People have difficulty paying their mortgage for a variety of reasons. They lose their job, get divorced, or incur costly medical bills, to name a just a few common hardships. To make ends meet when a hardship happens, some are able to reduce spending on nonessential items like entertainment, vacations, and eating out. If that's not enough, things that are necessary, but can be put off, are. If reducing spending does not free up enough cash to pay for essentials like mortgage, car, and utility payments, tough decisions have to be made.
Foreclosure can be a confusing subject that mystifies all but the most well-versed professionals. All the ins and outs, the what have yous, and esoteric legal language make it difficult to understand the benefits and requirements of various options. However, there are ways to stop foreclosure that are simple and easy to understand for any homeowner. One of the easiest ways is a revolutionary concept that involves paying the money required to bring the loan current. It's called reinstatement.
The Hardest Hit Fund (HHF) was created by the federal government in 2010 to give financial aid to struggling homeowners in states that were most negatively impacted by the housing crisis and recession through loan modifications, mortgage payment assistance, and transition assistance programs. States were selected to receive funds from the program based on having above average rates of unemployment and decline in housing prices.
The percentage of Americans with negative equity in their homes, also known as being underwater, continued to fall in the second quarter of 2015 to 14.4%, according to a report from the real estate company Zillow. The rate of homeowners with negative equity has been dropping since the first quarter of 2012 when a high of 31.4% of homeowners were underwater.
Mortgage servicers are the companies that many borrowers make their mortgage payments to. They may not be the same company as your originating lender and the owner of your loan. Servicers have many responsibilities for managing a mortgage, including:
Each Thanksgiving we're all supposed to give thanks for the good things that have happened to us over the course of the year. It's a time to show appreciation and gratitude while enjoying a big meal with family and friends. A turkey is pardoned by the president, and we're all encouraged to relax and enjoy ourselves. But the troubles and difficulties of life don't take a day off just because you do. Concerns about bills, career, and relationships remain even as the focus is supposed to be exclusively on the positive.
Unless you live under a rock, you have heard that the United States experienced a rapid and significant increase in home prices and construction in the first decade of the 21st century (the aughts) that turned out to be a bubble, which burst, leading to a recession. If you're a homeowner with a mortgage, you probably experienced some uneasiness as you watched the value of your home fall along with your investments and just about everything else of value you own. Fortunately, things have slowly improved over the last few years, but some are concerned that we're making the same mistakes all over again. Are we just inflating another housing bubble that will burst and have the same, or worse consequences?
Foreclosure starts were up 12% from the previous month in October 2015, according to real estate information company RealtyTrac's U.S. Foreclosure Market Report. RealtyTrac says the October increase in foreclosure starts is not a surprise this year since it has also happened the last five Octobers. What is a surprise is how much of a rise there was this October, which was more than twice the average rate of 5%.
If your lender is threatening to foreclose on you for missed mortgage payments and you don't have the money to get current, and aren't eligible for a loan modification, you may be a candidate for a deed in lieu of foreclosure agreement. A deed-in-lieu of foreclosure agreement is when the borrower agrees to give ownership of their home to the lender in exchange for canceling their mortgage.
Beginning in 2014, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) established new rules to protect homeowners facing foreclosure from unnecessary expenses and surprises. Among the rules are restrictions on the mortgage servicer's ability to pursue foreclosure while reviewing your application for a loan modification, a practice known as dual-tracking.
