Despite all the noise about lenders being pressured to grant more loan modifications and principal reductions many are still deploying greedy tactics to get compensated for ‘fake’ home loan modifications.
What is your lender up to and how can you avoid becoming a victim?
Many struggling homeowners are reaching out for help and trying to stay in contact with their mortgage lenders as they are being told to do only to be taken advantage of by the same institutions yet again. Instead of having their interest rates, monthly payments and loan balances reduced many are simply being forced back in to repayment and recapitalization agreements which sometimes even double the monthly financial obligation. Worse, some are even being pressured to borrow more on already underwater homes in order to avoid foreclosure.
Lenders have been employing this tactic for several years by dragging out the home loan modification process until they can force borrowers to sign up for inferior terms at the last minute and recently they have even been caught purposely miscalculating income to deny modifications to those who should qualify.
Loan mods should make sense to lenders and could help them strengthen their portfolios but these financial institutions are so often completely blinded by greed that they can’t see the big picture, only the dollars they could be losing if they give anything away. For generations they made the rules because they held the ‘gold’. Now they don’t know how to adapt, even if it is for their survival.
The bottom line is that while there are real and beneficial home loan modifications being granted borrowers shouldn’t sign anything until getting a third party opinion and should compare what they are being offered with what attorneys are helping other struggling borrowers receive in terms of principal reductions and lower payments.
Whatever you do you must move quick before rates go up and lenders find it more appetizing to simply foreclose. If no good offer is received carefully consider if it is better to sell your home for cash quickly than to go broke and be left with no home or cash?
