Worried About Losing Your Home? Call Your Lender!
August 2nd, 2010 categories: Chicago Real Estate News
I’ve written this before, but it bears repeating: If you’re worried about falling behind on your mortgage payments or losing your home to foreclosure, you need to immediately call your mortgage lender or bank.
I know that this can be intimidating. It can be embarrassing, too. But if you ignore your mortgage problems, you’ll just increase the odds that you will lose your home to foreclosure.
And here’s the thing: Mortgage lenders don’t want to evict you from your home. They don’t want to take over your house. And they most certainly do not want to try to sell your house in today’s still-struggling economy for pennies on the dollar.
In fact, mortgage lenders across Chicago are taking steps to keep people from losing their homes. As an example, just look at large national lender JPMorgan Chase. The company recently opened its third Home Ownership Center in Chicago, this one located at 5813 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Homeowners can visit this center, or any of the other two that Chase operates in Chicago, to meet face-to-face with lenders to help forge compromise solutions that will help them avoid foreclosure. The Home Ownership Centers are open to homeowners who have mortgage loans owned or serviced by Chase, Washington Mutual or EMC.
And this is just one example. Lenders have economic incentives to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. The federal government’s Home Affordable Modification Program offers financial bonuses to mortgage lenders who agree to modify the home loans of struggling homeowners.
Lenders can do this in one of several ways. They can lower the interest rates that homeowners are paying, forgive a portion of their principal balance or restructure the terms of their loans. All of these options can reduce the monthly payment that struggling homeowners have to pay.
Of course, homeowners can’t explore any of these options if they don’t first call their mortgage lenders. If you find yourself struggling to make your mortgage payments each month, make sure to call your lender. It’s the surest way to find financial relief.
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