Options to Consider When Facing Foreclosure
If you fall behind in your mortgage payments you will receive a lot of mailers offering to help you get out of your unfortunate situation. Many of these people are looking to take advantage of someone in a difficult situation. Often, the reason someone falls behind on their mortgage is due to a situation they had little control of. Ortega Real Estate is here to work with you and make sure that before you do anything, you know all of your options. We have helped many clients work through difficult issues with their home and help them find the solution that makes the most sense.
The # 1 thing you need to make sure you never do is sign anything you are not familiar with. DO NOT SIGN anything with ANYONE offering a service that seems to good to be true. Many people are forced into doing something they don't understand and it often puts the homeowner in a very vulnerable position. Don't Do It, Don't Sign Anything!
Option # 1 Sell Your Home
Depending on the market and area you live in you may consider selling you home. If you think that you will not have time to do this, reconsider. Using an experienced Realtor that has experience selling property and working closely with banks will allow you the needed time to sell your property at the highest price possible. We can help you with this process and collect a standard real estate commission. We do not deed your home over to someone else or steal your equity like many other scam artist try to do.
Option # 2 A Short Sale - Not a Typical Sale
If your home is worth less then what you owe on your mortgage, a short sale may be the best option for you. Instead of just walking away from the property and severely damaging your credit. A short sale will allow us to negotiate and work to have the bank approve your property for a short sale. Not everyone will be approved to do a real estate short sale. Banks are not eager to take a loss on their investment but they also realize that if they take the home back through the foreclosure process they will probably have to take a loss equal or greater to this amount. A short sale allows the bank to take the loss and move on. The banks do not want to own real estate.
Ortega Real Estate can work directly with the bank to show them this may be the best option available. It is very likely that they will allow the loss to move on and get the property sold. Ortega Real Estate has helped many of our clients sell their home through a short sale.
The bank will be very selective in what they pay for when you sell your home. You need to be aware of the downside of doing a short sale and what the tax implications may be. Despite a short sale having some downsides, the positives of this can still out weigh the negatives of losing your home through a foreclosure.
Option # 3 Refinance Your Home
Refinancing your home and paying off the existing loan sounds to easy and it may be an option that you have already pursued. We may be able to show you some loan options that you have not been presented with. Ortega Real Estate works with many different lenders and has many options available. Because we have a full service mortgage division we may be able to offer you an option that will allow you to refinance and pay off any existing loans. Contact Us today, we would be happy to provide you a quick, accurate loan quote.
Option # 4 Negotiate a Forbearance Agreement
What??? This may be something that you have never heard of. Negotiating a Forbearance agreement is an option that many of the SCAM ARTIST will never talk to you about and it is the number one reason they are referred to hawks in the sky looking to take advantage of an unfortunate situation. I also want to say that these scam artist will never talk about any of these options because they just want to steal the equity from your home.
Typically, a forbearance agreement is accepted by a bank when someone can show they had a temporary hard ship and this is the reason they fell behind in their mortgage payments. It has become fairly common and something that Ortega Real Estate can help you with. Two items a bank will look for when they consider a forbearance is the reason you fell behind in your mortgage payments, proof that your financial difficulties were a one time occurrence and not likely to happen again.
The forbearance takes the amount you owe and does 1 of 2 things. One option is to spread the amount you owe out over a period of 6 months. The other option is to add the amount owed on to the back end of your mortgage and have it paid at the end of your mortgage term. This may be an option that you were un aware of.
Option # 5 Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure
The advantages for the homeowner are to avoid foreclosure and not go through the difficult process of the foreclosure process. It will release all or most of the liability to the homeowner and allow the bank to turn around and sell the property much sooner without the bank having to spend additional time and money going through the foreclosure process. This would be a good option to consider if you feel that there will be no benefit from you selling your home or doing a short sale.
Option # 6 Do Nothing - Just Let it Go
You can always let your home go to foreclosure and do nothing. Sometimes the situation seems so overwhelming and this may be a good option. We don't recommend that you do this, and would suggest that you talk to someone so you can determine if any of the options above would make more sense. Please feel free to ask any questions you have in our real estate forum. We have agents that will provide you with answers to all of your questions. You can also contact us if you feel more comfortable. It's important that you talk to someone that you can trust, and not someone that is looking to take advantage of someone in a difficult situation. There are many real estate scams and you don't want to become a victim because you didn't seek a second opinion. You may have some options that you are unaware of.
Please call us today if you have any additional questions @ 512-576-4005 |