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Home equity saves borrowers who can't make mortgage payments

By Jack Guttentag, Monday, April 3, 2006.

(This is Part 1 of a three-part series.)

Payment problems are on the rise. In this series of three articles, I consider how borrowers who anticipate that they soon will be unable to make the payments can make the best of a bad situation. This article applies to borrowers who have significant equity in their homes

Don't Practice Denial: If you stick your head in the sand and allow yourself to miss payments, you lose one potentially valuable option: the ability to stay current by raising cash against your equity.  more...

How can mortgage balance grow instead of decline?

By Robert Bruss, Monday, April 3, 2006.

DEAR BOB: We look forward to your educational and entertaining columns. But now we have a real estate problem we never expected. About a year ago, we bought our home with the help of an adjustable-rate mortgage at 1.95 percent interest. We knew it would adjust after six months to 4.95 percent interest. That was quite a jump in our monthly payment, but we handled it. However, when we received the lender's Internal Revenue Service 1098 year-end report, we learned our mortgage balance has grown by about $7,800.  more...

Holding an open house is good marketing strategy

By Dian Hymer, Monday, April 3, 2006.

Some sellers question the value of having their home held open to the public. A common complaint is that open houses mostly attract neighbors who are looking for decorating ideas or who want to keep up on property values in the neighborhood.

While it's true that open houses attract neighbors, this is not harmful to the marketing of your home. In fact it can help a lot. Neighbors often know people who are interested in moving into the neighborhood.  more...