My husband and I are the owners of home that is currently listed in foreclosure. We purchased the home seven years ago in the booming height of the housing industry. In the New Jersey area that we were purchasing houses were selling within weeks of being listed and multiple buyers were placing offers on the same home. We purchased the home for 185,000.00 and a year later took out a second mortgage of 80,000.00. We basically maxed out our homes equity with mortgage loans. We obtained other loans to start a business, which failed.

We then attempted to sell the home only to realize that we were maxed out with mortgages and would not receive much for the home over the cost of the mortgages. We blindly attempted to pay the debt and mortgages but began to take a downward spiral leading toward foreclosure. The failure of a second business put us in jeopardy of foreclosure and we were forced to file for bankruptcy.

We received much help in the foreclosure process through an outside banking company that contacted our mortgage company for us and worked together with us and our bank. We were able to receive a loan modification that helped us pay the back due mortgage payments as well as taxes. Our payments where adjusted to an affordable level that we could afford based on our monthly income. There is help for home owners but directly contacting the mortgage holder may not be that answer that so many need. An honest, helping hand provided through a third party is the answer. Check out this quote, it says a lot about where the homeowners should go for help.

Barb Weidner – Managing Partner, Operations
“In some cases it seems the lenders work against getting a loan modification instead of with us and the clients. If the clients could call the lenders themselves and get this to work then 85% of our customers would not have tried this before themselves only to get frustrated and need to contact us for help anyway. When we contact lenders we find the same results and it takes more perseverance and diligence than most clients have the stomach for to even get to the right person to speak to. Once we have been speaking to a lender for sometimes 4-5 weeks regarding a particular case we often find that we call for an update only to be told they don’t have an authorization on file for us nor do they show they have spoken to us before. How is this possible when we have been working with them for 4-5 weeks and have responded to their numerous requests to refax something that they inevitably lost when we faxed it over the 3 previous times. If it were not for companies like ours who worked through this process for homeowners these people would be mired in the mess with the lenders for even longer and would end up even facing foreclosure because they are not equipped to respond to the lenders appropriately when the process accelerates.“

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