Do you think you’re in an underwater mortgage?  Here’s the first thing we don’t want you to do: We don’t want you to panic.

First, while about 24% of homeowners today are facing underwater mortgages, that doesn’t mean you are. So the first thing you need to do is find out exactly how much your house is worth right now.

Fortunately, you can do that for free. First visit www.realtor.com and see what houses that are like yours in your ZIP code are being listed for. It’s very important that you only look up houses that are very similar to yours—number of bedrooms, square footage, upgrades and amenities. Then, check out your city or county’s tax roles to find out how much houses in your area are actually selling for. *

After all, it doesn’t really matter what people are asking—houses are only worth what other people will pay for them!

Once you know what your house is worth, see if that number is larger or smaller than your total mortgage.

If you are underwater, don’t panic! Kristin and I have been through this and we’re both Realtors, so we know that it’s possible to get out from under the financial tidal wave and still have a good life.

Right now, we’re going to give you a brief rundown on the things you need to know, and the things that you’re going to need to know, to deal with your underwater mortgage and come out with your financial future, your sanity and your sense of humor intact. OK? Good—here goes:

Keep your sense of humor! Does this sound like a strange piece of first advice when you’ve just found out your mortgage is under water? Well, it’s not. Stress can be a killer, and laughter helps defeat stress. Laughter can also help you hold your relationship together as you’re navigating these waters.

Whether or not the government or your bank thinks so, you do have options. You are not tied by oath or blood to your mortgage. Sound radical? Did you know that large businesses walk away from underwater mortgages all the time? Don’t take our word for it—look it up!

Your first step is to call your mortgage lender. Explain the situation and see what the corporate representative can do for you. Banks are underwater right now, too—a tsunami of mortgage foreclosures. Your lender would rather not be a property manager, believe us.

If your mortgage lender isn’t willing to help you out, we’re not surprised. But this way you can at least document that you tried. Next, then, you’re going to want to consider defaulting on your mortgage payment.

We know that “foreclosure” is a scary word. Believe us, there was a time that word scared us right out of our pants! But the fact is that letting the mortgage lender foreclose on your house or short selling it, gives you some real opportunities that paying off that underwater mortgage won’t:

You’ll save the money that you would have put into mortgage payments. That’s money that goes toward your future, not toward a bank’s bottom line.

You’ll protect your retirement. Property values aren’t likely to rise anytime soon, so don’t count on getting much, if any, money out of your house if you pay off that mortgage!

Yes, the mortgage lender took a chance when he loaned you that money. But you took a chance, too—you listened to the experts who said that you’d be making real money on your investment, didn’t you? Which one of you can afford the loss: the bailed-out bank or your family?

So think long and hard, but realize that, when you’re in an underwater mortgage, you’re potentially sacrificing your future if you choose to stay. In the end, that’s the second most important piece of advice we can give you.

* Using Realtor dot com and your local tax records will give you a very rough estimate of the value of your home.  If you want to have more accurate information about the value of your home please contact your local professional Realtor, OR contact us and we can help you find a good Realtor in your area.

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About the Author:
Bud and Kristin Gragg have over thirty years of Real Estate sales, investing, and development experience combined, they have just survived liquidating over 24 million in underwater investment Real Estate and their incredible story needs to be heard by millions right now. Go To:http://www.TheUnderwaterMortgage.com where you can get a FREE Special Report “Underwater Mortgage Secrets: What the Banks Don’t Want You to Know” Just for stopping by!! If you or anyone you know is Underwater in their home or any of their investment properties – the information on http://www.TheUnderwaterMortgage.com is an absolute must!Bud and Kristin Gragg The Underwater Mortgage101 N Coloradro St Suite 2710Chandler AZ 85225
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Trade shows are a must for most startup businesses. This is your big chance to market your products and services. Aside from that, you get a glimpse at what the competition is doing. In order to be head and shoulders above competition, you need to invest in the right trade show materials and see which ones you can save on. So, in order to get ahead, you need to be better, and sometimes, that requires a lot of money from your end. Trade show displays can sometimes be expensive, and it’s time to wise up so you out every cent to good use.

With the worldwide recession, you don’t need to spend on every trade show display and trade show materials you see out in the market.  As much as possible, you need to see where you can spend less. Nonetheless, you should never sacrifice quality as well. If you don’t look credible enough, that could be a problem as well. When you don’t hone in on the aesthetics, the competition is more likely to outperform you. But doing a trade show on a tight budget is very much possible. There’s no reason for you to be less attractive than last year’s trade show design.

To spend less, you just need the right strategy. Here are a few helpful hints and tips that may help you and your business when it comes to trade show design:

Try to opt for items that can easily be transported and moved. Large displays can be delivered, but only through the supplier, and to do this, you will definitely have to pay extra. Try to get trade show displays that can easily be disassembled and connected when the time comes. When it comes time to fix up, you’ll find that you also save storage space as well.
Give your existing trade show materials a facelift. You may have used some of these the previous year, but no one will really notice if you change some things along the way. It’s time to go through your inventory. While it does call for a lot of work, you will thank yourself for this in the end. You can also talk to your resident artist and ask them how you can change it up and bring it up a notch. Incorporate the current trends as well. That’s why, it’s always smarter to invest in a trade show display that will last.
You can always resell your old trade show exhibits. There are a lot of smaller trade shows out there, and some startup company may also be concerned about budget. What is trash to you can be treasure from someone else. Aside from that, you do get to make money.
Lure the people with gimmicks just as well. Look into ideal trade show materials as well. This can be a great marketing strategy. Giveaway pens and other knick-knacks that bear your name as prizes for a contest. People like getting things for free, and that may be reason enough for them to join.
If you can have a product demonstration, do it. Just set up the area to draw attention and ask someone to demonstrate just how amazing your product is.

Be smart about where you put your money when it comes to your trade show exhibits. In the end, you don’t put a big dent on your budget when you play it smart.

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About the Author:
The Trade Group offers the best trade show services when it comes to showcasing your company so you can be head and shoulders above the competition. Seek their help when it comes to supplying you with the right trade show exhibits.
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According to Trusteer the Zbot banking, Trojan (aka  Zeus) is rife in the UK.  In fact, it is thought to be installed in about 100,000 PC’s, many of them in the UK, as Eastern European cybercriminals are targeting the UK.

The Zbot Trojan collects login details for online banks, credit and debit card numbers and other passwords.  It then uses these to take money out of your account and send it to criminals in Eastern Europe.

Industry body UK Payments is working with the Metropolitan Police and Trusteer on the Zbot threat. However UK Payments said that this kind of attack was not a one-off, but that they had “become the norm”.

There is an excellent article on the BBC website with more information on Zbot.  You can find out some more background by clicking on the following link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10865568

How do you protect your company, if its one of the IT support companies, from this kind of banking fraud when few of your employees will be as vigilant as you?

Protecting Your Business from Zbot and other Malware

1.    Have a Policy – Have a policy on which sites employees can visit and what they can download onto their PC.  Make sure that it is part of your Employee Handbook so that it is enforceable in the event of a problem.

2.    Install a Malware package – You must install a good anti-virus AND anti-spyware package. Do not go for a cheap or free solution because it is vital that you get daily updates of the most up-to-date protection from the supplier.

3.    DO NOT set-and-forget – The biggest mistake I see businesses make is installing the system and forgetting about it.  It must be properly set up to protect your business, and it must push out daily uptakes. You cannot afford to give your employees individual control over this.  It’s not up to them to accept or reject an update. it’s just too important to your business for this kind of laissez faire approach.

4.    Reporting – You need some kind of proactive reporting mechanism telling you how well your security system is working so that you can manage it properly. Without information you could have no hopes of managing it. That rules out the cheap solutions.  Decent packages will provide reports and even email selected individuals with alerts.

5.    Implement strong passwords – It’s quite extraordinary the number of times we find user or even system passwords to be “password”!  Your password should be a mix of uppercase, lowercase, numbers and characters.  You can use your Microsoft Windows server to control this.  You can set up a system policy dictating how strong the password must be.

6.    Change Passwords – Employees come and go and, even worse, write their passwords down and pass them around to other staff.  You should have a policy that forces all the staff to change their passwords every 90 days.  Again, you can set this up centrally to make it fully automated.  Staff won’t like it, but then it’s not their business, they won’t suffer the loss.

7.    Get a Good IT Support Partner  – Security is a complex area so make sure you have the right IT staff on board (a junior will not do) or find the right IT support companies to outsource the management of this to.  If you select the right IT Support partner it will be more effective and cheaper than doing it yourself.

Unfortunately I can’t promise these actions will totally prevent infections, but at worst they will reduce them to a trickle.

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About the Author:
Ziptech Services is one of the leading IT support companies in the UK that provides IT support for businesses, whether they are big, medium or small. Ziptech provides you a representative who can deal with any IT related issue, both hardware and software. On a monthly price you could call Ziptech any time for any problem that you come across in your office.
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