Shawn
719-264-7777
Falling behind in your house payments?
Yikes!
Stay calm, don’t panic. It’s not the end of the world. These days you are not alone. The key is to make a plan of action before the situation goes any further.
Assess the situation
First of all, why are you late? Have you lost a job or had a major life change? Did you just have a major expense this month that left you cash poor? If a major life change has occurred, you need to get serious. Most likely a loan modification will not help you or may not even be allowed by your mortgage lender. It’s funny–you can call the lender and they will claim to want to help you but they will say “you don’t make enough money to be able to modify the loan.” Your reply will be “if I had enough money, do you think I would be making this call?” At that point you have to realize that trying to modify the loan is not the way to go. I recommend selling the house as soon as possible. This may be emotionally painful I know but it will cause much less heartache in the long run. Short term, it will be painful but that is where I come in. Much of what I do is help you manage the stress of selling your home and moving to a new place. A short sale can be a tool to get the home sold and avoid foreclosure.
What about the rest of your debts?
If you are behind on a mortgage payment, this is a good time to review the rest of your debts. Do you have too many car payments, credit cards etc.? It could be worth it to start to liquidate unneeded big ticket items in your possession. Remember, they are just “things” and “things” can be replaced. It is amazing how quickly you can raise cash by selling things on Craigslist.
Use Foreclosure ONLY as a last resort!
Foreclosure is death to your credit score. Period. End of story. Don’t let that happen intentionally. I see many people who just mentally check out of the situation and live in a state of ignorance. They somehow think that the problem will go away. They act like they had no idea that they lost their home when I show up with the sheriff and a moving crew on eviction day. If only they had called a professional, they could have been helped.
People are under the impression that you can not make payments and live for free for a long time. This will depend on your lender and their tolerance for non-performance of their loan portfolio on any given day. Usually, when someone misses one payment, the bank will order the first BPO (Broker Price Opinion) and begin the process toward foreclosure. The key is for the borrower who thinks they might be headed for real trouble to take action. Living in denial will not help you. It is inevitable that the home will be lost. Better to have a plan and avoid the stress and heartache.
If you are behind in payments or think you soon might be. Please contact me right away. I keep all of my conversations with you totally private. There is no cost for a consultation. We can make a plan to save your credit, your sanity and your time if you will only take some action.