- This was posted on March 24, 2009

With so many people having difficulties in the housing market right now, it is certainly a scary time to be a homeowner. Those who are struggling to pay mortgage payments and keep up their home need only turn to their right or left to see what the economic ramifications have been for their neighbors; foreclosures are rampant. Selling a home may seem like a good idea in order to simplify your life or it may be a necessity but many homeowners – not wanting to brave the competitive selling market or face the decline in their home’s value – are choosing to stay put and wait out the economy; as well as using this time to make improvements to their home and get into a better selling position for when the market begins to take a turn.

The trouble is, of course, is that improvements cost money and money is something that most of us are relatively short on these days. So what to do when the home you are trying to keep has repairs that need to be made? Finding another source of income right now is difficult at best and loans are just not being approved in many cases. But those who have structured settlement money coming to them on a scheduled basis may choose to sell annuity payments to accrue the money they need.

Structured settlements are a method by which the court system can choose to pay out money that has been awarded to a claimant in a personal injury case. While that person may have been given a hefty cash award, the money is put into an annuity that is held by a third party and payments are made from the annuity. When you sell annuity payments, however, you are choosing to “cash in” future payments for cash today. How does this help a homeowner survive the current economic climate? We’ll take a look in the next post.

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