Foreclosures Revealed

By Author: Eric Badgley
Total Articles: 2
Comment this article

A foreclosure can be a confusing and scary situation. If you are facing a foreclosure, the first thing to do is get educated. It is important to understand the foreclosure process before you take any steps. In some circumstances there are ways to avoid foreclosure, and in others there are not. If you get into a situation that could lead to foreclosure, make sure you evaluate your options. Talking with your lender and finding an alternative solution can save you a lot of financial damage.

The best thing that you can do to avoid a foreclosure is to notify your lender as soon as you know that you are falling behind on your payments. Contact them immediately! Don't wait for them to realize you haven't paid. Be honest, and they will be more likely to work with you. Lenders are not interested in taking your house; ultimately they will want to avoid foreclosure as much as you. If you give them enough notice, they can look at the circumstances. They might take into account your payment history, the amount of the loan and the value of the property. Depending on what they find, they could choose to continue with the foreclosure ...
... process, or put together a plan to avoid it.

There are various ways for the lender to avoid foreclosure. They might present you with a payment plan—especially if you are normally consistent with you payments, but have experienced some sort of financial trauma or set-back—to pay back the missed payments over a set period of time. In this case, be very careful with your payments, and keep an open line of communication with your lender. Throughout this process it is important to be on-time, and consistent.

The lender might also decide to re-evaluate the whole loan. They can adjust the terms of the loan to better fit your financial situation by extending the length and making the individual payments lower. In this case they might include your late payments in the new loan, giving you a fresh start. Be careful to go over the new terms before making a new deal, it's possible interest rates could rise and you want to be prepared for what you are signing on to.

A short sale is another alternative to foreclosure. If your lender decides to allow a short sale, then you will be able to sell your house for less than the loan. Once the house is successfully sold, the balance will be forgiven. This can be a tricky situation, so make sure you know what the terms of the short sale are before agreeing to it. Once again, communication with your lender is key to getting through this process.

A short refinance is also an options, in this case the lender will decide to forgive some of the debt from late payments, and help you with refinancing the rest into your loan. This is a good option if have fallen behind, and are not able to catch up. If you lender believes that you will be able to produce your payments on-time in the future, they will likely be able to forgive some of the debt.

Financial trouble is never fun, but dealing with it calmly and honestly will make it a lot easier. Avoiding foreclosure is never guaranteed, but it is definitely worth investigating.

This article was produced by Eric Badgley; specializing in Bellingham Foreclosures. http://www.bellingham-realestate.net/