Tips to Avoid Home Foreclosure in This Economic Crisis

The financial economic crisis continues causing struggles to the middle class. The United States financial systems, as well as the Stock markets around the world keep on plunging. Big companies continue cutting thousands of jobs every day, while the foreclosure rate is increasing by the minute.

My newsletter subscribers, are always asking for tips to avoid home foreclosure, and the first thing I always tell them is that do not make the mistake that most homeowners do, which is to freeze, and do nothing when they receive the foreclosure notice for the first time. That is the worst mistake you can do.

It is a fact that as more people continue to lose their jobs, the housing crisis will continue to increase. The reality is that middle class families are struggling to get ends meet, even having what used to be called “good paying job”, let alone some folks out there that do not even have a job. There is not way that those people would afford monthly mortgage payments.

So I would say to my readers, to give tips to avoid home foreclosure, would be helpful to know what you currently situation is? Because depending on your situation an advice that could be good for some folks maybe is not good for you. But in general the first thing I would say is that you should never, never leave your property.

You would be surprise to know how many people, just abandon their properties when they get the foreclosure notice. Another warning is; do not do deals or sign your home title to anybody, regarding of the sweet deal that you get offered. 90% of them are scam.

One mistake many homeowners make is to ignore the calls and the letters from their lenders. This will not help you to avoid home foreclosure, this will get you in the street in not time. On the other hand, just by calling your lender does not mean they will work with you.

In this case you should be very careful, because if they find out that you can not afford mortgage payments, and chances are you can not, they will try to foreclose your home even faster.

I can go on and on giving you small tips to avoid home foreclosure, unfortunately the space here is very limited, but something I want you to keep in you mind is this: if you do not have a very good income to afford all your bills and your mortgage payments is very likely you will not qualify for most of the mortgage release programs out there at this moment.

The good news is that even if you have not income at all, you can avoid home foreclosure, if you know how to do it. If you know how the process work, and how to manipulate it in you favor, you can manage to stay in your home for a very long time, even if you are completely broke. In my site I offer more tips to avoid home foreclosure. It would be a good idea to go there now.

Stopping Foreclosure – States and Non-Profit Organizations Offer Help

There have always been foreclosures in the United States. People always have had financial crises develop which have caused them to fall behind in their mortgage payments. This has resulted in the foreclosure process starting on their home. There always have been job losses, health crises, losses of family members through death and divorce and losses of financial savings.

The catastrophic increase in the number of foreclosures since the beginning of 2007 has caught the attention of state and local governments and non-profit organizations. They have started to take a deeper look at the problem. In their review they have found that the home owner is not always at fault. Frequently the lender has contributed to the problem.

Sell your house

State and local governments and non-profit organizations have taken action to help people facing foreclosure. They have developed programs to educate these people in how they can stop the foreclosure process. They have also made sure that their rights under the law are protected.

In 2007 the governor of Maryland was one of the first to act. Governor O’Malley started an extensive public education effort to raise awareness of existing programs to help people facing foreclosure. Maryland also organized a task force of people from the public and private sectors to determine the scope of the problem and to recommend ways for people to save their homes. An agreement was negotiated with 6 subprime mortgage servicers to establish Loss Mitigation departments. These departments work with people facing foreclosure. In addition over 650 lawyers in the state volunteered to help these people free of charge.

In 2008 the governor of Connecticut signed the Mortgage Crisis Job Training Program into law. This program is designed to help people in the foreclosure process save their homes by earning more money. They receive help in finding employment or in learning new skills that enable them to get higher pay. The WorkPlace, Inc. runs this program for the state. Its executive director has made presentations on the program in 11 different states.

In Illinois Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago formed a coalition of 15 non-profit organizations that is called the Illinois Statewide Foreclosure Prevention Network. One of the services they provide is counseling over the phone for people facing foreclosure. This has led to the non-profit organizations offering other services to these people. One of them offers a free foreclosure prevention workshop.

The Federal Government passed the Service Members’ Civil Relief Act. The rate of foreclosure for men and women in our armed services had been much higher than the rate for the general public. The law that was passed protects members of the armed services from losing their homes for non-payment of their mortgages while they are on active duty and for 90 days after they return home.

The Humane Society has even gotten involved. They saw that people in foreclosure had difficulty caring for their pets properly. They also saw that more and more frequently people who lost their homes to foreclosure left their pets behind. In March of 2008 the Humane Society started to give grants to animal shelters, animal rescue and adoption groups and animal control agencies. These grants were to help these local shelters and agencies expand the services they had to assist families in caring for their pets during this severe economic crisis. Some of the funds were to be used to publicize what they had to offer.

County sheriffs have taken a stand. Starting February 2 of 2009 the sheriff of Wayne County in Michigan suspended all evictions. Earlier the sheriff of Cook County in Illinois directed a lawyer to review all eviction notices. The sheriff of Butler County in Ohio ordered his deputies not to evict people who had nowhere to go.

This is a starting point. In many states programs to help people in foreclosure are being designed and implemented by both state and local government and by non-profit organizations. All of these programs have two goals. The first is to help people facing foreclosure take the steps to save their homes. The second is to protect their rights.

If you want to see what is available in your area, please check with your state or local governments and the non-profit organizations.