The single biggest mistake borrowers make when they fall behind on their mortgage is not contacting their lender. As soon as you realize you have a problem, you've got to make that call. "The sooner the lender is approached, the better," recently said a spokesperson for Washington Mutual. "Even after one receives a default notice, one should contact the lender and open up discussions."
The foreclosure process for most lenders have set time line or schedule, so the longer you wait the fewer options you'll have:
1. Understand the Foreclosure Prevention techniques
2. Ask to speak to the Loss Mitigation Department
3. Be prepared to review your prepared Balance Sheet with the lender
4. Create your a mortgage lender correspondence log, to track your lender conversations
5. When speaking to the lender, ask about all of your options and document everything
6. If you don't get all the answers you need, or the information seems incomplete, call the lender back, you will get another representative on the phone. Sometimes the representative you are speaking to is new, having a bad day...or just not knowledgeable.
7. Follow up regularly with your lender. Don't wait until the lender calls you...call them once a week...after all, it's your house you are trying to save.
8. Open all of your mail, return all of the lenders calls.
9. Finally, be ready to wait on hold for a long period of time. Its not a good idea to call on your cell phone to rap up your minutes, charge your phone in advance and be ready to hang on the line for a long period of time.
K. Patrice Williams has a BA in Economics as well as a law degree. She has successfully managed both residential and commercial multi-million dollar income producing assets and budgets for more than 10 years. As a 1st year law student, Patrice established a real estate development and consulting business and acquired over 30 rental properties. As the housing market values decreased- like millions of other Americans-her properties were negatively impacted by shifting ARM's, combined by a sluggish economy. Patrice has researched and personally implemented almost all of the pre-foreclosure techniques detailed in the book: "6 Simple Steps to Avoid Foreclosure".http://www.avoidforeclosuremanual.com/ |
