Stop Michigan Foreclosure

I’ve spoken to a few families that wanted to not do a short sale and ride out their redemption period.  Why? Not because it was the best for them, but because the thought of the dreaded winter move was “impossible”. I’m here to say, no it’s not. I just did it and I’m still here to tell the story. More than that, you have to understand that a short sale isn’t a fast process. If a short sale is right for you, and we start the process now, chances are pretty good that the snow will be gone by the time you move.

Don’t let the idea of the dreaded winter move stop you from making the best choice for your family. If you’re not sure what your options are when facing a Michigan foreclosure,  give me a call. I’d be happy to discuss all of your options with you.

Emily

If you’re anything like me, when I was trying to stop my Michigan foreclosure by myself, the worst part was trying to get through to the mortgage company. People often ask me why I’d want to spend all day at work on the phone waiting on hold to talk to someone from a lender. Well that’s a simple answer- it’s easy, because it’s not part of my job!

Melissa  is the one who spends countless hours on the phone negotiating short sales for our sellers. Honestly, I’m not sure how she does it. Not only does she do it, she does it well. She has ways of not just getting through to an actual human being, but getting results! After all, our success rate is 85% over the last 6 months (compared to the national average of only 10% of short sales closing).

If you’re looking for help and tired of wasting time on the phone with your lender, give me a call. I’m happy to discuss your options with you.

Emily

I just received a call from someone who realized that they need our help. She lost her job and was feeling so overwhelmed, that she didn’t want to address any of her financial issues. The only problem: once she did start to address her problem, it was too late. She said she’s known in the back of her mind that she’s needed a short sale but was just so overwhelmed, she didn’t even know where to start. Now that she’s realized that a short sale is her best and only option, it’s too late for us to help her.

Why? Foreclosures are very time sensitive. Once the lender refers the matter to an attorney to start the foreclosure, there is a legal process they must go through. However, unlike many states, the process before the foreclosures auction is relatively quick in Michigan taking weeks instead of months like some states. While we can still help you after the foreclosures auction (another relatively unique feature of a Michigan foreclosures) that time period is also dictated by law and goes incredibly fast considering everything that has to happen (contact lenders, get house listed with a REALTOR®, find a buyer, waiting for an answer from the bank, etc.). Although they vary from case to case, every minute wasted is a minute that we could have been helping you stop your Michigan foreclosure.

If you’re trying to sort out your options, please give me a call. It’s never too early to call me; I’m glad to help and to also explain your timeline to you as well as options and resources to help you make a good decision about the best plan for you. Please don’t wait to give me a call – it just may be too late if you do!

Emily

I recently took a call from a seller who had their hours at work cut in half and wanted to do a short sale to prevent a foreclosure on their house. They met all of the criteria for us to do the short sale. As we were finishing our conversation, they told me that they wanted to sell the house to their brother, who was going to rent it back to them. Uh, oh. No can do. I told him that he can go ahead with the short sale, but could not sell it to a family member and reside in the house again. Benefiting from a short sale would be considered mortgage fraud. This is a federal crime and the FBI is all over things like this. He was shocked, and grateful that I had told him about this as he didn’t want to break any laws or end up in a federal prison.

They decided that the short sale was still their best option and that they would work with us to find a buyer for the house- who of course isn’t related to them.

If you’re facing difficult times and need help preventing a foreclosure on your home, give me a call. I’d be happy to discuss your options with you.

Emily

This is a follow up to a blog that I wrote before about a Michigan foreclosure that I went through several years ago. I had a family that we’re currently helping ask me this week “Why in the world would you put that out for everyone to read, it’s such a personal issue?”

Great question. The answer- I want other people to know that they’re not the only ones who are going through a Michigan foreclosure. As much as it is a personal matter, they don’t have to go through it alone. Most importantly, as I stated in the previous blog, I want people to know THERE ARE OPTIONS!

Yes, going through a Michigan foreclosure was not one of the shining moments in my life, but, I made it through it- AND YOU WILL TOO. Don’t do what I did and try to figure it out on your own. By the time I realized that I needed an expert’s advice it was too late. Fortunately, now I have a vast knowledge of the foreclosure process, and I’m here to share it with you. Don’t wait any longer – call or email me now.

Emily

This week we got an email from “Jeff”. Our team was negotiating a short sale for Jeff when his financial situation changed for the better. He decided to attempt a loan modification with his lenders and cancel the short sale (despite the 6% success rate).

Jeff had been having some trouble getting through to someone who could help him or tell him anything definite about his options, so he decided to contact us in the hopes that we could help point in him the right direction.

I was able to quickly tell him which department to call and what to tell that department when he did call. After he’d tried the number I gave him, his email back to me read, “I don’t know how you guys can handle talking to banks day in and day out. I get so frustrated, mainly because I get absolutely nowhere when I call. And this was after you gave me the right number to call and told me exactly what to say! You guys must have the patience of saints…”

I’ve never thought of myself as particularly saintly, but I got to thinking about what he’d written. Many lenders are so huge and have so many departments that navigating through the maze of their phone system is difficult for me, and I’ve been doing this for three and a half years! I can’t even imagine what it must be like to have to figure that out as a first time caller.

If you find yourself needing a short sale and don’t have the patience of a saint, give us a call, and let us handle the navigation of your lender’s phone system…and the short sale for you.

Melissa

We heard “The Blizzard of December 2009” was coming for days. It was the top news story for several days. Family members who lived in other states would call up and say “The blizzard is coming, better stock up on bread and milk”. Schools and businesses prepared to be closed.

Then it hit. And while we did get a lot of snow (10” in my back yard), it really just seemed to be another snow storm to me. I never saw the “white outs”, or felt the 50mph winds. Maybe I was lucky, or maybe they just weren’t there.

As I was shoveling the snow this morning, it reminded me of how we often anticipate the worse in life and it never really is as bad as we expected. Maybe it is because we were prepared, our awareness heightened. Or maybe the thing we feared didn’t warrant the fear and energy we spent on it. How cool it would be if the unknown was known so we could deal with it and go on with our life. For example, if the weatherman had said “it’s going to start snowing about 3pm on Wed and pretty much snow on and off through early Friday morning. However the road crews will keep up with it and if you drive between these hours, roads will be empty & clear and the visibility will be reduced but not horrible. Basically, it will be just another Michigan snow storm”. That doesn’t sound so scary, does it?

Facing a Michigan Foreclosure can be the same way. People give you advice based on what they have heard or seen other people go through. The media talks about it constantly making it sound ominous. You don’t know what will happen, you don’t know how to prepare or lessen the blow. You spend sleepless hours worrying about what to do.

Stop spinning your tires and give us a call. We have been studying this “storm” and dealing with it for years. We can show you a path to sunnier days. We can answer your questions and make the unknown, known. We have knowledgeable staff that will give you advice based on fact and experience, not heresy. We will help you weather the storm and get back to better days.

Ann

Over the last few years, many families (including mine) financed their houses with an adjustable rate mortgage or as I like to call it, the ARM of Sorrow (okay… I just made that up.) If you fall into this category, people may ask you why you would take on a mortgage you might not be able to afford after the interest rate increased. There are a few reasons you might have done this. The main reason is that you were probably under the impression (influenced by your lender) that you could refinance at a lower rate before your ARM adjusted. At the time you purchased the house, you might not have qualified for a conventional, low interest mortgage for several reasons (one being less than perfect credit, which may improve over time.) Then the time comes to refinance your mortgage – and you can’t! Why? There are many reasons:

1. Your house is no longer worth what you owe on it. You bought the house for $150,000 in 2005, and now it is only worth $125,000. There is no longer enough equity to get a loan for $150,000 – but of course, you still owe that much.
2. Your house is no longer worth what you owe on it because you pulled out some equity that was once there, but isn’t anymore. For whatever reason (pay off other debts, buy a car at a low interest rate, make home improvements) you might have taken out an equity loan or line of credit on the house. If you bought the house for $150,000 and took out a $20,000 equity loan, this brings the total amount owed up to $170,000. If the house is worth less than $170,000 (which is likely due to the rampant decline in property values) no bank will refinance it..
3. You no longer make as much as you used to. Unemployment rates across Michigan (and many other states) are astronomical, and there’s a chance that it’s affecting your line of work. You may have had your hours reduced, taken a pay cut, or have lost your job altogether. Because of this, there’s a good chance that the banks do not like the amount of debt you have in relation to how much money you make (called “debt to income ratio”), and will not refinance your mortgage.
4. Life happened. Maybe you had an illness or death in your family. Maybe your car was involved in an accident, and you had to get a new one in order to get to work. Maybe there was an urgent and major repair that needed to be done to the house. Sometimes, no amount of scrimping and saving can get you back on track.
5. You didn’t know the facts. Maybe you, like many of our sellers, weren’t completely informed about what was going to happen. Many of our sellers didn’t know just how high their interest rates were going to skyrocket once their ARMs adjusted. Increasing a $150,000 mortgage from 6% to 11% adds an additional $530 a month to a house payment!

If you are one of the many people who are facing a Michigan foreclosure because of an “ARM of Sorrow” and have realized that you can no longer keep the house, give Emily a call at 269-685-5921. We can help you out. We take a very complicated task – getting your bank to accept less money than you owe – and we make it very simple for you. Of course, it’s still hard on us, but that’s our job… and we’re good at it!

Holly

We recently helped Tony who was facing a Michigan Foreclosure. Tony had lost his job and moved out of Michigan to find work. He couldn’t afford two house payments and soon got behind on his Michigan house. His house had already gone to foreclosure auction when we got involved. And while we can’t help everyone whose house has already gone to foreclosure auction, we can help some people and Tony was one of them. We were able to get Tony’s lender to accept a discount on what was owed (a short sale), wiping out almost $75,000 of debt so the house could sell in this depressed Michigan market.

As Joel was sitting at closing with Tony, amid thanking Joel profusely for all we had done for him, Tony asked if we could help his son who was struggling with massive debt and a loss of income. So we got in touch with Tony’s son John, and sure enough, he was facing a Michigan Foreclosure too. We are currently working with John and so far, we have been successful at getting the bank to postpone his foreclosure auction for 2 months while they review the offer we have presented to them.

I know that every parent wants their kids to follow in their footsteps to some extent. However, few parents want their kids to follow them into foreclosure or go down that road alone. That’s why we are here. Turn to us for help when you find yourself heading down the path to a Michigan foreclosure. Or tell a loved one to call us like Tony told John. We promise we will never ask them for any money, we will work harder than anyone to solve their Michigan foreclosure situation, we will keep everything confidential and we will not put them in a worse situation. Call Emily today and find out how your family can have a brighter tomorrow.

Ann

The other day I was on the phone, making my daily call to one of the biggest lenders in the country, when the conversation I was having took an unusual turn (after 37 minutes on hold of course). The Customer Service Rep who was helping me – I’ll call her “Jane” – was doing her best to answer my questions about a short sale we were negotiating on an FHA loan. She began to ask me questions about the various programs and options available. This isn’t unusual as I spend a lot of time educating the people at the banks about various options/programs available. She eventually revealed to me that she herself had an FHA loan on her house…and that she was over three months behind on her payments. Yikes!

I was shocked to hear that Jane, who worked for a major lender, had so little idea where to turn for help on her own house! She told me she had been approach by a company in her state that had offered their (somewhat ambiguous) services for a fee…of $3,200 upfront. To me, this begs the question: if a person is nearly four months behind on their mortgage payment, how is this person supposed to come up with $3,200?

I suggested, instead of agreeing to fork over several thousand dollars to this company, that since she had an FHA loan, she contact the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).. I told Jane they would be able to either assist her themselves, or direct her to a business or non-profit organization in her area that would not charge her an upfront fee. I even gave her the number for HUD. Jane thanked me profusely and told me she had no idea there were people out there who wouldn’t charge her to help her.

If you are facing a Michigan foreclosure, don’t let someone tell you that assistance costs $3,200. It doesn’t (and it never will cost a dime with us). Learn your options! This blog and our website are full of information and suggestions. You can also call us anytime.

Melissa