You may have heard of people staging homes and feel staging is only for large home sales. You can stage any home, especially short sales in NYC. Your job as a homeowner is to help potential buyers envision themselves living in your home. You don’t need to hire an interior decorator to stage your short sale in NYC. Here are 6 tips on how to do it yourself.

Clear Away Clutter
First, clear away any clutter and personal items. Remove family photos, storage boxes, toys, and any other out of place items. Your potential buyers should be able to see their stuff in those spots.

Get Rid of Some Furniture
Clear out some furniture. Each room should have an open feel. A living room is inviting enough with a couch, loveseat, coffee table, and one end table. Place a vase in the corner and a bowl of fresh fruit on the table.

Reorganize Your Furniture
Make a room feel more open by reorganizing your furniture. Keep the furniture off the walls. If you have a beautiful bay window, reface your couch so you can look out into the yard. If its winter, center your furniture to face the fireplace, so families can vision themselves cozy by the fire.

Touch Up the Paint
If your walls could use a fresh coat of paint, do so with a nice neutral color. You can also add contrast by painting one wall a vibrant color.

Deodorize Your Home
When potential buyers come into your home, it should be clean and smell fresh. Make sure there is no dust on the ceiling fans. Buyers are sure to notice that and think what a pain it will be to clean it. Bake cookies or boil cinnamon sticks or lemon peels on the stove a few moments before a showing.

Transform Rooms
Transform bedrooms used as storage rooms so it’s considered a usable living space. If you don’t have bedroom furniture, turn it into a sitting room or study. Add a desk, bookshelf, and comfortable chair. Add a nice area rug to set the stage.

Short Sales in NYC is not bad for everyone. You can capitalize on a short sale in NYC if you have the right team behind you. They should be experts in short sale processes and able to help you get your projects completed faster.

Hire an Experienced Real Estate Agent
You don’t want just any real estate agent on your team. You need an experienced short sale or foreclosure agent in NYC. They have a great working relationship with bank property asset managers. These managers are the ones working directly with REO properties.

A real estate agent also can help you choose the right short sale property in NYC, alerting you of which will sell fastest. They know the areas and what type of homes will do best as a short sale.

A Lending Team
When too good to pass up short sales come your way, you need to have your funding ready to go. That’s why having a lending team of hard money loan lenders can help you with multiple purchases at a time. You also should have conventional financing approval if you will have the property for several months, as the interest would be cheaper than a hard money lender. This money would also be needed to help cover your labor work.

A Refurbishing Team
In order to flip a home, you’ll need contractors on your team who can be ready on short notice. These include plumbers, roofers, electricians, and carpenters. It’s not necessary to have licensed professionals, but they should prove they do have the experience necessary.

Always remember to keep your property looking great at all times. A landscaper may be needed to keep the exterior looking well-kept and a photographer is useful for taking pictures getting the property ready to list online.

Vendors and Suppliers
Flipping short sale properties involves changing out appliances, painting the rooms, and tiling floors. These supplies can add up quickly. Purchasing items in bundles from vendors and suppliers can help you in your refurbishing process. They may also be able to expedite shipment of items you need in a hurry.

An Alarm System Technician
This may not seem like a top team member, but if you are purchasing multiple short sale NYC properties, having an alarm system technician on board offering discounts can save you tons of money. Any vacant home is a target for squatters and vandalism. You need to protect your labor and monetary investment with an exceptional alarm system.

We often think about the trauma families experience from a foreclosure in NYC. It’s embarrassing, confusing, and stressful. Parent’s main concern is to find a place for their families to lay their heads. It often slips their minds about how will this affect their children’s education.

The 2008 housing crisis affected millions of children. Foreclosures in NYC are an emotional and stressful time for children because they are too young to understand what is going on. They often are not receiving a consistent education.

Academic Performance Suffers
Many times, foreclosures leaves families trying to relocate at the last minute. They are staying with family and friends, in and out of hotels, and unfortunately in poorer neighborhoods. A neighborhood with too many foreclosures, especially in NYC, leaves that neighborhood with fewer resources because there are not enough taxes generated in that neighborhood.

All the change is a major disruption in the child’s life. This affects their studying and ability to receive a quality education. Their grades may slip, and depending on how far they now live from school, their attendance could suffer as well.

Children Need Stability with Their Peers
Once forced to switch schools, a child can lose their interpersonal skills. They feel damaged and isolated once they leave their friends. Some children need that stability with their peers to cope with moving from their neighborhood and home.

Behavioral Problems are Present
Some children are not sure how to express their emotions to their parents. Children feel lost and may start to act out. They become disruptive in school and their grades suffer. Without a stable educational environment, children may have no access to the proper resources their school could have provided, such as a trusted counselor.

Working with a professional to help prevent foreclosure on your home is the first step to secure your child’s educational future.

After a foreclosure in NYC , you may ponder, “How did I get myself into this situation”. You’ve packed your home and now downsized. You are back to being a renter. However, there is still hope. You can pick up the pieces and get your finances back in order. You can own a home again soon, should you choose. This can be accomplished on your own, or you may need the help of a credit counselor.

1. Bill collectors are calling you
The number one red flag that you may need help is the constant phone calls from bill collectors. You have no time to think of a way out of debt.

2. You’re living paycheck to paycheck
Initially, you could have been on top of paying your mortgage on time. Then, that one emergency struck placing you one month behind on your mortgage. Then, another emergency a few months later follows. Now you are to the point where you are now behind on your mortgage.

If you didn’t reach out to your lender to make a catchup payment arrangement, this could have led to your foreclosures NYC. So now, you are renting and must ensure you are paying your bills on time. Yet, saving money for your next move is equally as important. How do you plan this if you are living paycheck to paycheck?

3. You have tension in your home
Drowning in debt is a major factor to tension in your home. Couples fight, children want to know why they can’t have money to go out with their friends, and bills still pile up. Everyone is stressed. The constant arguing will not be a solution.

Credit counselors are an outside source looking into your financial situation. They can find solutions you may have been blind to. There are many resources available to help you during and after foreclosures NYC. They may refer you to a debt management program.

You can reach out to a HUD approved counseling agency to get you back on track. The U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) is available at (800) 569-4287 or you can visit their website for a listing of approved housing counselors.

Once you receive your free consultation from Premier Real Estate NYC, what should your next move be? Well, your realtor, in this case Premier Real Estate NYC, will tell you that you must ensure your home is presentable, making it seem move-in ready for buyers.

Living in your home for so long, you may have grown accustomed to its flaws. It is normal wear and tear on a home; however, buyers will look at it in another light. Here are 5 inexpensive ideas to make your home interior shine to better your chances to sell your home in a short sale.

Clean Your Light Fixtures

Have you ever just looked up at your light fixtures, especially the globe lights? How do bugs get in there you wonder? Well, turn the light off and once it’s cooled down, grab a ladder and carefully take the globe down. Dust the bulbs or replace with energy efficient bulbs, if you have them. Clean the light fixture cover with hot water, let it air dry, then replace.

Clean Heating Vents and Registers

Grab your vacuum hose and brush and start cleaning the vent and register areas. If the dirt and dust is bad, grab a bowl of hot soapy water and a cleaning brush to clean it thoroughly. You can remove the covers and give a deep cleaning if necessary. You might think this information is not valuable, but for a homeowner in hardship, anything and everything helps.

Change Switch and Electrical Socket Plates

Most plates can be removed and cleaned in hot soapy water. For those plates that are not, you can grab new ones at the dollar store. Decorative plates can add a touch of décor to your short sale NYC home.

Clean Up the Stove

Clean the inside and outside of your stove. Allow oven cleaner to sit for a few hours and then clean. If the drip pans are grungy, you can replace them for about $3 each from your local hardware store.

Make Your Hardware Sparkle

Door knobs, door hinges, and cabinet hardware can sparkle again with brass or glass cleaner. Touch up around your entire home.

A foreclosure in any city, especially in New York City, feels almost as if you are being pushed from your home. In your new home, it will take time adjusting, and you may not be in the mood to decorate. However, the best thing to keep your spirits up after a foreclosure, and start your new life, is to unpack and give your new home the best look you can. Each of the following tips are renter friendly.

Change the Lightening Scheme for Each Room
To help save on electricity costs, place low wattage light bulbs in each room. The lower the watt, the more restful the room will be.

Add Flowers
The right flowers can make a room feel alive or romantic. You can purchase faux flowers if you don’t have much of a green thumb. Otherwise, you can add green foliage around the home, such as palm leaf plants. The windowsill or the corner of your counter makes a great place for a small herb garden and can save you a few dollars.

Purchase Remnants
To give old furniture a new look, you can purchase remnants to cover your pillows, make a decorative tablecloth, or add décor to your draperies. Remnant carpeting is also available and can help spruce up a room.

Create Creative Storage Space
You may have had to downsize after your foreclosure. So make the most of your space. Instead of a regular end table, place small bookshelves together and store items in there.

Make a Work Of Art
If you no longer have an area to keep your buffet, consider hanging a few plates on the wall with wire plate hangers. Soon, you’ll have a place for them again. Create an illusion of more space by hanging mirrors in various rooms. If you have vases, gather up a collection by the fireplace or corner of a room for a dramatic effect.

Add a Splash of Color to the Wall
As a renter, you aren’t always able to paint. So, grab some painters tape and make shapes on the wall such as squares, rectangles, or even long vertical or horizontal lines.
Believe it or not, a good real estate company can help you and your family in a number of ways when it comes to avoiding a foreclosure or dealing with a short sale. Contact Premier Real Estate NYC today for a free consultation and see what rights you have as homeowner in New York City.

Going through a foreclosure in NYC, or even a short sale places a tremendous amount of financial pressure on homeowners. You may have to find a new home, change your child’s school, place items in storage, or have a longer commute to work.

One way to find a bit of financial relief is holding a garage or foreclosure sale. This is a way to put money in your pockets, especially if you prepare ahead of time.

Sell Your Items to Save for a Rainy Day
The internet makes it easy to sell your valuable items across the United States. Sites such as eBay and Craigslist allow you to take pictures of your items and buyers can bid on them. Save the money you have made and keep it for a rainy day.

Eliminate Excess Storage Fees
The more items you place in storage, the more space you will need. You can incur a high monthly storage facility fee. You can decrease or eliminate your need for storage fees by selling your larger items.

Have Money to Help You Move
Once it’s time for you to move, the money from your short sale moving sale can help you with moving costs or utility connections. Everything will be moving so fast, you otherwise may not have had time to save your money to do so.

Premier Real Estate NYC helps homeowners prepare for foreclosure, contact us today for a free consultation.

Once the 2008 housing crisis hit, there were so many pets left behind to defend for themselves. It’s hard for families to leave their pets behind, yet they may have had no choice. Families were struggling with finances, feeding, clothing, and housing their families. An additional mouth, their pet, adds on to the stress. Many homeowners in foreclosure look towards a company like Premier Real Estate NYC to assist them with all of their troubles during a foreclosure.

Also, renting is an issue. Many landlords want a pet deposit and monthly pet rent of $25 and upwards. So, is bringing your pet an option for you after you find yourself in a foreclosure in New York City?

It depends if you do have a close connection with your pet. If it’s just yourself and you can find a friend or family to keep your pet until you are stable, do so. It’s more difficult if you have children though. Moving from your home after a foreclosure in NYC is stressful and confusing for children. They may find more comfort in having their pet with them.

If you find a pet friendly home, try asking to sign a longer lease with the landlord as a bargaining chip for a lower monthly pet fee. You also could offer a higher pet security deposit, which is refunded when you move out. You can also ask a company like Premier Real Estate NYC to offer you a free consultation.

If there are no other options, try finding your pet a suitable home or take them to an animal shelter in hopes of an adopting family falling in love with your pet.

Since the 2008 housing crisis, 2012 has shown us a promising future. Foreclosures and short sales in NYC seemed to have been on the decline, as with the entire country. However, it seems that now, it’s not the case.

The state of New York is third in the country with a high number of residential mortgages in foreclosure or delinquent. 2013 marked a record high of NY homeowners losing their homes. There is one main reason for this – a backlog of delinquent mortgage loans. According to the   February RealtyTrac report, New York has increased their scheduled foreclosure auctions, up 77%. There are increased bank repossessions and default notices being issued as well. Foreclosures NYC activity has a 40% annual increase in activity.

According to the February RealtyTrac report, New York has 10,880 owner-vacated foreclosures. That’s the 2^nd highest in the country, with Illinois preceding, and New Jersey and Ohio following behind.

So, what does this mean? Until all this paperwork is straightened out, and homeowners start to look towards help from reputable companies such as Premier Real Estate NYC to help with pre-foreclosure issues, the foreclosures NYC trend will continue.

Find out more at Premierrealestatenyc.com

If you are looking for an outstanding deal on a home, but leery of trying to get foreclosures NYC or a short sale NYC home, there is another option which is less stressful. Your realtor or foreclosure specialist may be able to help you find a pre-foreclosure home perfect for your family.

Finding a Pre-Foreclosure Home

There are two easy ways to come upon a pre-foreclosure home. One way is by viewing your local newspaper. A mortgage lender may send a homeowner a Notice of Default or Notice of Sale, once they have gotten behind on their payments. These must be filed with the courthouse, so it will be a notice in your local paper. Now you can try to contact these homeowners on your own or work with your foreclosure or real estate specialist.

Easy To Work with the Homeowners

Unlike foreclosures NYC homes, homeowners may be more willing to work with you. This stage is before an actual foreclosure or short sales NYC process. So, much of the months’ worth of bank paperwork you would go through is eliminated. The homeowners are motivated and want to avoid foreclosures NYC. Your real estate agent or foreclosure specialist can do all the research necessary as well as speak with the homeowners about selling their property.

Easy Inspection Process

Going through a pre-foreclosure process also makes a home inspection easy. Since it’s still occupied, the homeowners will have their utilities on. There is no auction process, so you and the inspector can go through the home without rushing.