Buy my house has become the mantra of millions of homeowners desperate to obtain financial relief from mortgage payments or avoid foreclosure. As a real estate investor I have witnessed enormous changes in the market. Countless homeowners are now stuck with houses they cannot sell because they owe more than it is worth.

Many buy my house strategies are being implemented. Most are developed out of desperation verses strategic planning. Realtors aren’t interested in listing properties that earn them paltry commissions. Mortgage lenders have tightened lending regulations, making it challenging to locate qualified buyers.

One popular strategy realtors and brokers use to attract buyers is foreclosure and short sale bus tours. Real estate agents, investors and individual buyers climb aboard a chartered bus and travel around to various neighborhoods.

Buy my house bus tours are growing in popularity because interested buyers can view multiple homes in a specific area. Sadly, neighborhoods across the country consist of dozens of preforeclosure, foreclosure and bank owned homes. It is not uncommon for communities of 200 homes to contain 20 or 30 distressed properties.

Oftentimes, homeowners go to extremes to attract the attention of bus tour participants. They create a carnival-like environment complete with adorable children manning lemonade stands or handing out freshly baked cookies. Homes for sale are cheerfully marked with colorful balloons and brightly painted “Buy My House” signs.

The party-like atmosphere is only a façade to mask the pain and suffering that occurs behind closed doors. Anyone who has lost their home to foreclosure can tell you there is nothing to celebrate. It’s degrading, embarrassing, frightening and emotionally-draining.

If you are facing foreclosure and want to save your home, options exist to help achieve your goals. Start by calling your mortgage lender. Most banks have a loss mitigation department dedicated to helping borrowers struggling to maintain mortgage payments.

With the constant flow of foreclosures, loss mitigators are overworked. Patience and persistence are a prerequisite to saving your home. Be prepared to provide financial documents and a reasonable repayment plan.

If you are financially unable to continue living in your house, options exist to eliminate the home loan. If you are 31 days or more delinquent, but have not yet entered into foreclosure, you might qualify for a short sale.

Again, patience and persistence are required. The average short sale takes six months to complete. Short sale means the lender accepts less than is owed on the property and absorbs the loss. Some lenders hold borrowers responsible for the deficiency amount between the loan balance and sale price.

Be certain to understand your lenders short sale approval and disposition process. Otherwise, you could end you owing several thousand dollars on a home you no longer own.

Simon Volkov is a California real estate investor who specializes in buying and selling foreclosure, bank owned, short sale and probate real estate. Simon is currently buying distressed properties in Orange County, California, Arizona, Nevada and Washington. If you are wondering, “Who will buy my house?” consider posting information about your property via the “we buy houses” form at www.SimonVolkov.com.

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Stop Foreclosure

A Home Loan Modification is an offer to make a permanent change in the borrowers mortgage terms which is normally involves a rate modification. To find out if you qualify or how to get help on a mortgage loan modification there are plenty of attorneys and loan modification companies to help consumers.

To determine if you are eligible the legal representative will request certain documentation and ask you income and expense questions. One will need to be in a hardship situation such as job loss, dramatic reduction in income, divorce, death, etc. many individuals opt to try and do the loan modification themselves without the assistance of an attorney who knows the laws, knows how to stop a foreclosure, knows what errors to look for in the closing documents, and what is needed to qualify.

A loan modification, also called debt restructuring, with an attorney can significantly make headway for clients at a faster rate and faster responses. I have personally witnessed people trying to save a buck here and there and do it themselves. Yet, they discover six months later they are still no closer to a modification agreement and are still chasing down different office staff in the lenders office.

Some homeowners that are struggling to make their mortgage payments or close to foreclosure may choose to employ a real estate attorney or a loan modification company rather than doing it ion their own due to the fact that an attorney has a significantly more positive impact and results, when ordinary individuals have failed. A loan modification is a long term solution.

A standard loan modification puts the borrower into a comfortable and long term ability to make their new payment. Modifying the mortgage terms of the current loan can involve a very low rate that is fixed for a period of 3 to 7 years then systematically rise to the current market fixed rates. In certain situations, the lender may also choose to decrease the principal loan balance or wipe out part or all of the second lien if it is introduce properly with documentation. In summary, a loan modification should be favorable solution to both the homeowner and the investor.

To learn more about how a loan modification can stop foreclosure, please visit Foreclosure Shield.

John Chase works in the finance field, and writes about topics such as debt settlement and debt consolidation, as well as home loan modificiaton, credit repair and unemployment issues.

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The FHA Secure program was introduced in late 2007 by the Federal Housing Administration and President Bush. Unlike most other FHA loan programs, this program is designed for homeowners who are at risk for foreclosure due to steeply increasing payments on adjustable-rate mortgages. The majority of people in the program have subprime loans, but homeowners with hybrid ARMs, option ARMs, and prime-rate ARMs may also qualify.

FHA Secure Eligibility

Contrary to initial reports, you don’t have to be delinquent on your mortgage in order to qualify. You also don’t have to wait until your rate resets to apply for a loan under the program.

If you meet the following requirements and lending standards, you may be eligible to refinance through the program:

* Original loan was not an FHA mortgage

* Payments prior to the reset were current

* No late payments in the six months prior to the reset

* Adequate income to meet payments under a new mortgage

* Debt-to-income ratio less than 43%

* Minimum 3% equity in the home

* Rate has reset or will reset by December 31, 2008

* Remaining loan balance is lower than the local loan limit. FHA loan limits (FHA-loan-limits) are now regionally determined, so check to see whether your loan is within the range.

If you’re delinquent on your mortgage, the default must be due to interest rate shock. If you’re in default due to other factors, you may not qualify for the program.

How to Apply for the Program

If you believe you’re eligible, contact an FHA-approved lender. They can discuss your options and determine whether you’re likely to qualify. You can also check your potential eligibility by completing a home loan request through Bills.com.

Additional Loan Factors

In addition to the above qualifications, additional factors help determine whether your loan can be refinanced into an FHA Secure loan. These factors include a pre-payment penalty or a current home value that is lower than the loan balance.

If your current loan has a pre-payment penalty, you have three options:

* Come up with the cash to pay it

* Roll it into your new loan

* Negotiate with the lender to forgive the penalty.

In order to roll the penalty into your new loan, the penalty plus the old loan balance and any closing costs being included in the new loan must not exceed 97% of your home’s current market value.

Many homeowners who bought at the peak of the market find that their homes are now worth less than their loan balances. FHA loans do not automatically reduce your previous loan balance to an allowable level. If you owe more than the home is worth, you have three options:

* Negotiate with the lender to accept a short pay-off

* Apply for a small second loan to cover the difference between your new loan and the old loan

* Pay the difference between loans in cash.

If the only other option is foreclosure, your lenders may be motivated to negotiate the pre-payment penalties or a short pay-off, but it’s not required to.

Benefits of the Program

The program offers numerous benefits. If you qualify, your original loan will be refinanced into a fixed-rate thirty-year mortgage. The interest rate is often lower than you’d receive with a conventional loan. In addition, the underwriting standards are more flexible than non-FHA loans. Finally, an FHA Secure loan can save you from foreclosure and allow you to stay in your home.

If you’re at risk for foreclosure, you owe it to yourself to check out the program and determine whether you’re likely to qualify. The first step is reviewing the FHA Secure Fact Sheet. For more articles on FHA Secure, visit: http://www.bills.com/fha-secure/

Justin has 5 years of experience as financial adviser; his key areas are consolidation, insurance, debt relief, mortgages etc. For more free articles and advice visit http://www.Bills.com.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/mortgage-articles/fha-secure-program-avoid-foreclosure-1017696.html

Up until a few months ago, lenders were not modifying loans for home owners that were on time with there payments. So if you have been considering to miss a few mortgage payments to encourage your lender to modify your loan, you may want to re-consider.

Normally lenders would only grant loan modifications to home owners that were three or more months behind and the reason for this is because these delinquencies proved that the home owners were in need of a loan modification. But lenders now understand the importance of keeping a performing loan performing or keeping a home owner making timely payments by means of a loan modification, instead of making the home owner become delinquent, is not a good idea for home owner or lender.

If you check your lenders websites you will now see that majority of them now imply that being late on your mortgage payment is no longer a requirement to get a loan modification approved. I want to encourage all home owners that they should not wait until they have missed a payment, but if they foresee a problem to contact their lender immediately to possibly avoid a delinquency.

This becomes even more important if you are one the many home owners stuck with a high rate adjustable mortage.

The new Obama Plan or Making Home Affordable Plan is now dictating the direction that many lenders are tailoring their policies in reference to loan modifications. This new government loan modification program were designed for home owners that are currently on time, as well as home owners that have missed a few payments. Its also states on the main Making Home Affordable Plan website that “”responsible borrowers who are struggling to remain current on their mortgage payments are eligible if they are at risk of imminent default.”

Now what does “risk of imminent default mean? This means that a home owner that has a mortgage where the rate has recently adjusted and the payments are no longer affordable or a significantly loss of income or any other type of hardship, would make the home owner qualify under the new Obama Plan.

Now one important reason not to be delinquent with your mortgage payment, is that is will disqualify you from getting a refinance under the Making Home Affordable Plan, refinancing under this plan could help home owners refinance at current market values so they are no longer upside down with their current mortgage and get a more stable fix rate loan.

Another important reason not to miss payments is that your credit will be tarnished for years to come. Some home owners may believe that missing a few payments at the expense of their credit score, is not such a bad thing if they can get a lower mortgage payment. Here are some of the consequences that most home owners don’t take into consideration, they don’t realize how difficult refinancing will be because of the late payments, getting approved for an auto loan or getting new credit card accounts. Not to mention, having a low credit score will cause utility companies to require a deposit, your interest rate on your credit cards can go up and also you car insurance or home owners insurance can increase because of a lower credit score.

Home owners need to also take into consideration that if they miss a mortgage payment, that they still owe that payment, which because it’s late, it will now include late fees and penalties and other junk fees that your lender can tack on depending on the seriousness of the delinquency.

These add on fees can increase your mortgage payment by 20-30 percent.

Marlon Baugh is a nationally-known mortgage expert. Since 2003, he has specialized in Florida FHA Mortgage Loans for people with Bankruptcies, Foreclosure or with other credit issues, as well as Florida Loss Mitigation. If you would like a Free Copy or to get instant access to the remainder of this Insider Mortgage Report, please visit
http://specializedfinancialsolutions.com/lendersexposed.htm or Call 954-678-5796

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