Article Directory :: Finance & Investment Articles

How You Can Avoid Negative Equity

By Parmdeep Vadesha

Subscribe to Parmdeep Vadesha's RSS feed using any feed reader!

Republish: EasyPublish
Published: 25Nov2008
Word count: 552
Viewed: 135 time(s)
Bookmark this article using any bookmark manager!
Get Free Content For Your Site

As house prices follow their downward direction, the thousands who obtained 100% home loans are now facing the risk of negative equity. Those borrowers who have not made considerable payments on their 100% mortgage loans are especially in danger and could face losses if they opt to move to a new property. But it can be avoided with a few important steps.

What is negative equity?

It is a condition usually brought about by declining house prices. It occurs when your outstanding mortgage is higher than the market value of your property. This means that each month you'd be paying interest on a loan that's greater than the real value of your house. In other words, if you sell your property, you would not receive adequate money to be able to pay off your loan. If the equity on your house is negative, you could owe your bank thousands of pounds more than your property is truly worth.

How to avoid negative equity

You can lessen its impact, if not totally avoid it, by following these crucial steps:

* Put down a higher deposit when buying a property. The higher your deposit is, the more equity you have. This means less chances of falling into the negative equity trap. For instance, if the value of your property slides down by £15,000 but you only made a deposit of £10,000, your negative equity will be £5,000. If you had put down a £20,000 deposit, you'd still have equity of £5,000.

* Pay more towards your mortgage loan if you have a repayment mortgage. By paying your mortgage down faster, your equity will grow and your chances of falling into the negative equity trap will lessen. This is possible by making your repayment period shorter. Also, you can choose to make overpayments. Overpaying, which is approved by many banks, helps you increase your equity quickly without having to be bound to higher payments involved in shorter repayment terms. Watch out for overpayment penalties though - read the small print of your contract.

* Take on home improvements tasks. By making home improvements, you can increase the value of your home. This typically means that the market value would have to weaken further before the equity on your property falls into a problematic phase. But make sure that the home improvements you'll be working on will definitely add value to your home.

* If you find yourself in negative equity already, be sure to speak to your lender since they can provide you with solutions to your equity problems. However most of these deals are targeted towards existing borrowers with spotless payment records.

* One way to avoid problems with your equity is to build your home yourself. Self-builders can take advantage of an average 35% equity gain from the day they move into the property, according to self-build specialist BuildStore. One thing to remember when purchasing a property to build yourself is to buy the land below market value from a distressed seller to ensure immediate profits. Finding such properties is possible by locating genuinely motivated sellers.

You don't have to be one of the thousands of borrowers expected to fall into negative equity. The aforementioned advice will help you avoid becoming victim to a stabilising property market.

Parmdeep Vadesha is a property investment expert and founder of the largest community of property entrepreneurs on the web who buy below market value properties from distressed homeowners facing repossession, divorce and bankruptcy. He writes a monthly newsletter for over 70,000 property investors worldwide - http://www.Property-System.com

Bookmark this article using any bookmark manager! Subscribe to Parmdeep Vadesha's RSS feed using any feed reader!

EasyPublish™ this article - publishers click here

More articles by Parmdeep Vadesha

Free Report!
Ten Essential Secrets Of Article Marketing ... Grab Your Free
Copy
Now:




We respect your privacy.


Need Content?
Regular Top Quality Content for your Blog, Ezine or Website ...
Delivered Direct,
For Free!

Click For Details



Arts & Entertainment
Automotive
Business - General
Computers & Technology
Finance & Investment
Food & Drink
Health & Fitness
Home & Family
Internet Marketing/Online Business
Legal
Pets & Animals
Politics & Government
Reference & Education
Religion & Faith
Self-Improvement/Motivation
Social
Sports & Recreation
Travel & Leisure
Writing & Speaking

More finance articles:

  • Creating a Budget that Works (Molly Wider)
    Budgeting is about sacrificing, right? Wrong. Budgeting is about enjoying the results of a well planned financial strategy. If you think of budgeting as the ultimate cut-the-expenses experience, you'll never make it. Depriving yourself completely of indulgences is not something that will provide financial gain; at the contrary, it may very likely lead you to abandon your budget completely just out of frustration for lack of rewards.

  • Here's How Ordinary, Everyday People Are Making Money With Penny Stocks! (Grant Dougan)
    One of my favorite investment types are penny stocks. Some investors stay away from these types of shares since they believe that they are risky. Don't let yourself be nervous though - you will earn incredible cash if you know how to find winners.

  • Daytrading Using Mean Reversion Strategies (Scott Cole)
    Mean reversion is just another strategy that daytraders include in their arsenal when attacking markets on a daily basis. The opposite of the momentum type strategies, it is a good way for the daytrader to diversify and be able to find opportunities on a daily basis.

  • Fibonaccial Trading Techniques For Forex (John Eather)
    Fibonacci was the great mathematician from Italy. He founded the new sequence of numbers and it was named after him called as fibonacci. The 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377,610 etc are the numbers of this sequence which has the starting of 0 and 1. Each number in this sequence is the sum of the preceding two numbers.

  • Forex Trading - The Market Is Not Your Enemy (Jay Meisler)
    Every trader at one time or another has had a bad trading day that makes him feel like the market is his enemy. This article uses an example from a forex trading day to describe some of the conditions when this might occur and what a trader might be going through during this time. The goal is to create an awareness and to emphasize that the market is not the enemy.

  • Discovering the Pros and Cons of Using a Prepaid Credit Card (Tara Tiemann)
    Prepaid debit cards are becoming a popular way to pay purchases and bills. It works like a credit card but instead of paying at a later time, a prepaid debit card can only be used if there is a deposited amount of money in your account. This article will enumerate the advantages and disadvantages of using a prepaid debit card.

  • Hard Money Lenders - Hard Money Loans (Louis Jeffries)
    Real Estate Investors choose to use hard money loans as a source to purchase and rehab property to make a substantial profit that they may not have without the use of this expensive money.

We Automatically Distribute Articles
To Thousands Of Publishers And Web Sites:

Submit Article
All content is viewed and used by you at your own risk and we do not warrant the accuracy or reliability of any of the information. The views expressed are those of the individual contributing authors and not necessarily those of this web site, or its owner, Takanomi Limited.
 
Copyright © 2009 Takanomi Ltd. Company no. 5629683. All rights reserved. | Privacy | Legal | Contact Information