There are ways to take your problems TO your bank. Right now, the housing market is terrible. What some people don't realize, though, is that the slow market is hurting the Lenders as well as the Borrowers. Avoiding Foreclosure then, is often possible by seeking out alternative means. Working with the bank to avoid forclosure can and often does work. While you may not feel like it, you actually have some room to negotiate with the banks. Financial institutions from Bank of America to IndyMac to ING to Washington Mutual to World Savings and many more are willing to make deals. The bank would much rather have you avoid foreclosure and continue to pay your mortgage over the next few years than to have to take possession of your house and sell it, probably for a loss. Use this to your advantage and do what you can to buy time till you get get back on your feet.
Another means to avoid foreclosure is that of the short sale, a less than desireable but ultimately sometimes necessary way of avoiding foreclosure. Think of the short sake as your last ditch effort in avoiding foreclosure and saving your house. A short sale does involve negotiating with the bank. In a short sale you basically convince the bank to let you make a fast sale (short sale) on your home according to the market. Since forclosure is imminent, this value is usually less than what you owe on the property. The negotiations come in by convincing the bank to allow the short sale and the remaining balance is excused. This certainly is a bittersweet "solution" since you still will need to vacate the house. The upside is you avoided foreclosure, saved your credit and got out from under the upside down mortgage. You can now, with your credit intact, look towards financing a new home.
When trying to avoid foreclosure, appealing directly to the bank or lender sometimes helps. The important thing to remember is to try to talk to a person not an institution. For those of you who have smaller bank lenders, it can be easier to walk into the bank in your Sunday best and speak to the Bank Manager or Loan Officer. If you appeal to their human side, you stand a better chance of avoiding foreclosure. The majority of those reading, however will be with one of the larger lenders. The largest is countrywide and so it follws that they would be the least sympathetic to their clients plights. Still my suggestion is to give them a call. It can't hurt, after all. I suggest, when navigating their phone lines, to attempt to find, again, a person, not a company. They DO exist, even in the large corporations. It may take several tries but if you do not get to a genuinely sympathetic person, you should try again. When your loan was first considered it was a person who arbitrarily decided to approve the loan (aided by computers of course) so it stands to reason that the same sort of consideration will be utilized with the foreclosure. And keep in mind as you plead your case that ultimately the bank really would much rather have you avoid forclosure and continue paying them, then to actually take your house.
© 2008 Stopping Bank Foreclosure.