Fred and Mario Martin

Loan Modification and Short Sale As options to Stop Foreclosure and Save your Home

Recent credible reports in the national media a stating the currently over 25% of the homes in the United States with financing are in a negative equity position. Upside down. The existing loans exceed the current value of the home. If the owners had to sell the property the owners net proceeds would be short as to having enough money available at close of escrow to completely pay off all the money outstanding to the one or more lenders who provided financing on the property plus the selling costs.

If these home owners are forced to sell they would only be able to do so using what is currently referred to in Real Estate vernacular as a Short Sale. That is a process where the property is listed with a agent trained in that highly specialized area and sold at market value then the Realtor attempts to negotiate with the lenders to allow the sale to close in consideration of their receiving less than the total amount owed to them ( A Short Sale) if the lenders involved will not accept the reduced proceeds and allow the property to sell to the new owners the home usually winds up going into foreclosure.

Much has been written about this subject and the short sale will hopefully account for many successful property transfers of negative equity properties over the next few years. There is another financial tool available that should be used in many cases where the home owner can qualify and wishes to keep their home and that is A loan Modification.

This term is well known in the Real Estate world but the exact process to obtain a loan modification is not very well understood by most people including the real estate community. There are a few highly trained HUD councilors out trying to save millions of home owners from foreclosure. Realtors for the most part know little about the subject and the general public is being advised to do it themselves working directly with under staffed and in some cases minimally trained bank personnel. Many of the fee for service loan modification companies are also providing marginal service. The general public is being advised to stay away from any fee for service loan modification companies. The end result is very few loans are being successfully modified and hundreds of thousands of home owners that should not be losing their homes are winding up in foreclosure.

I recently invested several thousand dollars to go through a week long Loan Modification Training program and will be posting many of the key concepts on this blog over the next few weeks in a attempt to share the basic information needed for a home owner or their realtor to properly work with their lender and end up with a successful loan modification. If the loan Modification cannot be achieved then the Short Sale could be the next viable option to foreclosure.

What can I do to Save my Home? Free Live Informational Workshop

Sunnyvale Ca Community Center

Join us Tuesday Sept 1st 6:30pm, Monday Sept 21st 6:30pm or Saturday Oct 3rd 1:30pm for this Free Workshop. This resource is being provided as a service to our community to help families understand the options that exist and pros and cons. Many families are faced with Loss of Equity (upside down), Interest Rate jump (ARM), Job Loss or are Behind on their Mortgage. Some topics covered will be Forbearance, Loan Mods, Short Sales, and Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure. Join us to learn what options you have! Let's stop foreclosure! www.bayareahomeretention.com or call 408-731-6288 408-731-6288

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