Foreclosure Defense Secrets.com

Watching the news, reading the paper, listening to the radio, and even surfing the internet, I am shocked by the lack of coverage that the mortgage foreclosure crisis is currently receiving. The housing market continues to decline, unemployment numbers continue to go up, and banks continue to foreclose. Has everyone forgotten that this crisis still exists?

Perhaps the word “moratorium” has given everyone amnesia. With all the talk of banks putting foreclosures on a temporary hold, it seems like the masses have assumed this problem to be behind us. What everyone is forgetting is that this hold will be lifted on almost all foreclosure actions in January or February of 2009.

If your goal is to keep your home for four more weeks, maybe your problems are behind you. However, if you would rather keep your home indefinitely, or at least long enough to modify the terms of the loan or complete a short sale, you still need to fight the foreclosure in a court of law. All the loss mitigation in the world will not protect you from a foreclosure judgment unless you delay the impending legal action against you.

It is important to remember that this problem is not going away. The only way to save yourself from foreclosure is to educate yourself and choose to take matters into your own hands. Learn how to save yourself at www.ForeclosureDefenseSecrets.com.

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As families across the country gather around their dining room tables this Thanksgiving to feast on turkey and watch football, the conversation around the table will most likely lean towards the economic crisis facing us all today. I would urge you, however, to remind your family and friends of all the things to be thankful for.

For instance, those who are finding it difficult to make their mortgage payments in these trying times should be thankful that there are ways to delay the foreclosure process almost indefinitely. Be thankful for the loss mitigation offered by nearly every lender right now and the willingness of banks to not only lower the interest rates of your current mortgage but also the principal amount.

Be thankful for loan modification agreements, refinancing, short sales, and reinstatement. Be thankful for Motions To Dismiss, Requests To Produce, and other pleadings that you can file with the court in order to stop the bank from foreclosing. Be thankful for the ability to defend yourself from foreclosure while avoiding the cost and ineffectiveness of programs that promise to save your house for you but end up leaving you homeless and broke.

Be thankful for knowledge because knowledge truly is power. The knowledge you will gain from reading Foreclosure Defense Secrets will protect you from foreclosure and assure that the conversation over next year’s Thanksgiving dinner will be about how lovely your home is and not how you are afraid of losing it.

Grab the knowledge to feel secure and defend yourself against foreclosure at www.ForeclosureDefenseSecrets.com.

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Foreclosures are not slowing down and the housing market continues to fall. The prospects of completing a successful short sale continue to diminish. Your house is worth more to you than it is to anyone else, including the bank. However, that will not stop the bank from foreclosing and taking your house from you. You need to be able to fight the foreclosure process long enough for the bank to modify your loan and allow you to keep your house at a much lower price. Find out how to accomplish this and save your home at www.ForeclosureDefenseSecrets.com.

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With all of this talk of foreclosure moratoriums, bailouts, and loan modifications, the popular thought is just to let your mortgage enter foreclosure merely to get a better rate from your lender. So, how do the lenders expect to separate all the people who need a mortgage modification from those people who just want one?

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is attempting to implement a program that will modify the loans of certain troubled borrowers until the payments are reduced to 38% of the homeowners’ income. The Agency’s plan is to modify 2.2 million troubled loans by the end of 2009.

It’s not as simple as just asking for the restructuring though. The FHFA program would only be available to homeowners who can first demonstrate some change in financial circumstances. Even interpreted broadly, there must have been some hardship involving death, medical bills, job change or simply a reset in the rate of an adjustable-rate mortgage.

The programs will also require that the subject properties have high loan-to-value ratios, that the borrowers currently reside in the property, and that the borrowers are gainfully employed. But what stops everyone who meets these qualifications and has an adjustable-rate mortgage above the ideal income thresholds from skipping two or three payments to qualify for a reduction?

Sure, a missed mortgage payment may remain on a credit report for seven years and missing several mortgage payments in a row would badly damage a credit score, more so than missing most other types of payments, but credit can be repaired and a modification would prevent a foreclosure from being stapled to your credit report, so that damage wouldn’t be as tragic as a bankruptcy, or the like.

Because of the low level of risk, some homeowners, particularly those with little debt beside their mortgage and little anticipation of future borrowing, will be tempted to take a run at the system. The programs offer reductions in interest rates, extending the loan terms, and principle forbearance, saving potentially hundreds of dollars a month. After all, it’s a lot easier making on-time payments when the payments are thousands of dollars a year cheaper.

Now is the time to take advantage of the current system. There is no need to fear foreclosure if you know how to delay long enough to modify your loan and get a better deal for you and your family. Find out more at www.ForeclosureDefenseSecrets.com.

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It may take over a decade for the housing market to recover, but you can stall a foreclosure for over ten years - or as long as it takes to refinance, increase income, or sell the property. Find out how to save your home from foreclosure indefinitely at www.ForeclosureDefenseSecrets.com.

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The question of why some homeowners are getting bailouts has really been answered by the financial turmoil of the past few months. A huge spike in foreclosures, magnified by derivatives cooked up by Wall Street firms, nearly brought down the global economy. As it stands, we’re still likely to suffer one heck of a hangover in the form of a serious recession.

The foreclosure mess is far from over. Many of the riskiest loans — the ones where homeowners weren’t even paying all the interest that was accumulating on their loans each month, let alone touching the principals — are just now resetting.

Then there’s the whole vicious-cycle effect. As foreclosures rise, banks slash the prices of the homes they recover, putting downward pressure on everybody else’s property values. With more homes “underwater,” more fall into foreclosure when their owners lose a job and can’t sell, or simply decide to walk away.

That’s why the Powers That Be are finally getting serious about working with struggling homeowners. Given how interconnected everything is in our economy, their success in saving your neighbor from foreclosure might ultimately reduce the chances you’ll lose your job.

It may be that a lot of borrowers were complete idiots for agreeing to mortgages that were eight or nine times their incomes (a mortgage that was three times your income used to be considered a stretch in the days before lenders went nuts). Smart borrowers fixed their rates for at least as long as they planned to stay in their homes; dumb ones agreed to adjustable-rate mortgages on their brokers’ assurances that they’d be able to refinance before the payments reset.

The federal government is considering a plan that would help about 3 million homeowners avoid foreclosure. But borrowers didn’t get these loans in a vacuum. Mortgage brokers and loan officers downplayed the risks. So did lenders, who gave the brokers and loan officers fat incentives to push them. The Wall Street machine encouraged looser lending standards and created exotic investment products that wound up multiplying, rather than reducing, the risks. Regulators, meanwhile, stood by and basically did nothing. No one involved is covered in glory.

Neither is anyone getting an entirely free ride. Plenty of people will still lose their homes, and many who get workouts will have to live with trashed credit from the payments they missed before help arrived. The only way to truly protect yourself is to take your defense into your own hands. Find out how to do just that at www.ForeclosureDefenseSecrets.com.

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If you can buy enough time to find a buyer for your house and to get your contract for sale approved by your lender, a short sale can save you from the long and arduous foreclosure process and the repercussions post-foreclosure. As you read my eBook “Foreclosure Defense Secrets,” I will walk you through how to use the short sale process to protect yourself from foreclosure, or even how to keep your home and avoid foreclosure altogether. Find out more at www.ForeclosureDefenseSecrets.com.

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Miami-Dade County is dubbed the foreclosure capital of the state of Florida, and now the county could be taking on the most drastic housing relief effort to date.

If Miami-Dade’s chief judge approves this moratorium, it could stop all foreclosures for four months, starting as soon as November 1st. It’s a measure that could eventually be adopted in all counties across the state.

Roughly 36 families are evicted everyday, and a local mayor is proposing to put a stop to it.

“I think it will be immediate relief that could happen within weeks for the residents of our county,” said North Miami Mayor Kevin Burns.

Burns wants a countywide moratorium on foreclosures, oddly enough one that even the banks could support. The program is mirrored of what Philadelphia started this summer that has remarkably saved 80% of their homes in foreclosure.

“If they can do it in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, I think they can do it the City of North Miami but also in Miami-Dade County,” said Burns. “And I assure you that if the Chief Judge approves it here in Miami-Dade County, they’ll do it throughout the state of Florida.”

The plan is pretty simple: There would be a 120 day halt to all existing foreclosure filings, and new filings would be sent to mediators within 45 days of the filing. Essentially banks and homeowners would be forced to meet to work something out.

Additionally the moratorium would give homeowners and banks time to take advantage of new assistance programs approved by Congress but haven’t been rolled out.

With the backing of the North Miami Council Tuesday night, the plan is now headed to the chief judge of the circuit court. His decision could not only keep South Florida families in their homes, but perhaps keeps the rest of the state’s homeowners as homeowners.

Palm Beach and Seminole Counties each have similar administrative orders that provide mediation to those homeowners that request it. In the “Foreclosure Defense Secrets” eBook, I thoroughly explain how to request mediation and make the most of your opportunity to mediate. I also include the motions and orders that are necessary to file with the court in order for the judge to make mediation mandatory.

For more information, visit www.ForeclosureDefenseSecrets.com.

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Just when you thought you were hurt by foreclosure as much as you possibly could be hurt, a group of advantage seeking political campaigners figure out a way to steal your right to vote from you. I am interested to hear if anyone ran into this problem today. Please leave a comment on this blog.

Don’t let anyone try to steal your rights as an American simply because you lose your home. Don’t lose your home! You can save your home. Find out how at www.ForeclosureDefenseSecrets.com.

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Not many people are aware, but last April the Senate proposed legislation to prevent foreclosure from accelerating so quickly. Here are a few of the benefits of the Act:

FHA Modernization. To ensure that additional families can access the FHA program, which provides safe, fixed-rate mortgages, significant FHA reform is included to modernize, streamline and expand the reach of the FHA program. Under this bill, the FHA loan limit is increased from 95% to 110% of area median home price with a cap at 132% of GSE limit (currently, $550,000), allowing families in all areas of the country to access homeownership through FHA. Downpayments of 3.5% will be required for any FHA loan and counseling requirements are enhanced to help provide for stable homeownership.

Assisting Communities Devastated by Foreclosures. Homes that have been foreclosed upon and are sitting unoccupied lead to declines in neighboring house values, increased crime and significant disinvestment. To ensure that communities can mitigate these harmful effects of foreclosures, $4 billion is provided to communities hardest hit by foreclosures and delinquencies. These supplemental Community Development Block Grant Funds will be used to purchase foreclosed homes, at a discount, and rehabilitate or redevelop the homes to stabilize neighborhoods and stem the significant losses in house values of neighboring homes.

Providing Pre-Foreclosure Counseling for Families in Need. To help families avoid foreclosure, this bill provides $100 million in additional funding for housing counseling. These funds will be distributed by the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation by the end of 2008 to ensure families can quickly get the help they need. As many as 250,000 additional families connect with their mortgage servicer or lender to explore options that will keep them in their homes as a result of these counseling funds.

Enhancing Mortgage Disclosure. To ensure that consumers are provided with timely and meaningful disclosures in connection with mortgages, the bill expands the types of home loans subject to early disclosures (within three days of application) under the Truth In Lending Act (TILA) including refinancings. The bill requires that disclosures be provided no later than 7 days prior to closing so borrowers can shop for another loan if not satisfied with the terms. The bill requires a new disclosure that informs borrowers of the maximum monthly payments possible under their loan, and also increases the range of statutory damages for TILA violations from the current $200 to $2000 to $400 to $4000.

Preserving the American Dream for Our Nation’s Veterans. To assist returning soldiers avoid foreclosure, this bill lengthens the time a lender must wait before starting foreclosure from three months to nine months after a soldier returns from service and also provides returning soldiers with one year relief from increases in mortgage interest rates. In addition, the Department of Defense is required to establish a counseling program to ensure veterans and active service members can access assistance if facing financial difficulties. Also included is a provision that increases the VA loan guarantee amount, so that veterans have additional homeownership opportunities.

Standard Property Tax Deduction. To make tax relief available to all American homeowners, the bill will provide a standard deduction – $500 for single filers and $1,000 for joint filers – for the 28.3 million non-itemizers who pay property taxes. Present law allows only those who itemize deductions on their Federal tax returns to deduct state and local property taxes from their income.

Mortgage Revenue Bonds. To provide for refinancing of subprime loans, mortgages for first-time homebuyers and multifamily rental housing, $10 billion of Federal tax-exempt private activity bond authority is included in this bill. The measure also exempts interest earned on the bonds from the alternative minimum tax.

Extension of Net Operating Loss Carryback. To aid homebuilders and other businesses hit hardest by the economic slump, this bill will extend a law allowing corporations to apply excess net operating losses to tax returns from prior profitable years and receive any applicable refunds. For 2008 and 2009 losses, the provision would extend the “net operating loss (NOL) carryback” to four years (back to 2004 and 2005, respectively) from the two years currently in law. Measures to prevent companies from abusing the intent of the provision are also included.

Tax Credit for Purchase of Homes in Foreclosure. To encourage the purchase of homes already in foreclosure and of homes on which foreclosure has been filed, this bill creates a $7,000 tax credit for buyers of such homes, to be claimed over two years. Homes in foreclosure bring down the value of property nearby. Encouraging the purchase of more homes in foreclosure will restore property values for all homeowners.

The Act is a good attempt at mitigating future foreclosures, but if you are currently facing foreclosure, you still need to take your defense into your own hands. Learn more at www.ForeclosureDefenseSecrets.com.

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