Newfoundland

If you are facing unforeseen financial circumstances that impact your ability to make regular mortgage payments, it will be important take quick action. With early intervention and a reasonable plan, you can work together with your lender to find a solution. In tough economic times, many people face similar problems. Do not leave it. Most problems are managed best by taking action sooner than later.

Here are three simple steps that can make a big difference in resolving your financial difficulties.

1. Take Stock Of Your Financial Picture

Prepare a detailed list of financial obligations including any credit cards, loans, household bills with the amounts owing and their due dates. Be sure to include information about your current income, savings accounts, investments, and any other assets. Simply writing it down on a piece of paper or setting up a spreadsheet will help you see your situation more clearly. Often, obvious adjustments become evident as you itemize your positive and negative cash flows.

2. Meet With Your Mortgage Officer

• To increase the chance of successfully managing your financial situation through early intervention, call your lender to discuss your financial difficulty;

• Ask the lender about the options available for managing your financial situation; and

• Inform the lender as circumstances change.

3. Discuss With The Stakeholders/Family Members

Often your family members can do little things to help reduce expenses. Bring the family members who are old enough to understand simple budgeting into the solution. Give them opportunities to pull together to help manage finances better. When all parties are on side, there will be greater acceptance of necessary decisions. Even kids can make temporary sacrifices if they understand the value of doing so.

There is neither a magic bullet nor a timely lotto win just around the corner. We all have to manage our financial circumstances by clear thinking and definitive action. Being determined and taking action are the best plan of attack when financial troubles are knocking at your door.

R. Greg Osmond is a Platinum Award winning Realtor serving St. John’s and surrounding areas, Newfoundland and Labrador for over 20 years and can be reached at 709-895-2500. Visit http://www.rgregosmond.com/ for further information.

If you want to maximize the value of your home when you sell, you will need to put energy into preparing your home for the market. Depending on how much time you have spent on keeping the property in top shape, there will be a varying number of things needed to make your home show its best. Here is a to do list for the inside of your home that will help make the sale happen quickly and help you get the best value too.

1. Floor coverings should be free of stains, scratches and excessive wear.

2. Walls and ceilings should be free of stains, holes, mildew, cracks, water damage and nail pops. Neutral colors are best for attracting buyers.

3. Doors should all function properly, be free of squeaks and stains and have working handles and latches.

4. Windows should have clean unbroken glass, be operationally and free of mildew, with all locks and screens in good working order.

5. Window coverings should be free of dirt or stains, excessive sun damage or wear and should open and close properly.

6. Lights should have all bulbs working, with no exposed wires. Soft light bulbs are easier on the eyes and help make the home appealing.

7. Closets should be organized neatly with excessive junk removed, not over packed with old worn clothing and there should be minimal footwear visible.

8. Kitchens should be sparkling clean, counter tops organized, sinks free of cracks, faucets working properly, cupboards organized, all appliances working and stain free.

9. Bathrooms need to be spotless; well organized with fresh soap, the tub and shower sparkling, faucets working and clean, fresh towels hanging, toilet working and clean, closets organized, medicine cabinet cleaned, personal items removed and counter tops free of clutter.

10. Other rooms such as living room, dining room and bedrooms should be cleaned, organized and uncluttered.

11. Basement, furnace room, garage and storage rooms should be organized, have the junk removed, and all small items boxed. Dust and dirt should be removed and remaining items stacked neatly.

Buyers prefer a home that looks clean, is fully functional and is in the best location. While we can’t do much about the location of our home, we can make sure the other items are looked after. These things help contribute to the home selling quickly and they improve the possibility of receiving the best value for it. I haven’t talked about the outside here so on another day, I will share a few things to do for the exterior of the property.

R. Greg Osmond is a Platinum Award winning Realtor serving St. John’s and surrounding areas, Newfoundland and Labrador for over 20 years and can be reached at 709-895-2500. Visit http://www.rgregosmond.com/ for further information.

Previously I discussed negotiating for real estate so that you could understand the basics of how to be successful making a deal with the vendor. I now want to delve a little deeper into the subject. A buyer needs to know the answer to this important question before making an offer. “Will there be competition for the home?”

In some cases it is always wise to assume you will have competition but many times, you may be the only one bidding for the home. Knowing if another buyer will be offering at the same time will help you decide what to offer. If it is not possible to know with certainty, seek to get a commitment from your agent that you will be informed should another offer on the property be presented to the vendor with yours. In this case, you would have a opportunity to revise your offer if you felt it was necessary.

If you have or are very likely to have competition, you will be negotiating from a position of relative weakness. Sellers who are given multiple offers on their home enjoy the good fortune of picking the best offer. When they know that multiple parties are interested they will be less inclined to reduce their expectations even if they really want to sell. Here you should remember that money talks. If your offer is the best they receive, you will likely be the successful bidder. At the least, you should receive a counter offer if the vendor’s motivation to sell has not wained.

Yet there are some circumstances when the highest offer is not necessarily the one preferred by the vendor. If the vendor has any hot buttons, it pays to know what they are. I once had the seller accept a lower priced offer because the purchaser was a self professed gardener. He believed this purchaser would appreciated and best preserve the work he had done making the garden into a veritable park. Who knew?

If your offer is rejected in favor of another, like most buyers you will find it disappointing. To have found a suitable home, made an offer for it, but then discover that the property is sold to a higher bidder can take the wind out of your sails. Unfortunately buying a good home may require quite a bit of effort so loosing it at the negotiating stage is unpleasant.

When you want to buy a specific home, there is usually only one home on the market like it. Buying a home is not like picking one of several suits of clothes off the rack. If you want a house, but you are not the only one offering for it, you will need to know your limit and make sure you express that in the offer. When you know there is competition, you will be better able to make correct decisions during the negotiating process.

R. Greg Osmond is a Platinum Award winning Realtor serving St. John’s and surrounding areas, Newfoundland and Labrador for over 20 years and can be reached at 709-895-2500. Visit http://www.rgregosmond.com/ for further information. Find him on facebook and be a friend.

Last week the ice rolled in around Newfoundland’s east coast. Released from the Arctic each spring, the northern pack ice makes its pilgrimage to our shores bringing with it cool air, an abundance of seals and on rare occasion a lost and rather hungry polar bear. On those occasions the disoriented animal is tranquilized by the Department of Wildlife officials and sent back to Northern Labrador to pick up where it left off a few weeks prior.

For the fisher people of the Island, the ice flows bring an opportunity for families to earn their living executing the annual seal hunt. This year's seal hunt is now underway. Jumping about from one ice pan to another is not anything like the kind of work I would enjoy but I admit to savouring the taste of Flipper Pie from time to time. Those who take their lives in hand and make their living this way are among some of the big risk takers of the world. While these brave souls may enjoy the pursuit, I prefer to wait on solid ground for their return to savour a delicious feed of dark seal meat.

The ice also brings a challenge for shippers as they navigate through it on their way to ports throughout the Eastern Seaboard and the United States. Leaving St. John’s, a Coast Guard ship cuts a channel into the ice so a freighter enroute to the Mainland can find its way gently into open ocean. Once it is free, it sails unencumbered toward its destination.

The sea ice has such significance for Newfoundland because it precedes our summers which for most of us is now beckoned with much anticipation. Of interest to all, the pack ice announces the soon arrival of icebergs that will decorate our shorelines right into late June or early July. These chunks of Arctic glacier are all so unique. A few years back we had one large enough to lodge firmly at the mouth of the St. John’s harbour causing quite the traffic jam on the road to Signal Hill.

I will keep my eyes open and announce any developments over the coming weeks. If you are itching to see icebergs for the very first time, you might want to pack a suit case soon. With any luck, they will be drifting along these waters any day.

R. Greg Osmond is a Platinum Award winning Realtor serving St. John’s and surrounding areas, Newfoundland and Labrador for over 20 years and can be reached at 709-895-2500. Visit www.rgregosmond.com for further information.

A Realtor from Greater Vancouver just posted this on his blog. Please Help Me Invest 50 Million Euros. This request comes by way of an email he received from a prospective buyer. OK, I am calling him/her/it a prospective buyer but I use the term with my eyes rolling over in my sockets. You will get my drift when you read this.

Dear David,

Thanks for your mail. I would like you to know that i really want to invest on Property and i want to invest 50 Million Euro on the project. I would like you to know that i am presently in USA for my check up due to my Illness, I mean i am having a Cancer of Lungs and i also have a hole in my heart. I and my wife did a business before i lost her and my unborn baby which worth about 50.6 Million Euro. Due to my illness and my doctors Advice i can not go to my bank for now and transfer the funds until i get better.....

You can read the rest on David Reimers blog. Check it out. Apparently the guy signed on to Dave's website and began the "I need help" routine. I guess on that score he was right. He needs a lot of help! Note the hole in his head.....I mean heart.

Anyway, I thought I would pass this along in case another one of you Realtors are feeling too lucky one day when someone hits your website with the same pitch. You probably shouldn't bother replying to him/her/it. I have it on good authority that he/she/it has bought up Greater Vancouver already so the money is now fully transferred into the country! Pitty, we missed that one.

R. Greg Osmond is a Platinum Award winning Realtor serving St. John’s and surrounding areas, Newfoundland and Labrador for over 20 years and can be reached at 709-895-2500. Visit http://www.rgregosmond.com/ for further information. Find him on facebook and be a friend.