The economic climate of the country is not in a good state; since global recession hit the market the property market started experiencing a downturn. This initiated a lot of problems; and the situation started turning more grave each passing day.

As the recession began rolling in people started losing jobs and failed to pay their mortgage. As a result thousands of homes were repossessed by the lenders and sold at cheap rate at property auctions. Moreover, a lot of homeowners tried to sell house fast to avoid repossession. This pushed property prices down the slope.

Despite of low property price people took a back and refrained from buying properties; there were several reasons behind this, major two reasons were:

  • It was difficult to get mortgage
  • The employment market was still unstable

However, things have started changing. Lenders are offering easy mortgage products. The building societies are also coming up with cheap fixed rate mortgage products. This is definitely a good sign.

Meanwhile cash buyers have come up as a strong force in the property market. Cash buyers are property investors; they buy properties for instant cash. Homeowners who need quick sale find cash buyers as the most useful channel of selling property fast.

Even when estate agents cannot help you sell a house fast, cash property buyers can help you sell the house really quick in a hassle-free way. The process is so simple, that few banks started selling repossessed houses to the cash buyers.

It’s true that property market will not remain gloomy forever. Things will improve and people would regain their buying ability. But cash buyers will always be there to help distressed homeowners sell their houses fast and get rid of financial difficulties.

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By financen | November 14, 2011 - 6:20 pm - Posted in Credit Card

Ok, close your eyes and imagine…wait, don’t close your eyes because you wouldn’t be able to read this…just imagine that you’re a small business owner (which I’m sure many of you actually are) who isn’t always able to pay his credit card bill in full before the end of the month. Now, this isn’t uncommon for a small business owner, so you think nothing of it…until one day you wake up and see that the interest rate being applied to your credit card balance has suddenly skyrocketed. Your debt is now much more costly, your carefully-crafted budgets are useless, and you fall behind on more and more payments, and…BOOM, you’re out of business. Sounds like a nightmare, huh?

While this scenario is a bit far-fetched, 82% of small businesses have credit card debt, according to the National Small Business Association, and cost-of-debt increases can indeed wreak havoc on these companies, throwing off budgets, ruining business development plans and causing a whole lot of stress. This isn’t intended to scare you, but instead to show just how important picking the right credit card is to small business success. All of these headaches, as well as countless others, can be avoided if you know what you’re looking for and are able to ignore certain key aspects of conventional business credit card wisdom. This then begs the question: Just what should one look for when choosing a small business credit card?

 

1. Debt stability
2. Enhanced business expense tracking capabilities
3. Control over employee spending
4. Rewards for all employee spending

So, where does this leave us? Well, it leaves you with a choice. Do you value the simplicity of using a single credit card for all of your small business needs or would you divide and conquer.

One-card simplicity: In order to get all of the aforementioned characteristics in one card, you must open a Bank of America business credit card. Bank of America could be construed as the best small business credit card issuer, given that it’s the only one to voluntarily apply all of the CARD Act’s main tenets to its business credit card offerings. The CARD Act—personal finance reform legislation that took effect in February 2010—only legally applies to consumer credit cards, which means most business credit cards do not benefit from rules such as that which prevents issuers from increasing interest rates on existing balances for any reason other than the cardholder missing three consecutive payments.

Divide and conquer: Carry your credit card debt on a personal credit card in order to get all of the CARD Act’s protections and win the debt stability battle. Use the best rewards business credit card for purchase you will pay for in full prior to the end of the month in order to win the convenience and rewards battle. After all, there’s no rule against using personal cards for business purposes, and this strategy would allow you to get both the card with the lowest interest rate and the card with the best rewards on your company’s biggest expenses instead of a single card that is average across the board.

Finally, in case you were wondering, you won’t be opening yourself up to more personal liability by using a standard credit card for business spending. According to a Card Hub Study, most major credit card issuers hold small business owners personally liable for the misuse of business credit cards and report details of this use to the owners’ personal credit reports, so the biggest difference between personal and business credit cards would therefore have to be branding. So don’t worry about how your credit card is labeled, just use one of these basic strategies and focus your energy on running a successful business.

This is a guest post from Odysseas Papadimitriou, a former Capital One executive and the current CEO of Card Hub.

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Do you know what a merchant account is? Well, it is considered as a means for online business to accept either credit card or debit card as a mode of payment. These kind of accounts are usually offered by the local banks and they are not the same as a local checking or savings account.

If you open an international merchant account, it will be a contract between a company or the financial institution and the business owner. There are many rules set in this process since the transactions are mainly done on the internet.

Your business will make good money if you are able to accept credit cards. About 75% of all families carry credit cards and expect that they can pay with them at any store for goods and services.

Merchant services are very important for a business. If you want to open a merchant account, you must establish a good relationship with a company so that you are able to accept credit card payments from your clients. The merchant accounts provider will then deposit money to your business account whenever there is a transaction from the website. Later they will collect the payments from their customers who have been using the credit cards.

You as a merchant, agree to accept a credit card payment for your goods and services. In order to keep your businesses competitive and customer’s safe, you need to have a merchant account to handle your credit card transactions.

This process is considered to be very beneficial for your business because everything is done in the real time. It means that you as a business owner will get the money right away which is convenient in more than one way.

Nowadays, everyone uses a credit card to buy items over the internet. This is why it is essential for your business to accept them as a form of payment. You must have a bank account where all your money from such transactions will be deposited. You should also have all the supporting documents related to your business, credit balance and making repayments.

How will you figure out the right kind of merchant account for your business?

1.Review the fee that you will pay for each credit card transaction. Do not simply choose the lowest rate. Check out the services that you are receiving along with the merchant account and compare it with other providers.

2.Review the equipment for accepting the credit card payments.

3.Check out the customer support?

4.Check out if you will be able to process all types of credit card payments. If the list is limited, it’s obvious that you will have limited customers.

5.How long will you have to wait to access your funds in the merchant account? Seek a service that holds on to your money for the fewest days possible.

Consider these important tips while you shop for the merchant services account that’s right for your burgeoning business.

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By financen | November 7, 2011 - 6:59 am - Posted in Mortgage

While making a financial decision regarding your financial matters, you will always find it very challenging. So it is always safe to take a help of professional firm or a financing company however taking a help from these professional firms would cost you to you breath. So in order to do all this without taking any help, you have to use mortgage refinance calculators. The mortgage refinance calculators would make your life simpler by giving you the accurate figures to look at before you make your mind to take second mortgage on your house.

There are lots of various mortgage refinance calculators available in the market which has similar features. The important role of a mortgage refinance calculator is to adjust the settings according to your need. Since you are spending the money to purchase it and the property belongs to you, even the decision is going to be yours and it sounds fair enough that you expect it to work the way you want.

You can find the mortgage refinance calculators online on different websites at an affordable price with variety of options and find out where you stand. The ways of calculation in these calculators are very simple, all you need to do is insert the mortgage rates and other necessary information and the calculators will show you the exact figure that you were looking for. The results will tell you to do what you were thinking, and it will also tell you the cost that you have to bear with different companies.

The homeowners are really happy when they come to know that the mortgage refinance calculators are free of cost. You have to bear the entire capital of the whole process when you start working with a specific financing company in accordance with their facilities, however you should always opt for the best and the one which satisfies your needs therefore you should not depend only on just few calculators as there is ample amount of information available on the internet.

Well in day to day life people are so busy that they don’t even have time to meet their relatives, however you would be very glad to know that how quickly and with convenience you would be able to find the cost of your another mortgage that you have planned to take out. It has become very easy and simpler to get the mortgage refinance calculators to use, and especially when you are getting them at your home. This gives you an opportunity to save time to decide which calculator you want to choose, you should take precaution to find out the perfect calculator so that you can be safe and happy again.

If you want to know vastly about Mortgage Refinance then go through the article: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/refinancings/default.htm

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By financen | November 3, 2011 - 6:03 pm - Posted in Auto insurance

If you are looking for a free auto insurance quote, you can easily get it on the internet. Search for the sites through search engines or look for the ones that has the most number of reviews. You will get all the information required for auto insurance quotes. If you have any problems, call their toll free number and clarify your doubts.

These free auto insurance quotes online will help you to figure out the best insurance policy suitable for you. There may be some variations in the specifications, so you will have to buy it accordingly. Just explain your requirements to the insurance company and they will find the suitable insurance for you.

Submit your basic details on the website of the auto insurance company and get your free online quote. Using these free auto insurance quotes online, users will get access to all the reliable insurance companies, as only they will be listed. No matter whatever questions you have regarding the auto insurance, it will all be covered in the quote. Anything can be maintained in the accounts too, from purchasing a policy to getting previous quotes. You can easily navigate through the world of auto insurance with these services. You can also read feedbacks of other customers to know more about the insurance company you are searching for.