caffeinekid

Check with your local real estate investment group (check Meetup com). Talk to a hard money lender and probably a title company representative for ideas and a more accurate assessment of your property's value and potential. You might get a little more out-of-the-box thinking with that group given the nature of the business.

Two things: 1. Many banks are indeed giving lower interest rates, but on longer notes. This may not always be the case, but it is certainly the rule. This has the effect of adding additional cost to the homeowner in distress. Other banks are also adding additional fees. 2. It may be a mess, but it is not confusing when you keep your eye on the ball. The "investors" to which you refer are most often Fannie Mae...as in The Fed...as in the Fed is backing most all (80% plus) of the mortgages in this country. And we all know who's interests the Fed is enforcing, so "no"...there is often no recourse for the homeowner as foreclosure serves the Fed's interests better than consumer-oriented negotiations- meaning principle reduction, no-fee refinance, etc.. For instance, if there had been an option for people with good credit to simply refinance at 4.25% FEE FREE a couple of years ago, the foreclosure rates would have certainly been impacted for the better.

How much did they add onto the loan for this privilege?

Your situation is the norm. And you are absolutely correct on your surmisal of the situation- privatize the profits, socialize the losses. This whole mess was being sold by the propagandists as a "subprime" shenanigan, but that is just adding insult to injury. This was a massive crime that has yet to be fully acknowledged and acted on. And the victims have for quite some time now been those who were prime borrowers and did everything right except buy during an obvious bubble (for a plethora of reasons). To answer the OP's question- No. Loan mods do not work for the vast majority and they were never intended to. They were politics and little or nothing more. If you can no longer afford the house, your options are limited and should be fairly straight forward- as hard a pill as it is to swallow. The new norm is (if you are even able) to land a new job at substantially decreased pay. Naturally, this means that you can no longer spend as much on things as you have in the past. Can't say we haven't been warned for decades that this was coming.

All of these acute metrics and specific algorithms to track down the victims who have decided that they don't like the animal farm, and yet we cannot figure out how to get beyond the criminal enterprise that creates these bubbles and busts. How about a FICO system for money handlers...backed up by jack-booted thugs under a nationalist campaign? Oh Wait! That was tried once. It cost an aweful lot of American lives and like the proverbial frog and scorpion scenario, all we got in return for the sacrifice was the stinging end.

I'm OK with that. Anyone who deliberately submits falsified documents should be prosecuted, whether it's HAMP applicants, or collection lawyers submitting "affidavits" signed by an employee who died years previous (Yeah YOU Portfolio Recovery) or BofA and their robosigned foreclosure paperwork. Make an example of ALL of 'em. This point is sadly understated. Instead- like cinderella- you are supposed to crusade against the few who even on their best day of being "resource sapping" shysters while attempting to get better terms on their over-valued properties couldn't hold a small tiny candle to the massive fraud and corruption that is the international banking cartel and their K Street casino.

Very cool! And classy too.

Neat video, but as to what Brooks alleges- it should be obvious that "middle class" is a subjective term. After all, here in America $40k annual isn't exactly "wealthy" until compared to the likes of Bangladesh. And a household would have to have two such incomes to fall into "middle class" status. Besides, what I glean from those images is the rise of a more empowered and all-powerful central banking cartel and its fiat currency (notice the rapid rise in the 20th century post Federal Reserve Act). When you can literally create wealth out of thin air, all measurements are off as the context changes. What I would like to see Brooks tackle would be the accompanying surge in debt per nation as governed and populated. I believe such videos are available on YouTube as well and they aren't pretty. In fact, you see a definite design to it all when its laid out over time, just like the stats on global population movement. The west may be relatively wealthy, but our traditionally western populations are paying a deadly price.

I have this one in my old links: BNET - Loan Modification Hell

Here is a pretty good writeup on your questions. Be sure to read the reader responses as well. http://homebuying.about.com/od/4closureshortsales/qt/060907SScredit.htm

DIL is not THAT much better than a foreclosure. They would like you to believe that it is because it is less expensive for them than pursuing a foreclosure, but in the end it is still a foreclosure. There are only a couple of pros for you, yet a major overall con. The problem is that they aren't always expedient with the process and in addition to the I9 (or whatever the foreclosure is reported as) on your credit report, you also accumulate I-30s, 60s, and 90s, essentially tanking your credit, lowering your credit limits and increasing your interest rates with other credit accounts like charge cards and lines of credit through universal default. There may be tax implications since in some cases, debt-forgiveness could be taxed as income. There is typically no deficient judgment on a DIL as part of the agreement. Because banks have so many people by the friendlies right now, some qualified people opt to go straight from good credit into BK7. The idea being that credit is easier to build again post BK7 without all of the baggage that would still be there even if a DIL is approved, especially if you are going to have to rent.

They are currently farming out more of the DIL work to subcontractors who are far better to deal with, however the DIL terms are still far from "mutually" beneficial.

Yep, I remember, and in retrospect that is exactly what should've happened. Instead what should have been a disaster that quickly hit bottom has turned into a dragged out decade long bloodletting. Score on that one: Cinders: 1 Radi: 0 All is not lost though...after reading over the latest from BofA, we may witness a large collapse yet. I have said from the beginning that even some of the "special people" were caught with their pants down and have been granted the time to recoup, transfer paper into hard assets and secure themselves before the whole thing is left to collapse under the weight of its own feces. That is how the game plays out. That is also why the banks have ALWAYS gotten their bailouts. It is part of the central banking/fractional reserve lending scheme. It is why we have monopolies (for all intents and purposes) controlling all of our most essential resources. If the banks collapse, the monopolies collapse- and THAT isn't going to happen. When you know the scheme, you know how the game will play out. The question is really "how much" you want to learn. When you ask for a bank collapse, at least know what it means.

Exactly.....which of course AGAIN emphasizes that the problem is a matter of INFLATION-- a condition ENTIRELY within the purvey of the central banking cartel-- NOT consumer income (or lack thereof), which is in fact beholden to it. Is it ONLY the homeowners who have thus far been sunk by Fed policy who sit on properties that are grossly inflated in value? No. It is most EVERYONE. Until those principle values are adjusted to a healthy reality, which means that the "investors" get their blood baths and many more banks collapse, this bacteria will continue to chew at what is left of the corpse of America.

And another reason to pay the Discover account first would be the "minimum monthly charge" requirement that has been coming with their 0% BT offers for quite a while now, whereby you must charge a preset amount each month, which of course accumulates compound interest until the 0% is totally paid down.