Foreclosures Break Record Again

The Mortgage Bankers Association's first quarter report showed that a record 2.5% of all loans being serviced by its members are now in foreclosure, which works out to about 1.1 million homes. That's up from the 2% of loans, or about 938,000 homes, that were in foreclosure at the end of 2007.

The report also showed that 448,000 homes, or about 1% of loans being serviced, began the foreclosure process during the first quarter. That's up from about 382,000 homes, or 0.83%, that entered foreclosure in the last three months of 2007.

The seasonally-adjusted rate of homeowners behind on their mortgage payments also hit a record high. Nearly 3 million home loans, or 6.4%, have missed at least one payment, while about 737,000 are at least three months past due, but not yet in foreclosure.

With expert help you can avoid becoming one of these statistics.

Behave Pro Actively to Stop Your Foreclosure

"I can't get a hold of anyone to get anything done." This is the frustrating response from most homeowners facing foreclosure who retain our services to get done the seemingly impossible.

When you have your car serviced, you trust an expert to fix it right. When your taxes are due, you trust an expert to prepare them for you. When you need medical care, you trust an expert to help you. There are many things we can do ourselves in life, but sometimes it requires the help of an expert in that field to get the job done right. That's what we do.

Most people who attempt to handle the foreclosure themselves find it to be a full time job. Spending hours on hold only to get someone from India that barely speaks English and has no supervisor to talk to, or the person that has been assigned to you is no longer there, or they lost your paperwork or..., I could go on forever. Then, once you do get a hold of someone, they don't have the authority to do anything accept to take your money. In addition, most people have jobs during the day and can't spend hours on hold.

The mortgage companies are over run, they simple don't have the man power to deal with all the foreclosures that they are faced with. I'm sure they don't have a budget to hire more people because they are literally losing millions everyday. It is a dire situation and it seems that it will be getting worse before it's going to get better. Unfortunately, the fact is that almost everyone in foreclosure today could potentially lose their home before their mortgage company can hire and train someone to help them. I guess that is why our phone rings off the hook from people looking for assistance. It's not that the people that contact us are stupid and lazy, the opposite in fact is true. They are usually behaving quite pro actively. They figured out that they are fighting a losing battle with "customer service" and they need to do something about it before they lose their most important position, their family's home.

Foreclosure Scams To Avoid

It seems impossible to fathom that someone would take advantage of people in foreclosure, but it does happen. They target people in foreclosure because they know that people in foreclosure will do anything keep from losing their home. One of the best way to guard against being swindled is to check the companies BBB (Better Business Bureaus) report.

The BBB keeps records for three years. Most people who have been taken advantage of usually check on a company AFTER they have a problem, only to find out that the company has, in some cases, over 100 complaints against them. First check to see that the company is listed with the BBB. Most companies that have a satisfactory record with the BBB will prominently display the clickable BBB logo on their website. If you don’t see a BBB logo that links to their BBB report on their website this may be a red flag as some websites will illegally display the BBB logo on their website but you can't click on it to see their report. A company doesn't have to be a member of the BBB to have a report about their background. Since the BBB rates companies regardless of being a member, many companies don’t pay the high $400 membership fee the BBB. This should not be considered a negative mark against them. You will also want to look and see how long the company has been in business. You may not want to trust a company to save your home if they have only been in business for a couple of months.

Another red flag is if a company doesn't accept Debit Cards or Credit cards as a form of payment. Be very wary of a company that only accepts Western Union, Money Orders, or uses Pay pal to accept credit cards. Companies that only accept these forms of payment go through little to no screening from any organization. If you have a problem with them you will have no recourse but to sue them in court and most people in foreclosure can't afford to hire a attorney to go after them. They know this and exploit it. In order to be able to accept Debit/Credit Cards a company has to have a Merchant Account, and that means that the banks have investigated them thoroughly to guard against fraud. Getting a merchant account is a long and tedious process that requires the principles of the company to qualify, much like qualifying for a Mortgage, and the banks are VERY thoroughly in their investigations, they don't just hand out Merchant Accounts because the bank is ultimately responsible for fraud. This means that if you have paid by debit card and are unhappy you only have to call your bank and they will immediately credit your account and then they will go after the merchant for the money. Debit cards are by far the best way to insure that you are dealing with a creditable company.

If you follow these two simple rules you can feel confident that you are working with a real company and not some fly-by-night operation that will disappear with your money.

Can the Government Really Help You?

If your in foreclosure I have some critical advice for you. Don't count on the government to save your home for you.

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) program might assist about 80,000 delinquent borrowers the ability to refinance into more affordable loans. With 1.2 million homes in foreclosure that comes out to only about 7% will get assistance. That leaves 93% with no assistance. That means you have a 93% chance of losing your home if you count on the Federal Government. Those are bad odds.

We certainly check the bailout program eligibility of everyone that contacts us, but the guidelines are so strict that virtually no one qualifies. To me it seems an easy way for our politicians to sound like they are doing something about the problem, without doing something about the problem.

"It won't help the majority," said Lisa Rice, vice president of the National Fair Housing Alliance, a national organization dedicated to ending housing discrimination. "It's only going to help that one bucket, and it's hard to say how large that bucket will be without knowing the details of how the Treasury Department will assess affordability."

The plan would also seemingly exclude borrowers who hold option-ARMs that aren't subprime. These are loans that start with extremely low "teaser" rates before rising dramatically a few years into the loan.

It has also been reported that homes that were bought as investments - as opposed to for the purpose of living in - would be excluded.

We see some people in foreclosure procrastinating, thinking that some government program is going to come to the rescue. By the time they realize that they are on their own, many times it's to late to work something out with the mortgage company. Let's face it, our government moves, slow and the foreclosure process moves quick, these two time lines just don't match up.