Personal Finance guide

What is the best way to seek mortgage modification?

Almost every lender/servicer cautions homeowners against paying third parties to assist with their loan modification applications. Every participating lender in the Making Home Affordable (MHA) loan modification program is capable of working directly with their borrowers to process these applications without third party assistance. There is also free government loan counseling help for homeowners that are struggling to work directly with their lenders. On the other hand, many of my clients first tried unsuccessfully on their own and were then surprised at how much quicker and better the results were when I was advocating for their application. I have a Bartlett client that was told he did not qualify for a MHA loan modification by both his servicer (National City) and a government counselor. Continue reading ‘What is the best way to seek mortgage modification?’ »

Are you having difficulty getting your mortgage servicer to work with you on a Making Home Affordable (MHA) loan modification? The below list of 37 mortgage servicers have committed by signed contract to this program. In addition, all servicers for mortgage loans owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are required to participate! If your home is in Illinois and you want to investigate whether you qualify for the home loan equivalent of “Cash for Clunkers” then contact a real estate attorney . The MHA program is the first real loan modification program that is making worthwhile modifications whereby homeowners come out of it with a payment they can afford. These modifications are proving to have a much lower re-default rate than previous half-hearted efforts that amounted to not much more than forbearance plans. Those stingy initial loss mitigation efforts resulted in such high re-default rates that the notion of continuing to modify mortgages at all became in serious doubt. Thankfully, the MHA program came along with a balanced view of lender, investor and finally HOMEOWNER interest in mind. Continue reading ‘37 Mortgage Servicers commit to Obama Plan’ »