mortgage restructuring

As an employee of a non-profit organization that specializes in helping people stay in their homes and manage their financial situation, I would not send them one dime. The person or people you are talking to are highly paid commission only sales people that have one interest at heart, their own. Once they get your money, they might make some calls for you, but even if they promise you success, they owe you nothing if they don't succeed. Its in the fine print. I hate companies like that. They might as well just hold a gun up and rob you.

I work for a non-profit organization that has been around for over 40yrs. We are not here to hurt people or make a quick buck.

My advice is start here first. The company I work for is an alliance member.

www.hopenow.com

HOPE NOW is an alliance between counselors, mortgage companies, investors, and other mortgage market participants. This alliance will maximize outreach efforts to homeowners in distress to help them stay in their homes and will create a unified, coordinated plan to reach and help as many homeowners as possible. The members of this alliance recognize that by working together, they will be more effective than by working independently.

The advice they give is free. I suggest you try it first. I will warn you that they are going to ask some personal financial questions that can sometimes put people off, but the counseling session is free and the advice is sound advice.

Also, without knowing your situation, I would suggest that if you are in a fixed rate above 6%, I would not worry. If you can afford your payment, you should just continue on to make it. I have seen too many horror stories of homeowners ruining their credit and financial lives wanting their piece of the "bailout" and because there was a poor investment made into real estate. I am not judging you, so please don't feel that way. If you payment is becoming a financial burden, it will pay to speak with hopenow to learn what options you might have.

One other piece of advice for the public in general is that if you are current and try to contact your lender for a modification, and they suggest they can not help you because you are not behind, or they even go as far to suggest that if you were 4 months behind, they would help you, they are lying. Imagine that, lenders lie. They are lying through their teeth like they have lied to so many uninformed borrowers that created this mortgage melt-down mess.

If anyone would like guidance or has any questions, please feel free to contact me. I can provide the number to our toll free hotline.

P.S. I am almost ashamed to admit I spent a few years myself as a loan officer, so I have been on both sides of the fence.

Ahhh, don't send them any money. You can do this yourself. I did mine. It took a ton of calls though to Citi to get to the people you need to speak to.

The standard CSRs don't want to transfer you any where if they can avoid it. Persistence is key. Once I finally got thru to the right people, I ended up getting a decent mod on mine, 4% fixed for the life of the loan, no costs for the mod, and had some misc fees and such wiped - not much, but a bit. Pretty good considering I was in an ARM about to adjust (Planned on selling before the adjustment occurred, not for a huge profit, just was getting settled in here after 10 years in the Navy, and wasn't sure where in the local area we wanted to settle down for good) when the market tanked.

They did what they termed as an FDIC mod, not sure what that is, but regardless when I inquired about the Making Home Affordable pgm, it would have actually RAISED my rate and pmt. They did not adjust/forgive any of the principle, which is fine with me. I am upside down like a mutha in my house now, but it aint my fellow taxpayers job to absorb the negative equity in my home. The market will recover, not in time for me to stay on my original 5 year plan, but it will recover. And with a little luck, in 20 or 30 years, I can sell my house for what I bought it for - if I live that long..

Those loan mod places are popping up everywhere right now, kinda like the new version of the payday loan store. They are simply trying to prey on the occasional, uninformed consumer. Steer clear of them.

Good luck with your mod though.

QUOTE(Nitro225Optimax @ Aug 12 2009, 11:07 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>QUOTEIt took a ton of calls though to Citi to get to the people you need to speak to.

FYI - www.HopeNow.com has all of the numbers to the people you need to speak to. It makes things much easier.


Yeah, that would have helped then!!

QUOTE(Capt'n Mike @ Aug 12 2009, 10:49 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Good topic. If you do a search on 'making homes affordable' you should come across a previous post where this topic was discussed. I'd love to refi for a better rate, but am not comfortable with tacking 5K onto the mortgage, even if it drops my payment by a couple hundred.

Good luck with that program. My current mortgager ran some initial numbers and would do nothing else. I then talked with another bank and was told that not one of all their applications for refinancing under Obama's plan had gone through. Mine, I was told, made it the furthest. But even though my primary mortgage was 80% of what I had paid (did the "piggy-back" thing to avoid PMI), the appraisal came in too low to make the process justifiable. I've never missed a payment, have excellent credit, and fit the criteria to a tee, but still was not able to be helped. Nice plan Obama!