Options to Consider When Facing Foreclosure
If you fall behind in your mortgage payments you will receive a lot of mailers offering to help you get out of your unfortunate situation. Many of these people are looking to take advantage of someone in a difficult situation. Often, the reason someone falls behind on their mortgage is due to a situation they had little control of. We are here to work with you and make sure that before you do anything, you know all of your options. We have helped many clients work through difficult issues with their home and help them find the solution that makes the most sense.
The # 1 thing you need to make sure you never do is sign anything you are not familiar with. DO NOT SIGN anything with ANYONE offering a service that seems too good to be true. Many people are forced into doing something they don't understand and it often puts the homeowner in a very vulnerable position. Don't Do It, Don't Sign Anything!
Option # 1 - Sell Your Home
Depending on the market and area you live in, you may consider selling you home if you have enough equity to pay off your existing liens. However, you may not be able to do a regular sale if you owe more than what your home is worth. Using an experienced Realtor that works closely with banks will give you the time needed to sell your property at the highest price possible. We can help with this process and provide our 30 plus years of real estate experience.
Option # 2 - A Short Sale (Not a Typical Sale)
If your home is worth less than what you owe on your mortgage, a short sale may be the best option for you. Instead of just walking away from the property and severely damaging your credit, a short sale will allow Oak Tree Realty to negotiate with your bank and get a short sale approved and closed. Not everyone will be approved to do a real estate short sale. Banks are not eager to take a loss on their investment but they also realize that if they take the home back through the foreclosure process they will likely take a loss equal or greater to this amount. A short sale allows the bank to take the loss and move on because essentially, the banks do not want to own real estate.
We work directly with the bank to show them this may be the best option available. It is likely in this current real estate market, that the bank will approve the short sale and accept the loss in order to avoid taking a larger loss if the property were to come back to them as a foreclosure.
The bank will be very selective in what they pay for when you sell your home through a short sale. You need to be aware of the downside of doing a short sale and what the tax implications may be. Despite a short sale having some downsides, the positives of this can still outweigh the negatives of losing your home through a foreclosure.
The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007, also known as Section 2 of H.R. 3648 was passed to eliminate the short sale tax consequence of having to pay the additional tax that would be due on the loss to the bank. Basically, any loss to the bank would be treated as ordinary income to you because what was a loss to the bank became a gain to the former home owner. Keep in mind that this will eliminate the federal tax but you still may owe money to the state. You will need to speak with your tax professional to know what the consequences will be for your current situation.
Option # 3 Refinance Your Home
Refinancing your home and paying off the existing loan sounds easy and it may be an option that you have already pursued. In this current real estate market it has become almost impossible to refinance your home if you have less than 10-20% of equity. We work with many different lenders and have access to many different types of loan programs but the refinance market has become very limited. If your ultimate goal is to stay in your home and you can't refinance your home your best option may be a loan modification.
Option # 4 Negotiate a Forbearance Agreement
Typically, a forbearance agreement is accepted by a bank when someone can show they had a temporary hard ship and this is the reason they fell behind in their mortgage payments. It has become fairly common and something that we can help you with. Two items a bank will look for when they consider a forbearance is the reason you fell behind in your mortgage payments, proof that your financial difficulties were a onetime occurrence and not likely to happen again.
The forbearance takes the amount you owe and does 1 of 2 things: One option is to spread the amount you owe out over a period of 6 months. The other option is to add the amount owed on to the back end of your mortgage and have it paid at the end of your mortgage term. This may be an option that you were unaware of.
Option # 5 Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure
The advantages for the homeowner are to avoid foreclosure and not go through the difficult process that it entails. It will release all or most of the liability from the homeowner and allow the bank to turn around and sell the property much sooner without the bank having to spend additional time and money going through the foreclosure process. This would be a good option to consider if you feel that there will be no benefit from you selling your home or doing a short sale.
Option # 6 Do Nothing - Just Let it Go
You can always let your home go into foreclosure and do nothing. Sometimes the situation seems so overwhelming and this may be a good option. We don't recommend that you do this, and would suggest that you talk to someone so you can determine if any of the options above would make more sense.
