101 Ways Why Foreclosure Sucks

Well they say misery loves company, but I don’t think they had that phrase in mind when it comes to the millions of homeowner who are facing foreclosure or who have lost their homes to foreclosure the past few years. We have seen record numbers of foreclosures all across the nation. Although foreclosures have slowed down, we are not out of the woods yet. To say you are not alone to those millions is an understatement. Even though the government has tried to step in and implement foreclosure prevention programs such as HAMP, HARP and HAFA, and lenders are more willing to cooperate with borrowers to find ways for them to avoid foreclosure and keep their homes, all the foreclosure prevention programs in the world don’t matter if you lost your job and don’t have any steady income to support yourself and your family.

People are angry and scared. They don’t know where they are going to live, and they are having a hard time paying their bills, putting food on the table and paying for their health care. Many people have had to file for bankruptcy- losing everything. So to ease the pain and frustration of the hard economical times we are experiencing, there is another way to look at the situation by adding some humor and laughter, as we think about why foreclosure sucks. It certainly can’t hurt more than losing your home. In fact, a little laughter is good medicine and a relief for many troubles.

So here are 101 reasons why foreclosure sucks:

1.You cannot sleep at night. You are completely stressed out, and you don’t know where to turn.
2.You feel like you are living in a nightmare or having a nervous breakdown.
3.You are wondering if you should call your lender, the debt management company, housing counselor or a foreclosure defense attorney/bankruptcy attorney.
4.You are bombarded by foreclosure attorney defense ads on television and in the newspaper. You are told that the attorney is the only person who can give you legal advice and defend you in court.
5.You are told that assistance from a HUD housing counselor is free.
6.A loan modification company sends you a mailer that says they can help. You wonder-how much is that going to cost?
7.The credit restoration and debt settlement company you spoke to last week offered to help negotiate debt reduction with your creditors. There is a fee if they are successful.
8.Your phone is ringing off the hook. Oh not again-it’s the first lien mortgage holder; your phone is still ringing and it’s the second lien holder. It’s 7:30 p.m., and your phone is ringing – it’s your credit card company calling to say goodnight and where is the last three month’s payments?
9.You have options to foreclosure such as reinstatement, refinancing, mortgage modification, short sale, deed in lieu of foreclosure, forbearance and as a last resort bankruptcy. Which should you choose?
10.Your lender would rather negotiate with you or so you are told.
11.Lenders have too many foreclosure on their books as it is; they don’t need any more. So why are they threatening to foreclose?
12.Lenders are not in the real estate business, although it sure seems like they are right now. They have more inventory than the local real estate office.
13.You believe you may have experienced discrimination based on race, gender, national origin, or another reason. You are told that you may be able to rescind your loan. Of course that won’t do you much good because you would have to get another loan. But the information will help you negotiate with your lender.
14.You are about to lose your most valuable asset that you worked so hard to get and were so proud of and it hurts.
15.You put your life savings into your home and it’s all gone and nothing to show for it except bad credit.
16.You and your family have no place to live, and you may be homeless.
17.You might have to temporarily move in with your 88 year old aunt in Iowa. She has promised to leave you her home when she passes away. She has thinking about going to assisted living.
18.Even though you haven’t paid your mortgage in a year, and you have been saving the money so you can move, the idea of your home getting foreclosed and sold at a foreclosure sale is hard to think about. Your attorney says he can stall a little longer.
19.Where will the dog and the cat go? Not the animal shelter. They are part of the family.
20.You might have to move in with your mother or worse your mother-in-law if you want to stay in the same area and school district. Fortunately, both live nearby.
21.You stand outside your home and see that you neighbors are moving in the middle of the night.
22.There are for sale by owner and real estate for sale signs all over the neighborhood.
23.You see short sale and bank foreclosures sign all over the area.
24.What has happened to the neighborhood?
25.Foreclosures in the community are affecting public services. Tax revenues are down. Firefighters and police services are being cut.
26.You wonder how many more of your neighbors are losing their homes to foreclosure.
27.The homes in foreclosure in your neighborhood are not being maintained. The grass is overgrown, the pool water is stagnant and there are mosquitoes.
28.Someone broke into the vacant house around the block.
29.There are squatters in the home two blocks away.
30.You are embarrassed to tell your family, friends and co-workers you are about to lose your home to foreclosure.
31.You are feeling guilty. You messed up getting in over your ahead buying a house you couldn’t afford.
32.You wonder why the bank gave you a mortgage in the first place.
33.You had fair credit and yet you were approved for a mortgage with only 5% down payment. But the catch was it was only for 5 years, and it was a variable rate mortgage. The interest rate reset so high your payments went up $600.00 a month.
34.How will you get through this? You will. You know that life goes on before, during and after foreclosure.
35.You flip through the phone directory looking for one of those foreclosure defense attorneys. The ones you see advertised on television.
36.You make an appointment to talk to the attorney to see if he can help.
37.The attorney is confident he can get you a mortgage modification or worse case scenario; you will have to sell your home with a short and rent for awhile.
38.You may be eligible for a government loan modification HAMP program, HARP refinance program or the HAFA short sale deed in lieu of foreclosure program.
39.You have a second mortgage, and you are in default on that mortgage as well.
40.You may be eligible for the second lien modification program under HAMP, which offers a modification on your second mortgage when your first mortgage is modified under HAMP.
41.You just found out you lost your job. The unemployment won’t be enough to cover the current mortgage, but you are confident you can find a new job in six months or less.
42.Your attorney says he is going to call the lender and work out an arrangement for you right away.
43.It’s been three months, and your attorney says the lender is not responding.
44.You are thinking about moving out of your home, abandoning it and renting an apartment.
45.Your neighbor tells you that a mortgage modification company that promised they would get them a modification took off with their money. Their lender says they have never heard of the company. Your neighbor’s home is being foreclosed. They want to know if you can take their cat. You would love to, but you don’t know what’s going to happen with your home.
46.Your lender called your attorney and said your modification has been approved. They can lower your payments by $300.00 a month. But it’s too late; you tell your attorney that you cannot afford the payments because you lost your job 3 months ago.
47.Your lender and attorney tell you that you are eligible for forbearance under the Government’s HAMP program for unemployed borrowers who have been approved for a modification, and you don’t have to make any payments for six months. A reprieve.
48.It’s been 7 months, and you still cannot find a job. You have to sell your home via a short sale. You found a buyer, but they got tired of waiting for your lender’s response and cancelled the contract.
49.You have a cash buyer that wants to buy your short sale and the lender wants you to sign a $20,000 note and pay the back homeowner association dues or they won’t approve the short sale.
50.Your homeowner’s association is suing you for delinquent homeowner dues, and they are threatening to foreclose on your property.
51.You have an appointment with a bankruptcy attorney.
52.If you file Chapter 7 bankruptcy, you can eliminate your unsecured debts, stop the foreclosure and start fresh again.
53.If you file Chapter 13 bankruptcy, you can keep your home, your car and your personal assets if you enter into a court-approved payment plan with your lender and your other creditors.
54.You are thinking about selling your grandmother’s ring that has been in the family for generations to pay off your second mortgage.
55.It’s 7:00 a.m. Saturday morning and you have just been served with a foreclosure summons and complaint from your lender, and you have 20 days to answer.
56.Your attorney says he wants to do a forensic loan audit to see if your lender violated any of the mortgage lending laws at the time they made your loan. He discovers irregularities to use as bargaining leverage with your lender.
57.Your attorney stalls the foreclosure sale for a few more months.
58.The lender and your attorney cannot come to an agreement.
59.You receive a notice that your home is being sold at a foreclosure auction in two weeks.
60.The sheriff just served you with a notice to leave your home.
61.You can redeem your home within a year after the foreclosure sale if you pay the sale price, interest and fees to the new buyer. It may not be worth it.
62.You decide to take the appliances, the entire kitchen and bathrooms and all the doors and hardware with you. You leave the huge holes in the wall from the flat screen televisions you had hanging in all the bedrooms.
63.The moving van is here.
64.You rent a storage locker wondering if you will ever see your things again. Will you even be able to pay the rent on the storage locker in six months?
65.No one will even rent you an apartment because your credit is damaged. You have to get a co-signer.
66.You think you may end up living in your SUV.
67.You find a mobile home park that is close to the beach where you could live.
68.You are living on your boat and it just got repossessed.
69.Could things get worse? Your bankruptcy attorney says he can get your boat back except that it just sank at the dock. You didn’t have the money to get that leak fixed.
70.Your mom co-signed on your mortgage loan, and the lender is obtaining a deficiency judgment against you and your mother.
71.You forgot to negotiate that the short sale proceeds satisfied your mortgage debt to your lender.
72.You remembered to negotiate that the short sale proceeds satisfied your mortgage debt, but your lender has forgotten. You call them to remind them. You call your attorney to make sure the deficiency judgment gets reversed.
73.Your bankruptcy attorney says they cannot get a deficiency judgment against you. But they may be able to go after your co-signer. Does this ever end?
74.Your credit is damaged and you cannot even get a gasoline credit card.
75.Good news you found a job, but it is at half the salary you were making before.
76.Your bankruptcy has been discharged.
77.You can start all over with a clean slate.
78.The bad news is you have a foreclosure and bankruptcy on your credit.
79.Bankruptcy stays on your credit 10 years. Foreclosure stays on 7 years.
80.Your wife and the kids are coming back from Minnesota. Her parents are giving you the money to rent a small home in a good school district. No mortgage to worry about.
81.Your neighbor says they were approved for a mortgage modification and can keep their home.
82.Your other neighbor has been approved for a deed in lieu of foreclosure, and they have to return their home to the bank. Still they get to walk away owing their lender nothing. No fear of a deficiency judgment.
83.You checked your credit score after the foreclosure, and it went down 300 points.
84.You are told the foreclosure will remain on your credit for 7 years, but the greatest impact is right after the foreclosure.
85.After 2 years of making your credit card payments on time, your credit score improves.
86.During the first two years after foreclosure, your ability to obtain a new mortgage will be limited. It will give you time to save some money and get back on your feet financially.
87.To qualify for an FHA loan after a foreclosure, you need to wait three years, but you only need a minimum credit score of 580-600, especially during a mortgage and housing crisis like the one we are currently experiencing.
88.There are less bank foreclosure signs in your neighborhood these days.
89.The house around the corner that has been vacant and on the market for a year finally sold in a short sale and a new family is moving. You see the contractors there. They are fixing up the home, and the yard is well manicured now.
90.You read in the paper that first time home buyers and investors are buying up the short sales and foreclosures.
91.The rental market is strong in your area because former homeowners like you who have lost their homes are now renting.
92.You hear about the cash for keys program where lenders offer renters or homeowner’s money to leave the home so they can put it up on the market and resell it.
93.Other distressed homeowners are doing rent to own and lease back programs with investors who have saved their homes from foreclosure.
94.Will these people ever be able to save enough to repurchase their homes? Probably not. At least they don’t have to uproot their family and take their kids out of school right away. They have the same roof over their heads and don’t have to worry about their lender harassing them.
95.Your cousin in Milwaukee tells you a horror story about a company that offered to help him save his home from foreclosure. They asked for a large upfront fee, made a couple calls to your cousin’s lender and never followed up. Your cousin just got served with foreclosure papers from their lender. You recommend he talk to a foreclosure defense attorney.
96.You ran into your ex-boss at the supermarket, and she says that she had to file Chapter 13 bankruptcy after the company laid off middle management. It’s okay though, she started her own business and she entered into a court-approved repayment plan with her lender so she can keep her home. After she pays off the lender and the other creditors in 3-5 years, the court will discharge all her other unsecured debt. She is happy that she gets to keep her car and jewelry as well. Finally a happy ending story.
97.You read in the newspaper about a non-profit company that is offering to help area residents negotiate mortgage modifications or short sales with their lenders. They are going to be at the Holiday Inn this weekend and expect to help thousands of homeowners in the area save their homes from foreclosure. You tell your sister. She calls you and says she is able to save her home.
98.You hear someone at the coffee shop talking about how they saved their home with forbearance, a short term agreement with their lender to get caught up. Now they are caught up. In fact, their lender reduced their principal so they may even have some equity in a year or two. They would like to sell the house and downscale to a smaller home now that the kids are away at college.
99.You dry cleaner owner just told you that you she had to sell her home to pay off her mortgage because business has been bad and she couldn’t afford the mortgage payments. She is going to rent for awhile until the economy improves. She may have to sell her business as well.
100.Your neighbor’s son is in the military and has been relocated to another state. The military is buying their home so they won’t lose it to foreclosure, and he can keep his high security clearance military job.
101.There are rumors that the last President refinanced the White House, and no one has made any mortgage payments for about 9 years. He strategically walked away. The current President and his family may have to move to Camp David.

Foreclosure is serious. You should not ignore the warning signs. Don’t nothing is the worst thing you can do. If you seek help and communicate with your lender early on, you have a much better chance of finding a solution to keep your home and/or avoid foreclosure.