. They've ponied up with cash incentives at closing for homeowners who pursue a short sale. And they’re proactively reaching out to CDPE agents and putting them in touch with delinquent borrowers.

  This is big news and the media has not really caught onto it yet. What’s important for you to know is that whatever you’ve read or heard in the past about long lag times and frustrations with short sales is probably no longer the case.

  As a member of the CDPEAdvanced community, I’m tapped into major lenders and on top of major developments affecting short sales and bank-owned properties.  I invite you to visit my website www.KarenFisherAustin.com to learn more and feel free to contact me any time at 517-290-4493 or karenaustin4@gmail.com if you or anyone you know is struggling with an unmanageable mortgage.

I look forward to helping. 

Renewed Trust for Tough Times

Does it feel like trust is one of the major casualties of the economic meltdown of 2008 – followed by the “Great Recession,” the “Jobless Recovery” and now the threat of a “Double Dip Recession?”

Weren’t we assured that home values were destined to go up and up and up?

There have been lots of promises that help is on the way—and lots of warnings of scams and schemes that have only served to confuse the matter. So where’s a homeowner who’s underwater or overleveraged to turn?

Here’s the bottom line: the choices that homeowners make when they feel they are at the end of their rope will have ramifications for years to come on their ability to qualify for credit, their job prospects, their security clearance and their overall finances. When a family’s financial trajectory is rapidly heading in a negative direction, there’s no substitute for the helping hand of a knowledgeable expert who has the integrity, the experience and the training to reverse the course—someone who is tapped into regulatory initiatives and can separate fact from fiction.

It is my mission to serve as a credible source of information and perspective to homeowners who have found themselves in a tough situation and need help sorting through their options. That’s why I sought out the Certified Distressed Property (CDPE) designation—the most renowned and recognized credential in the distressed property field, and it’s why I continue to stay on top of regulatory and industry developments that impact options available to homeowners who are struggling with their current financial situations.

My message to homeowners who do not know where to turn: there is hope. Foreclosure is not inevitable and neither the government nor your bank wants to see that happen. No one expected to find themselves on the brink of foreclosure, but I have worked with countless clients who have managed to turn their financial trajectory around and get on a path of financial recovery. 

It CAN be done! And it would be my privilege to help.

Helping Lansing Homeowners

   As a local real estate expert I try to keep on top of what our market looks like today. If you've done any looking on the internet for homes, you've seen the number of foreclosed homes for sale. Whenever I research the latest foreclosure and distressed property statistics, the sheer number of Americans facing the stress of losing their homes amazes me.
   It is my goal to help as many homeowners as I can either stay in their homes or relieve the burden of their mortgages. Knowing that there are so many that need my help is a driving force for me to continue doing what I do. That is why I became a CDPE, Certified Distressed Property Expert. Basically that means I am equipped to help Lansing Area home owners that are dealing with the stress of an unaffordable mortgage.
   In fact, I just released another report that I’ve made available on my website. It explains the CDPE designation and lists 10 options that homeowners can take advantage of to relieve the stress that comes with owing their mortgage lenders more money than they can afford to pay.
   The report also draws a contrast between short sales and foreclosures. Unfortunately, there’s a growing trend of “strategic defaulters” who think it’s smart to let their home go into foreclosure. But as anyone who has gone through something like that knows, there is nothing strategic about foreclosure; it’s one of the most long-lasting, negative financial challenges you can go through.

Go to www.KarenAustinHelps.com to see the free report and other information about how I can help.

   I’m excited about acting as a resource for more homeowners who have questions about what they should do. As always, if you know homeowners who may need my help, have them contact me immediately! Together, we can put them back on the path to financial stability.