Bobby Wainright asked:

If you’ve never lost your job or ran into financial difficulty then it possibly might be that a foreclosure is nothing you have had to deal with. However if you’re like far too many in the United States today then you may be facing the possibility of foreclosure on your home or property as you read this article. There is no doubt about it – foreclosure is an ugly thing to have happen in your life, but it is something that can be stopped if you make some right moves.

You should be cautious when you start contacting the different companies though, as many will claim that they can help you against foreclosure, but more than often they cannot. Even though many of these companies are legitimate, and can help prevent the lender from taking your house away, you will be able to do the same things yourself.

The first thing that you want to do is find out which division in the bank – where your loan is through handles the details of working with somebody in a bad loan situation. Once you are talking to the proper people you’ll find that you get somewhere much quicker.

Take into consideration that your bank or lender does not want to foreclose on your property and take it back if they do not have to. If there’s any way that you can show them some good will and that you are willing to make some sort of payment, they can often times drastically reduce your payments for you without refinancing your loan and stop foreclosure on your property.

If you need more foreclosure help then you should get information about the different areas available to you – there are a number of sites that help you avoid foreclosure on your home and help you will good advice, negotiating with creditors and not wanting to continue talking with you. The main thing is to act now, not later!

Cindy Heller asked:

When the economy is in decline, the goal of many homeowners is to avoid foreclosure. Foreclosure is not a fun experience and in fact, it can be a traumatic incident for the entire family as you are forced to leave your home where you have stayed for many years. One of the most common causes of foreclosure is the loss of job, which make a person unable to pay his mortgage payment. If you experience the same situation where you have lost your job, avoiding foreclosure is not an impossible thing to achieve. Many experts have indicated that they key to avoid foreclosure is your ingenuity and vigilance. There are several options that you have to keep the home and this article discusses two simple options that you should do to achieve it.

Avoid a notice of default in the first place

If you never receive any notice of default, then you can avoid foreclosure more easily. Nobody will foreclose your property without a notice of default. Therefore, it is very important to keep timely mortgage payment in this case. In order to make sure that you are protected, you should consider opening an insurance policy that will cover amortization payments for your home. The policy will cover your mortgage payment for a certain amount of time, usually around six months.

This protection is very important to maintain regular mortgage payment and avoid receiving a notice of default, especially if you just lost your job or are facing emergency situations like serious illness or losing of a family member. You must never forget to make monthly payment to the insurance company though. Otherwise your insurance will lapse and become useless. You may think that the extra monthly fee is a burden, but when the time comes, you will be grateful for the protection that you get.

Negotiate with your lender

On the other hand, if you do not have any debt insurance coverage, then you should try a different strategy. Do not be despair even if you have received a notice from your lender. You must not avoid them, but quite the opposite, you have to contact them immediately. Negotiate with them and find out whether a new arrangement on your mortgage payment can be done. In many cases, lenders are willing to extend the payment terms and thus you need to pay less amount of monthly mortgage payment.

Many people ignore or even try to hide from the lender when they have received a notice. This will not solve the situation, but will make the situation even worse instead. It will be impossible to avoid foreclosure if you act like this. What you need to understand is that lenders also do not like to go through foreclosure process unless it is really necessary. Those lenders do business in lending money, not managing properties. Empty properties are burdens for them because they bring no profit whatsoever. Therefore, you should be genuine if you are really serious in avoiding foreclosure.

Robert Bahr asked:

The American housing market has slipped over the edge of what appears be a bottomless abyss, and up to two million homeowners who were swept up in the home buying frenzy between 2000 and 2006 are now being swept toward that abyss. Is there a way, if you are one of them, for you to avoid foreclosure?

There may be, if you know what you are doing. But your ability to avoid foreclosure will depend, to a very large extent, on the reasons why you have fallen behind in your house payments. Is your current lack of funds a temporary setback, with a specific date at which you know you will once again become solvent?

If so, and you can provide solid proof that your finances will shortly be looking up, you can approach your lender and ask about negotiating a grace period during which your monthly house payments will be lowered, as a way to avoid foreclosure. The formal term for the relief you are seeking is a Special Forbearance, and to have a chance for qualifying, you will need to provide the specific details of how you expect to get caught up on your mortgage.

Taking a home equity loan is another way to avoid foreclosure, but will only be available if you have lived in your home long enough, and made enough of your house payments, to have accumulated a significant amount of home equity. If you bought into the real estate bubble of a couple of years ago, you probably won’t qualify.

Your home equity is the total amount of cash which would be left if the money you still owe on your mortgage were to be deducted from a current appraisal of your home’s value. Taking a home equity loan to avoid foreclosure means that you will refinance your existing mortgage with a new one, cash out the home equity, and use it to pay off the balance on the earlier mortgage.

If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to get a home equity loan at an interest rate lower than that of your previous mortgage, entitling you to lower monthly payments. But you must be absolutely certain, before taking this route to avoid foreclosure, that you will be able to stay current on the new loan, or you will end up right where you began. So do your best to negotiate the most favorable terms you can.

If you don’t have sufficient equity in your home to qualify for a home equity loan, but your missed mortgage payments have not had time to influence your credit rating, you might consider a traditional loan to avoid foreclosure. If you do, limit yourself to borrowing only as much as it takes to get you current on your house payments, because this kind of loan will usually carry a hefty interest rate.

If, however, your credit record has already been damaged by your failure to make your house payments, how about turning to family or friends? That may be a last resort, and if it’s not an option, you may have to accept that you will lose your home. But you can still avoid foreclosure.

How? By doing your best to sell your home while you are still in the pre-foreclosure process. You will give up you home, and you may not walk away with any cash to show for your efforts, but if you can keep a foreclosure off your credit record, you will be in a much better position to get a mortgage on a more modest home.

Finally, the only certain way to avoid going over the foreclosure cliff is never to buy more house than you can realistically afford, no matter what your creative home lender tires to tell you. You need to have a house which will shelter, and not stress you, and the only way to do that is to get one with payments you can manage even if your finances take a hit for some other reason!

Peter Collins asked:

Avoiding Foreclosure, What are your options as a homeowner?

Do Nothing – The stress of facing foreclosure can push many homeowners into turning their head and letting the foreclosure process run it’s course. Doing nothing to save your have is the worst mistake you can make. You can avoid foreclosure with foreclosure assistance by a loan modification attorney. Saving your home from foreclosure should be your top priority. Homeownership is the key to financial wealth, personal health, and a stable family. Why do nothing when we can stop foreclosure today.

File Bankruptcy – While this option may of been very popular in the past new bankruptcy laws and restrictions make this once easy process very hard. Filing for bankruptcy may not relieve you of your obligation to repay your mortgage, foreclosures may still proceed, and it may damage your credit for the rest of your life. Avoid bankruptcy at all cost and consult a loan modification attorney before filing for bankruptcy.

Short Sale – A short sale typically is executed to prevent a home foreclosure. Often a bank will choose to allow a short sale if they believe that it will result in a smaller financial loss than foreclosing. The downside to a short sale is that it takes time to sell a home even at a bargain in such a defunct housing market. There are foreclosures on every block, housing prices are rock bottom, and selling a short sale is next to impossible. The entire time the home is on the market you are still responsible for your mortgage payment, taxes, and insurance. Can you truly afford this option?

Loan Modification – Loan modification has quickly become the best option for homeowners facing home foreclosure. Loan modification is not the only option for homeowners trying to avoid foreclosure due to late mortgage payments. However; it is an option that can save your home while putting you in a mortgage you can afford. So how does loan modification work and who is eligible for a loan modification? Here are some helpful tools and resources below to help you understand your options.

The most common loan modifications are lowering the interest rate, reducing the principal balance, ‘fixing’ adjustable interest rates, forgiveness of payment defaults & Fees, or any combination of these. A loan modification can help home owners who can’t refinance or afford their current mortgage payments. Getting an approved loan modification for troubled home loans can help stop the foreclosure process.

A loan modification with a loan modification attorney may offer a more favorable loan modification agreement than your mortgage lender will offer you directly. With so many home loans adjusting to higher payments a loan workout with a Loan Modification Attorney, can modify mortgage loan terms fast and effectively. Obtaining foreclosure help and proper legal advice from a loan modification attorney will get you a better loan modification agreement with your lender and preserve your credit. If you are already behind in your mortgage payments this may help stop the foreclosure process and help you avoid foreclosure.

A loan workout needs to perform for both parties; your lender does not want your home and to go through the foreclosure process. However, they may not want to accept your partial payment and threaten foreclosure if you are late or in default. A HUD housing counselor or a loan modification attorney can offer free foreclosure advice to homeowners that want to keep their home.

Andre Plessis asked:

Foreclosure is the legal proceeding in which a lender sells or repossesses a property due to the owner’s failure to comply on its promissory note. When the process is complete, it is typically said that “the lender has foreclosed its mortgage or lien.”

There are two sorts of foreclosure in most common law states. Under “strict foreclosure,” the lender claims the title and possession of the property back in full satisfaction of a debt, usually on contract. In the proceeding simply known as foreclosure, the property is auctioned by the county sheriff or some other officer of the court. In this foreclosure, the sheriff then issues a deed to the winning bidder at auction. Lenders typically bid in the amount of the owed debt at the sale, and if no other buyers step forward they get title to the property in return.

Other states have adopted non-judicial foreclosure proceedings, in which the mortgagee, or more commonly the mortgagee’s attorney, gives the homeowner a legally specified notice of the default and the mortgagee’s intent to sell the property. If the homeowner fails to cure the default, or use other lawful means to stop the sale, the mortgagee or its representative will conduct a public auction in a similar manner as the sheriff’s auction described above.

Rule #1: Contact your lender as soon as you know your payments will be late. Your lender understands and will try to make some payment arrangements.

Rule #2: DO NOT IGNORE THE LETTERS FROM YOUR LENDER. If you are having problems making your payments, call or write to your lender’s Loss Mitigation Department without delay. Explain your situation. Be prepared to provide them with financial information, such as your monthly income and expenses. Without this information, they may not be able to help.

Rule #3: Never assume your situation is hopeless.

foreclosure can seriously affect your ability to qualify for credit in the future. So you should avoid foreclosure if possible.

What Should I Do?

Special Forbearance. Your lender may be able to arrange a repayment plan based on your financial situation and may even provide for a temporary reduction or suspension of your payments. You may qualify for this if you have recently experienced a reduction in income or an increase in living expenses. You must furnish information to your lender to show that you would be able to meet the requirements of the new payment plan.

Mortgage Modification. You may be able to refinance the debt and/or extend the term of your mortgage loan. This may help you catch up by reducing the monthly payments to a more affordable level. You may qualify if you have recovered from a financial problem and can afford the new payment amount.

Pre-foreclosure sale. This will allow you to avoid foreclosure by selling your property for an amount less than the amount necessary to pay off your mortgage loan.

Deed-in-lieu of foreclosure. As a last resort, you may be able to voluntarily “give back” your property to the lender. This won’t save your house, but it is not as damaging to your credit rating as a foreclosure.

Reinstatement might be possible when you are behind in your payments but can promise a lump sum to bring payments current by a specific date.

If your account is past due, but you can now make payments, the lender might agree to let you catch up by adding a portion of the past due amount to a certain number of monthly payments until your account is current.

The lender might require that you attempt to sell the house for a specific time period before agreeing to this option, and it might not be possible if there are other liens against the home.

Should I Be Aware of Anything Else?

YES. Beware of scams! Solutions that sound too simple or too good to be true usually are. If you’re selling your home without professional guidance, beware of buyers who try to rush you through the process. Unfortunately, there are people who may try to take advantage of your financial difficulty.

Act now! Delaying can’t help. If you do nothing, YOU WILL LOSE YOUR HOME and you will damage your credit rating.

To Your Success!

Andre Plessis
I Teach people How To Create a Passive Income & Live a Debt Free Lifestyle!
The Mortgage Guru