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6 Useful Tips for Avoiding Foreclosure

Thursday, October 9th, 2008

A lot of ways are there if you want to escape the predicament of foreclosure. The main ways are to contact the money lender, to take the problem seriously, responding to mails from the money lender and contacting the HUD counselors along with acting smart all through out.

The very first thing that you have to do is to take the problem seriously and do not blow it away as a joke. The money lender is a person who should never be ignored and hence all the phone calls that he makes and all the mails that he sends you should be answered. It is better that the lender is informed about your clear intentions of paying back the loan and keeping your home safe. If you make things clear and resolve the issues with your money lender, it is very much likely that they will try their level best to help you out with some way in which you can keep your home and also pay them off.

Another thing to be remembered is that you should never ignore the scams. A lot of scam artists are there in the market who may entice you with different lucrative schemes of saving your house. It is very essential that you keep your eyes open and make sure that you do not sign any of the documents without proper reading and evaluation of them. At times, these scam masters make you sign the documents and turn the home in their name making you a tenant of the house. So, it is important that you keep wary of them and take proper legal advice from a reputed solicitor.

Another thing in league is proper prioritizing of various issues to avoid foreclosure proceedings. The finances need to be revamped and thus the house has to be prioritized to save it from foreclosure. The monthly payments of the home should be made first and then any other need should be catered to. It is better that you organize your various payments strategically so that there is no trouble later on.

In fact, foreclosure should be avoided as it puts you in the league of defaulters and thereby makes you have a bad credit record. Owing to this bad credit, you may find it tough to avail any loans in future as well. So, you should do almost everything under the sun that you can to save your house from foreclosures.

It is very important that you always keep in touch with the money lender who has availed you of the loan so that your intentions are always clear with him regarding paying the loans. You should give heed to all the notices and warnings he sends you and should respond to them positively. There is no point that you ignore the mails and calls from the lender as it will only aggravate the matters. Act responsible and make a way out of the foreclosure predicament. So, it is essential that you plan your finances in advance and make timely and organized payments to the lender to avoid foreclosure.

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Help from York to Avoid Foreclosures

Monday, September 1st, 2008

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The increasing rate of foreclosure homes nationwide has led to the introduction of a new program by the Yorktown Division of Housing. This program aims to provide help to the people in fighting the real estate foreclosure. A total of 5,800 foreclosures have been recorded across the state in the second half of 2007. Out of these, about 4,000 were a case of subprime loans. The newly introduced program follows the method of the Virginia Foreclosure Prevention Task Force that was created after the rate of foreclosures between 2006 and 2007 increased in Virginia. From January to June, a total of 22 foreclosures among 24,000 residences have been recorded in Yorktown. The rate of foreclosures has been low at less than a percent in James City, Yorktown, Mathews, Poquoson, and Williamsburg.

The program of Yorktown includes a mortgage and credit counseling education to those who are standing on the brink of foreclosure homes. According to the manager of the Division of Housing, Vaughn Poller,

“In the past we’ve not had to confront this issue, but we are proactive in our approach to services and are concerned that in the current economic climate the need could grow,”

The program provides valuable information on home purchase financing, debt management, and budgeting. These programs were earlier meant for the first-time homeowners. The partnership of Yorktown with James City Housing Office will offer residents of the upper county to get services on counseling if they are unable to get to the offices of Division of Housing in Yorktown. The new program will however not provide any help for mortgage payments.

According to Poller the housing division is soon to get a HUD certification whereby the HUD counselors will be trained in areas such as credit counseling, foreclosure prevention and homebuyer education. Apart from these, the other area resources include the Greater Peninsula United Way First Call program and Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Hampton. The housing division provides referrals to agencies like Peninsula Catholic Charities and also certified housing counseling to US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Poller has said that one needs to be careful about their finances to avoid the problem of foreclosures.

One should not avoid their real estate mortgage companies as put by Poller. He has said, “Our focus is to provide the public with counseling and information resources to encourage them to take precautionary steps to avoid foreclosure proceedings,” One should always seek for a financial guidance in case he/she has failed to make re-payment.

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Two Ways to Avoid Foreclosures

Monday, August 4th, 2008

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Some 500,000 broke homeowners may be able to avoid foreclosures with the real estate housing legislation, which can soon become a law and help them refinance into government-backed mortgages that are more affordable. As several borrowers may not be able to qualify, those facing foreclosure should acquaint themselves with two alternatives – transactions related to ‘deed in lieu of foreclosure’ and ‘short sales’. None of the choices can help you from losing your home, but they can be less painful than foreclosure in the legal process of banks involved to repossess a homeowner’s property.

In case of a short sale, the borrower tries to sell the home at a reasonable real estate market value, which is less than the sum owed on the mortgage. The lender generally contends to forgive the remaining part of the debt. In case of the other option, the borrower passes the home to the lender with his permission ‘in lieu of’ waiting for the foreclosure. It is the lender’s duty to sell the house and he forgives the figure by which the mortgage balance surpasses the home’s current value.

According to an associate vice president of the Mortgage Bankers Association, Vicki Vidal, both strategies offer a legal and psychological relief as most people can move from their home without the burden of mortgage debt. Compared to this lenders can demand the differential figure owed to them in foreclosure proceedings. Although many lenders do not go after this debt, but it has happened especially in certain cases in which the borrower destroyed the property while leaving. Deeds in lieu of foreclosure and short sales have another benefit, which is borrowers have to face a briefer waiting period, prior to obtaining another mortgage.

These two options minimize the impact, which a borrower’s credit score receives. The spokesperson for Fair Isaac Corp, Mr. Craig Watts said that all the proceedings related to foreclosure, short sale and deed in lieu of foreclosure have a more or less similar negative impact on a person’s credit score. According to him, there has not been much analysis to distinguish the credit risk associated with people who finished a short sale and those who were involved in a foreclosure. As a result, “the model ends up treating them all the same.”

For both deeds in lieu of foreclosure and short sales, borrowers need to produce a ‘hardship letter’ to the lender, providing a detail of the reasons for which they were not able to make the mortgage payments. In the real estate market, lenders prefer short sales to the other options.

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Loan Counselors: Help to Avoid House Foreclosures

Thursday, July 3rd, 2008

Are you a defaulter of home loan or unable to pay the money that you have invested in the real estate? Well, in today’s world it has been markedly seen that there are a large number of veterans in US who take home loans and ultimately fail to repay the same when required. This leads to seizure of their homes by the banks, which is finally sold on a high bid. This is termed as foreclosed homes. Do you fall in that category? Thinking of what to do? The loan counselors can help you in this regard. They belong to the Department of Veterans Affairs, USA. With their help, many have been able to come out of this tough situation.

The loan counselors of the Department of Veterans Affairs provide advice and also assist the defaulter by making arrangement for finance. In this way, they aid the people with VA-guaranteed loans to keep away from house foreclosures. This has led to the heavy reduction in the number of defaulting people. There are loan counselors at about nine regional loan centers proving an excellent service related to this particular issue. The Department of Veterans Affairs can also work as an arbitrator on the behalf of the borrower in certain matters like forbearance, loan modifications, as well as repayment plans to help the veteran in keeping back their home prior to the veteran’s situation.

As per a report, since the year 2000, the loan counselors of the Department of Veterans Affairs have provided their guidance to approximately 74,000 veterans and active-duty service members in avoiding house foreclosures. These counselors also provide service to those veterans having finance related problems say in case of real estate or something else involving heavy finance. The credit of helping decrease these veteran home foreclosures undoubtedly goes to the loan counselors as well as the excellent loan servicing program of the Department of Veterans Affairs. As per the data, there has been a 50 percent cut down in the house foreclosures than what it was 5 years ago.

The Department of Veterans Affairs’ home loan guaranty program has made it easier for the veterans and also the active-duty members to take loans for various real estate related matters. It has been seen that a VA-backed home loan of over 90 percent has been provided without any down payment. If you want to get in touch with a loan counselor, then call at (877) 827-3702.

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Are The Hamptons In Foreclosure Trouble?

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

Rising foreclosures are seeing the emergence of a new kind of transaction: the short sale. Unheard of even until a few years ago, these sales involve homeowners selling their homes for less than the amount of their mortgage. The sale is carried out in agreement with the bank, to avoid a foreclosure.

In the Hamptons, foreclosures were not a major concern until quite recently. The area watched other parts of the country experience a spate of repossessions but seemed to remain untouched by it.

The story however is now slowly changing. The last year has seen a steady rise in “lis pendens” or the first legal foreclosure notices in the East End area. Foreclosure auctions too have started taking place.

The Hamptons has always been an upscale area where the truly affluent have their homes. Foreclosures of $ 1 million or $3 million homes are hardly a concern for those whose homes are valued at $20 million and $ 30 million. Author Steven Gaines, who is considered an authority on the Hamptons, sums it up thus, “This has always been a place for people who could afford to live here. If one can’t, that’s fine……And if that means that you don’t have to wait three days to get a plumber, that’s good, too.”

But experts anticipate that it is the plumbers and other service providers who are likely to face the foreclosures. And too many defaulters could easily affect the economy of the Hamptons as a whole. Real estate agents too feel that no neighbourhood is safe from foreclosures.

Ashley Clark of Brooklyn’s PropertyShark , publisher of real estate research and data, points out that legal default notices and announcements of foreclosure auctions in the Hamptons would rarely be seen in newspapers even two years ago. Today however such notices appear weekly, even though their numbers are limited to one or two. Clark says, “It’s small in actual numbers and in comparison to the rest of the country, but it’s a big change for that particular area.”

ProertyShark data reveals that 415 lis pendens were filed in the five towns on the East End from October 2007 to March 2008. This reflects a 30 percent increase from the previous six months. The data also shows that 42 foreclosure auctions were scheduled for this period, an increase of 40 percent.

Real estate agents put down the foreclosures to the effect of the national foreclosure crisis and say it is no unusual that a few foreclosures will take place in the Hamptons as well. They do not anticipate a crisis and expect long term residents to remain unaffected by the situation.

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Conservative Banking Helping Region Avoid Foreclosures

Thursday, February 7th, 2008

Sticking with more traditional banking practices while institutions in other parts of the nation tried riskier loans has helped southern West Virginia and Southwest Virginia avoid the rash of mortgage foreclosures dampening America’s economy, area loan officers said.

In 2007, investors who financed new homes by getting subprime mortgages with adjustable interest rates began to have problems making their monthly payments when the interest rates on them increased. Since then, the foreclosure issue has been the focus of many debates and economic forums. With interest rates at their peak, things were not looking too rosy for home owners in the long run.

Mike Day, a loan officer with MCNB Banks, said consumers with such loans might have signed up thinking they would always be paying $400 on their mortgages each month, only to see these payments jump to $650 a month. Such increases can tighten family budgets and lead for foreclosures.

“On top of that, gasoline prices are on the rise and natural gas prices keep rising. Everything is on the rise,” Day said. “It’s a tough world to be in financially now.”

However, Day and representatives of other banks in the region said they have not seen an increase of home foreclosures.

“Really we haven’t seen any, mainly because we don’t deal in those loan packages,” said Collection’s Manager Lawrence Reed of the Bank of Tazewell County. “We’re still a little more conservative. Past conservative products carry you through the tough times.”

Hal Absher, director of secondary mortgage lending for First Century Bank, said staying away from subprime loans may have looked “dumb” once, but now it’s proven to be a “smart” move.

“We’ve been a conservative lender,” Absher said. “We haven’t had subprime loans, so we haven’t seen the spike in foreclosures, thank goodness.”

One vision area bankers keep in mind is the Sept. 1, 1999 collapse of the First National Bank of Keystone in McDowell County, one of the biggest financial failures since the Great Depression. It is an example of what can happen when financial institutions use questionable practices, Reed said.

“When local banks start thinking there’s a get rich quick scheme out there, somebody gets burned,” he said.

All in all, this is one of those parts of the country that has been fortunate enough to not be too dramatically affected by foreclosures. Unless interest rates come down, the threat of foreclosures increasing will continue.

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