Hope Comes to Distressed Homeowners Who Want to Avoid Foreclosure
Counseling services and advocacy groups have helped more than 50 percent of distressed homeowners avoid losing their properties to foreclosure even before President Barack Obama has announced details of his foreclosure prevention program.
According to counseling services, more than half of distressed homeowners who are facing the threat of foreclosure have renegotiated their mortgage terms and thus, saved their properties from foreclosures.
Nonprofit advocacy organization, Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) has helped owners of distressed properties negotiate their mortgages with lenders. NACA is known for demonstrating outside the homes of bank executives on behalf of owners of foreclosed homes.
NACA Chief Executive Officer Bruce Marks pointed out that lenders can help distressed homeowners avoid losing their properties to foreclosure by making their mortgages affordable permanently.
He explained that NACA help troubled homeowners avoid foreclosure by determining their expenses and net income, formulate an affordable mortgage payment and restructure mortgages to make them affordable permanently.
On the other hand, the Washington-based foundation HOPE NOW is operating a 24-hour telephone counseling service which is supported by advocacy groups and mortgage companies.
The Federal Trade Commission also recommends the free hotline service to homeowners who are worried that their properties would soon be added on the growing list of foreclosed homes.
According to HOPE NOW executive director Faith Schwartz, mortgage lenders would rather give troubled homeowners a chance to pay their mortgages than foreclosed their properties.
She explained that it would cost more for mortgage lenders to foreclose and they would be left with more abandoned and vacant properties than they could handle.
Schwartz also pointed out that mortgage lenders do not like homeowners to abandon their distressed properties because it would not only affect communities but also the market value of other houses in the neighborhood.
Aside from renegotiating mortgage terms, counseling services also help homeowners avoid being victims of scam artists.
According to counseling services, many homeowners, who are desperate to save their properties from foreclosures, have fallen prey on fraudulent agencies that charged them with upfront fees or short-change them into signing over their property deeds.
The Federal Trade Commission has warned that some of these fraudulent agencies have been using names with words like HOPE NOW or HOPE to confuse distressed homeowners.
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