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Where to Look for Help for Your Underwater Mortgage

Guest post by: Bud Gragg

Article Overview: Unlike the way they rushed to help the banks in 2009, the government is not in a huge hurry to do that much for you if you're in an underwater mortgage. Your mortgage holder is more likely to try to guilt you into continuing your payments than to offer anything approaching real help. And loan modifications are a joke-only 2.8% of the people who have applied have actually received them. That's not a lot of help when 24% of American homeowners are dealing with underwater mortgages, is it?

Where to Look for Help for Your Underwater Mortgage

Unlike the way they rushed to help the banks in 2009, the government is not in a huge hurry to do that much for you if you're in an underwater mortgage.

Your mortgage holder is more likely to try to guilt you into continuing your payments than to offer anything approaching real help. And loan modifications are a joke—only 2.8% of the people who have applied have actually received them.

That's not a lot of help when 24% of American homeowners are dealing with underwater mortgages, is it?

But things are getting better. There is a new federal program online now that's helping mortgage lenders and mortgage holders alike with short-sale money. (Hey, it may be nothing compared to what they gave the banks, but it's better than a sharp stick!)

And there is a lot of information online, like here on our website, that you can use to navigate your family through the decisions you need to make regarding what to do about your mortgage.

One thing you don't want to do, though, is fall for any mortgage “help” scams! Don't let anyone tell you that they can “fix” your underwater mortgage for a fee or that you need them, and them alone, to get you through a short sale or foreclosure!

At best, these people will charge you several arms and legs for the kind of mortgage information you can get right here on our website for free. At worst, they'll steer you into shady territory that might or might not be legal, but certainly won't help at all.

Really makes you shake your head about human nature, doesn't it, knowing that there are people who will prey on families that are already stressed out with underwater mortgages? That role used to be reserved for the mortgage lenders alone.

Which brings us to the last people you want to turn to for underwater mortgage help, at least where your decisions are concerned—your lender. The banking industry and even many people in our country will tell you that your only option when you have an underwater mortgage is to keep paying. It doesn't matter that you'll be sacrificing your retirement, your kids' college funds, or anything else.

The banking industry wants you to feel honor bound to pay off your underwater mortgage because that's how they make their profits. Regular people still think we should all pay our mortgages, no matter the cost, from an admirable but destructive sense of honor.

To Kristin's and my mind, no one should play by rules that were made against us, not for us. The rules about mortgages were drawn up and delivered by an industry we have no say over—an industry that walks away from its own underwater mortgages, no less!

So when it comes to the matter of finding help with dealing with your underwater mortgage, we strongly advise that you keep your own counsel. You and your family know what's best for you—we can give you accurate advice, but in the end it comes down to the figures you're looking at. You have to decide what to do with your underwater mortgage, and you will be living with your decision.

And whatever you choose to do about your underwater mortgage, we're here to support you!

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  What is an Underwater Mortgage?

Article Tags: bank short sale, home short sales, house short sale, how to do a short sale, how to short sale, mortgage short sale, short sale, short sale definition, short sale foreclosure, short sale help, short sale information, short sale process, short sale training, what is short sale
Referred by: http://www.meetkarennewman.com/



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Re: Hi - Thanks guys! I have been helping Real Estate and Mortgage professionals generate leads from the Internet for 5 years now!. I'd be glad to exchange some ideas. Have a great day=)
Time to get rich in real estate? - Another thing I'd do if I had a million bucks...or more... would be to start buying up distressed real estate. Sounds ghoulish, I know, but prices are down so much now that anyone who can afford to buy houses and hold onto them until the market "corrects" itself, could make a bundle in a few years. I've been reading a great deal about the current mortgage crisis, and I've got to say that whatever genius came up with the Adjustable Rate Mortgage - and worse, actually persuaded people to buy using it - deserves to be boiled in his own oil and buried with a spring of holly through his heart! What a ridiculous thing - just asking for trouble!
Enhancing your Mortgage Marketing Business - Getting the most up to date information on online marketing methods that are actually helpful for mortgage brokers. We all know that technology is changing the way that consumers decide who they are going to do business with. What a lot of mortgage brokers don't understand is the massive impact technology has on their business. For instance, did you know that Google has developed a tool so that people can compare loans from all the major lenders online? Then they give them the contact information of Mortgage Brokers that are close to them? This is a massive new lead source that most mortgage brokers have no idea exists. You can get information about the service directly from Google. Internet marketing tools can highly provide best results to get leads for your mortgage marketing business.
Re: Time to get rich in real estate? - [quote="OmnivoreInk":397sdq49]Another thing I'd do if I had a million bucks...or more... would be to start buying up distressed real estate. Sounds ghoulish, I know, but prices are down so much now that anyone who can afford to buy houses and hold onto them until the market "corrects" itself, could make a bundle in a few years. I've been reading a great deal about the current mortgage crisis, and I've got to say that whatever genius came up with the Adjustable Rate Mortgage - and worse, actually persuaded people to buy using it - deserves to be boiled in his own oil and buried with a spring of holly through his heart! What a ridiculous thing - just asking for trouble![/quote:397sdq49] I've gotten into a few loans that I didn't check the terms as thoroughly as I should have, but its hard to imagine someone signing deed of trust papers for that amount of money for 30 or so years and not understanding the terms. I would never want an adjustable mortgage - even before these latest problems, the financial system is unpredictable. Things can change A LOT in 30 years - look what happened in 4 or 5 years. Chris
How Can I Make Money Out of This Need? - I came across an interesting piece of news while surfing the web today. A site called Mortgage Loan Place had this paragrpah: If you bought your home after Sept. 1, 1983 with a FHA loan, chances are you had to purchase mortgage insurance. The FHA was supposed to refund that insurance back to you if you made all of your payments and have paid off your mortgage. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) says that approximately 30 percent of those refunds never get claimed. $450 million waiting to be claimed And there is a search box there where you input a last name, and a list of all the people with that last name who are owed money by the FHA comes up. Most of those people seem to be owed only a couple of hundred dollars, but some are owed over a thousand dollars. And the records cover everybody from 1983 onward... So I'm wondering... is there any point in contacting these people (their addresses are given), telling them that they've forgotten to claim this refund? The thing is... that would be the good samaritan thing to do... but I'm wondering if there's any way to monetize the service. All I can do is tell the people they're due a refund - they just have to apply for it, so it's not like I'd actually be providing any kind of service, except one of information dissemination. Anyone have any thoughts?


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