Archive for the ‘Foreclosure Questions’ Category

When your bank sends you a notice of foreclosure, you still have time. Usually you can work out a deal with your bank to delay foreclosure while you look for solutions to your problems.

What to do about Bank Foreclosure Delays?

If your bank has not filed for foreclosure, then you should contact your bank and ask them for more time to catch up on your mortgage payments. This is an effective delay strategy especially early on when you just defaulted on your payments and the bank is just adding interests, fees, and penalties to your mortgage bills.

However, when you are many months behind, calling the bank and asking for more time will not help too much. If the bank is nice, they might extend a grace period further but most banks will start the foreclosure process.

If you want to make sure that you have explored all the options, you can get a free foreclosure consultation below. Many times, you won't have to negotiate with your bank yourself especially if they are not cooperating, the foreclosure help service below can even negotiate with your bank to lower your interest payments.

Do not ignore the lender!

Some people think that by ignoring the lender, they are actually delaying foreclosure. While this may be true of some lenders (some lenders send your account to collection before starting the foreclosure process) that you don't owe much money, more lenders would file foreclosure on your home faster if you ignore them.

Communication is key. The question is are you the one communicating? or is it better to have a professional communicate on your behalf. Sometimes you should communicate through a realtor or a real estate investor in the case of a short sale foreclosure, see What is the Definition of Short Sale Foreclosure.

Facing Foreclosure Alone is always tough. You've got to stay in the loop! So in case you're new here, you may want to subscribe to the Prevent Foreclosures RSS feed. It will keep you up to date with the latest resources and tactics on how to prevent your foreclosure from happening.

There are so many reasons why you should prevent foreclosure. If you own a house with a mortgage and your financial situation is such that you may not be able to make a mortgage payment in the future, please let us help you.

Reasons why you should prevent foreclosure or stop foreclosure (if foreclosure already happens)

Leave your home on your own terms instead of getting evicted

At the final stage of foreclosure, if you have not vacated your foreclosure property, you will be evicted. It is not pretty. We have seen many nice and respectable folks leaving their beloved home in a hurry in the middle of the night to avoid being seen by neighbors and sparing themselves of embarrassment. Getting evicted is by FAR worse than if you were to leave your home by yourself or even
selling your home in advance.

Get something for your home instead of getting nothing after foreclosure is complete

If you sell your home before your mortgage lender is done foreclosing on your house, you may get some values from your property. Nowadays, it does not matter how much you owe your mortgage lender. If you owe your mortgage lender MORE than your home is worth, real estate investors can help you negotiate with your mortgage lender in a process called 'short sales'. By doing so, you will be able to sell your home for what you owe on it to the real estate investors. This is particularly beneficial when you owe
more than you can sell your home for.

For example, if your home is worth $200,000 in the market right now and you owe your mortgage lender $250,000. You can only sell it for $200,000 or less if you try to list it on the market with a realtor. In order to sell your home fast, you may have to reduce the price to $180,000. You will also have to pay realtor's fees and other costs. Let's say, you will end up with about $170,000 net for your house.
Since you owe the mortgage lender $250,000, you will have to come up with $80,000 on the spot.

However, if you sell to real estate investors, they will negotiate with the bank to drop
off the remaining portion of your debt. That means, at the end of the day (subject to a successful short sale), you will no longer owe the bank anything. An investor will buy your house, help you find other housing arrangements if needed, set you up with some start up cash, and also help you clean up your credit so that
you can borrow again for your new home in the near future.

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