How to Get a Loan Modification, Never Pay Up Front

There have been countless changes in the loan modification industry since in began en force circa 2007. Most importantly was the systematic weeding out of fraudulent service providers who set up shop to take advantage of distressed homeowners by charging a fee up front an never doing any work. I’ll say this now and repeat it again as it’s the single most important bit of information you should know when seeking a loan modification: NEVER PAY UP FRONT FOR A LOAN MODIFICATION!Who can negotiate a loan modification?

You – that’s right. Although it can be to your benefit to have a professional help you through the process, there is nothing preventing you from attempting a loan modification on your own.
Foreclosure Consultant – These individuals are typically non licensed professionals and can either be for profit or non-profit companies. After July 1, 2009 in the state of California, all foreclosure consultants must be registered with the Attorney General’s office and post a bond in the amount of $100,000 (California Civil Code section 2945.45).
Attorney – Any attorney licensed in the state where your pending foreclosure is located. You can find all registered attorney’s by searching martindale.com
Real Estate Broker or Agent – The most common source for advice and help negotiating a loan modification or short sale. Although not all real estate agents have the experience to qualify as experts in the field, they are allowed to help if they hold a current real estate license. You may find out if your agent or broker is licensed at the California Department of Real Estate website dre.ca.gov
Protect yourself from loan modification scams. How to spot foreclosure fraud.In case you didn’t catch this in the first paragraph, NEVER PAY UP FRONT FOR A LOAN MODIFICATION! In California this practice is illegal. It’s also important to remember that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Just like a stated income loan with a “starting” interest rate that is unexpectedly low, a loan mod with terms that don’t pass the sniff test are also unlikely to prove true.I’ve listed below some of the more common loan modification scams for you to review and catalog:

I’ll again start with the loan modification counselor who asks you to pay a fee BEFORE you’ve successfully obtained a PERMANENT loan modification. I’ll say it again, NEVER PAY UP FRONT FOR A LOAN MODIFICATION!
The foreclosure consultant who tells you to make your monthly payments to him/her rather than your bank during the loan modification process. This should never happen.
The consultant who poses as a government affiliated entity. Often using names that sound like they are government related and asking you to pay them up front to qualify for one of the special government related programs like HAMP or HAFA. These groups will suggest that their company is directly linked to the program and they charge you to confirm you are eligible. Your lender will tell you if you are eligible for HAMP free of charge. You may also see the HAMP waterfall below.
Bait and switch “rescue loans.” It is imperative that everyone read and fully understand what they are signing. Bait and switch rescue loans will ask the homeowner to sign over title to their house to a third party in exchange for a new modified loan with a lower loan balance. Again, if it sounds too good to be true…
Rent to Own and leaseback schemes. Be aware of who you are dealing with and take care not sign over title to persons or companies who ask you to sign over title promising to sell the property back to you once the process is complete. These schemes may also include asking the homeowner to move out during the process, allowing the “consultant” to collect rent until the house ultimately goes to foreclosure sale. In this case the consultant never completes the modification, rather, they just postpone the foreclosure allowing them to collect rent for a longer period.
A late add to this list, from the CA Attorney General press release, beware of forensic loan audits. In this scenario the consulting company uses the forensic loan audit as a means of getting the homeowner to pay up front for the tools needed to complete their modification; in this case a forensic loan audit. Once the fee is paid, no work is done and the loan modification never happens.
What to be aware of going in. What are your chances of success?The foreclosure process is stressful and often times overwhelming. In many cases home-owner’s are willing to suspend reality, try anything and trust anyone who promises to allow them to stay in their home. Fueling additional confusion in the loan modification process is the fact that many defaulting homeowners used stated income loans to refinance or make their purchase. Every homeowner should know before going into the loan modification process that you must have income to qualify for a loan modification.This is worth repeating: If you cannot document income sufficient to pay your mortgage (that is a new lower mortgage payment), you will not get a loan modification! Further, although the bank may have taken your word for it when you qualified to take out the loan, they will require you document and will definitely confirm your income before agreeing to modify your loan. Generally speaking the goal of a loan modification is to lower your monthly payments to an amount equal to 31% of your current gross income.Banks also require you have a hardship before seeking a modification. Examples of generally accepted hardships are divorce, death of an income provider, loss of job or income, forced relocation for a job, or pending interest rate increase. They are not going to modify your loan because you’d like to refinance, if your current income supports the monthly payment.Next, the banks expect you to spend your savings before they consider modifying your loan. Two things to note here; first some of your retirement accounts are off limits thanks to the ERISA laws, meaning the banks cannot go after or require you to liquidate them in order to make mortgage payments. Second, it is generally accepted that the banks will expect a home owner to have less than two and one half times their current monthly payment before they modify a loan. For example, if your monthly mortgage payment was $100 and you had $250 in your savings account (2 1/2 times your payment), the bank would expect you to use that money before they modify your loan.One final note on this subject, think twice about applying for a loan modification simply to postpone a foreclosure or short sale. Almost anyone can get a temporary modification through their bank. The suggested reasoning here is that the bank is attempting to collect a bad debt, in order to evaluate their ability to collect banks will attempt to gather any and all financial information you provide to later collect on that bad debt. If you are falsely or hopelessly building a case for a modification by showing income and assets, that information may ultimately prove detrimental to your short sale negotiations.The unsolicited loan modification from JP Morgan ChaseA few things in history have reached mythical status; the Fountain of Youth, the contents of Al Capone’s vault. Our current depressed housing market has the unsolicited loan modification from Chase / WAMU. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m here to tell you it does exist. Accompanied by a letter from Steve Stein, head of the Chase Homeowner Assistance Department (I couldn’t find a link to the department on the Chase website, however the phone number listed is: (888) 368-5524) the offer was received and accepted by one of my clients in Southern California.According to the Chase documents, her “loan is eligible for (the) special program developed as part of Chase’s announced effort to preserve home-ownership in America.” According to my client, she never contacted Chase requesting a loan mod, nor had she ever missed or been late on any of her mortgage payments.In reviewing the offer with her, I noted she was more than 100% underwater on her loan (previous balance approximately $600,000, estimated fair market value less than $300,000) and her interest rate was going to reset the following month. This is also an owner occupied property on a stated income, option arm, variable rate loan. The Chase modification set her interest rate to a fixed 5% for the life of the loan, reset the amortization period at 30 years from the modification date, and wait for it…. reduced her principal balance by approximately $250,000.My point in bringing this to everyone’s attention is three fold: First, pay attention to the letters and phone call offers sent to you by your current lender, although most are just collection calls, some lenders are proactively attempting to help homeowners modify their loans. Second, I’ve received several phone calls from clients regarding similar offers yet found very little information on such offers over the Internet or from any other sources. I wanted to share a story of success to inform you all that these possibilities do exist.Finally, I wanted to stress the importance of principal reductions as a solution to the current housing crisis (just in case any influential bankers or politicians are reading). In the example above, my client is in her early sixties, educated, has perfect credit, and was fully aware of the current market value of her home. Like many homeowners in similar situations she is responsible and proud of her attention to financial obligations. As such, she was reluctant to ask for help while she could still pay, and felt morally opposed to a strategic default.After the process was complete she shared the fear and and anxiety that accompanied two years of waiting for her payment to increase, realizing she had no hope of refinancing into a fixed rate loan, and knowing she couldn’t sell or find another property to purchase. Her loan modification took one hour to review with an attorney, fifteen minutes to complete the paperwork that was enclosed in the packet sent by Chase, and was processed and completed before her next payment was due 15 days after she received it.Finding the Greater GoodIt seems to me there are two ways to address an obstacle. One is to brace yourself and move to minimize the negative impact you may individually encounter; the other is to proactively seek solutions for removing the obstacle and move to the collective good. In fact anyone who’s seen the movie A Beautiful Mind, realizes that John Nash won a Nobel Prize for his game theory suggesting that such strategies lead to the best possible outcome.Like millions of Americans currently underwater on their home, my client was reluctant to address the problem until it was immediate and one she had little chance of resolving. Banks must minimize losses and increase revenue. While Chase and other institutions grow their loss mitigation and REO departments by the thousands to manage short sales, foreclosures and a deluge loan modifications that may not work, it took one form letter by certified mail to complete a loan modification that required no documentation of income, no explanation of hardship and required no back and forth negotiations. President Obama and our current political administration are determined to help homeowners stay put, while preventing fraud, putting predatory foreclosure scams out of business, and finding an expeditious end to the housing slump. This was accomplished overnight for one customer by Chase’s proactive response to the obstacle before them and a mutually beneficial strategy benefiting the greater good.This modification would not have been possible without reducing principal. By doing so the bank minimized their loss and positioned a loan for greater chances of repayment, further they avoided one more foreclosure mitigating the negative impact on the neighborhood and their loan portfolio – a positive move for the overall housing crisis.Like any financial matter, a loan modification should not be taken lightly and the prospects of success should be considered before you start. Banks are debt collectors and they will use the information you provide in order to collect that debt. If you provide false information to present an ability to pay which you don’t really possess it will work against you if you later decide to pursue a short sale. And finally, one last time, NEVER PAY UP FRONT FOR A LOAN MODIFICATION!

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Why You Want to Partner With A Small Business Coach-Advisor

According to The National Federation of Independent Business [NFIB] Education Foundation, over the lifetime of any small business, 30 percent will lose money, 30 percent will break even, and just fewer than 40 percent will be profitable. The Small Business Administration [SBA] reports that 50 percent of all small business fail after their first year, 33 percent fail after two years, and nearly 60 percent fail after four years. Reasons for failure cited by the SBA include: limited vision, over expansion, poor capital structure, over spending, lack of reserve funds or too little Free Cash Flow, failure to adjust to market changes, underestimating competition, poor business execution, poor business location, failure to establish company goals, poor market segmentation and strategy, poor knowledge of the competition, no management systems, over dependence on specific individuals, and/or focusing on the technical aspects more than the strategic aspects of the business, and an inadequate business plan.Developing and growing a small business enterprise, either from a new venture or as an existing one, is difficult in a bull market, where the economy is growing. The difficulty factor is there none the less. However, in a down economy, in a recession, where the risk of business failure is magnified several times, the difficulty factor is increased by a significant magnitude. Entrepreneurs and small business enterprises find themselves working in their business as opposed to working on their business. That is, when times are tough, the small business owner feels compelled to spend all his or her time on operations just trying to keep the boat afloat, while putting off where the boat may be going. It is particularly critical in a recessionary economic cycle to spend as much time as possible on the direction of your boat, as it is on operations. If the vision is lost or clouded, it won’t really matter how hard you try to keep things afloat, at some point you may well run aground because you were not watching where you were going. Having an extra pair of eyes to help stir your ship and keep you in the right direction is critical to not only maintaining your business, but helping you to grow it. And as the principal in your small business, this is where you want to position yourself; at the helm stirring your enterprise in the direction of your vision.Successful athletes typically hire a coach to help them achieve success. Certainly this is the case in professional golf. It is the case in the world of professional cycling. And it is the case in professional team sports, such as baseball. For the entrepreneur and small business enterprise, having a coach, advisor, on the sidelines as well as in the game, to provide critical objective guidance to help them attain their business objectives can be the difference in achieving real success. As a small business enterprise, you want to be in the category of a ‘small business growth’ company, positioned for IPO, acquisition, merger or growing into a medium-sized company. A Business Coach and Advisor will work with you to help avoid becoming an SBA or NFIB Education Foundation statistic on their list of small business failures. From time to time we all need outside guidance, counsel, mentoring and advice. A Business Coach/Advisor will actually help you to become a success story. The benefits of partnering with a Business Coach/Advisory far outweigh the costs. Five critical benefits of partnering with a Business Coach/Advisor include, but are not limited, to the following:1. Accountability. A Business Coach /Advisor will help you to maintain focus on driving your business forward, and helping you to work through the temptation to work in your business and not on your business. A good Business Coach/Advisor will insist on holding you accountable for achieving your goals and objectives, and work with you to delegate operation tasks that need to be performed by key personal, and guiding you towards providing the strategic vision your business needs to grow. Your Business Coach, acting in an Advisory capacity will work with you to develop or refine strategic short- and long term goals and then hold you accountable to achieve them. You want your coach to be tough, yet personable having the capacity to understand your business and where it is you want to take it. There job is to help you formulate that and to get you positioned to attain it.2. Formulating Strategic Goals, Ideas, Objectives. A Business Coach/Advisor will work with you to develop and refine your goals, ideas and objectives. A combination of coaching and advising is necessary here, and your Coach has the acquired expertise and experience to work through these with you and knows how to adapt them to your business.3. Contributing Business Growth Strategies. A good Business Coach/Advisory will have the ability to share and communicate their experience and expertise in developing business growth strategies. Remember, no one has all the answers. No one. Not a coach or a business executive. Sharing ideas are critical. Thinking out of the box is essential. So, when you’ve just “run out of ideas” on how to market and sell your products and services, your Coach will work with you, as a partner, to develop and then implement the business growth strategy or strategies that are specific to your company and market to meet your growth objectives. To be most effective, weekly communication with your Coach will keep you on track.4. Resources. When it is needed, your Business Coach/Advisor will provide referrals to contacts or resources for your business, such as expansion capital, legal and accounting services, social media marketing, technologies, and other resources that are relevant to helping you meet your goals and objectives. My view here is that it is incumbent on a business coach and advisory to have a teaming or partnering viewpoint, and it is essential for them to do so for the benefit of you, the small business owner.5. Objectivity. A Business Coach/Advisor provides you with the necessary objectivity to see your business as it really is. This is essential for an honest assessment of where your business is in its life cycle. When you get used to the same processes and procedures, tasks, basic routine, you lose the ability to see your business with the same objective clarity that you once did. Your Business Coach provides you with a double perspective; looking into your business from the customer perspective, and looking out at the customer from your perspective. And then provide you with feedback about what works, what doesn’t and what your options are. To be effective, weekly communication with your Coach will keep you on track.Partnering with a Business Coach/Advisor should be on a retainer basis for three to nine months, preferably six months. It will normally take a good Business Coach/Advisor two months, sixty days, at least to become fully knowledgeable about your business, its practices, your strengths, weakness, your vision, and your objectives. Then another month to begin working with you to arrive at your business objectives. While three months is the minimum time needed for a good Business Coach/Advisor to begin making a difference under a single retainer agreement, nine months is the maximum under a single retainer agreement, where six months is the optimal. During a six month retainer, a Business Coach/Advisor should be able to meet all goals and place in to practice the critical elements that a small business needs to attain strategic objectives. Typically, once a small business has partnered with a Business Coach/Advisor, they retain them continuously, or as needed.In today’s troubled economic climate, the use of a Business Coach/Advisor makes strong financial sense. While you might feel you can go it alone, the resulting cost may far outweigh what it would be had you partnered with a Business Coach/Advisor when needed. It’s sort of like the old TV commercial about changing your oil, you can either do it now at the cost of an oil change, or wait until your engine blows and pay the cost then. Waiting will certainly cost you infinitely more. If you are facing a limited vision, over expansion, poor capital structure, over spending, lack of reserve funds or too little Free Cash Flow, failure to adjust to market changes, underestimating competition, poor business execution, poor business location, failure to establish company goals, poor market segmentation and strategy, poor knowledge of the competition, no management systems, over dependence on specific individuals, focusing on the technical aspects more than the strategic aspects of the business, or simply need help in growing your business, then partnering with a Business Coach/Advisor makes good financial sense.

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Car Loan-My First Car

In the past, when you wanted a loan for any reason, you dressed up in your Sunday best and marched off to plead with your bank manager. Only a handful of large banks serviced the market, and unless you were planning to move your accounts you were likely to get a cool reception at any other than the bank with which you normally did business.

Getting your first Car loan to buy the car of your dreams is an exciting time when you’re a teenager. However, getting that first car loan from the bank isn’t as straight-forward as it sounds with young people not having any credit history. One way you can help yourself get a car loan as a teenager is by opening up a separate savings account when your first start working. Deposit a regular amount into the account each payday to show the bank that you can make a regular payment, this will also enable you to either borrow less on your car loan or buy a better car. If you truly want to have a car of your own to drive, then be sure that the loan that you take is within the range of your resources.

When looking at getting a new car, you’ll probably have to consider car finance. Finding car finance options online doesn’t have to be hard — as long as you know what you’re looking for. Many banks offer car finance choices that you can apply online for. Before looking for a car loan, consider what you can afford to repay, what type of CAR LOAN do you want and the terms and conditions of the car.

iLoans, a small group of finance consultants, strives to help you achieve your financial needs by providing excellent customer service and fast finance approvals. With access to more than 25 lenders, each offering a large variety of loan options, we work hard to find the best loan for you. We make the loan process as easy and hassle free as possible.

i LOANS serves its customers with a combination of passion, dedication, and knowledge. The goal is to allow you to establish communication with one of our consultants within hours of applying. This commitment to personal attention ensures that all customers are informed at all stages during the loan process. Our commitment to professionalism, innovation and integrity, promises that we will help you in every way possible.

The clear aim is to provide a free and informative service to help all customers to make educated choices about the finance options available to them. At iLoans we understand that with so much varied information out on the web, honest and unbiased car finance information is crucial.

Get Approved Finance specialises in arranging loans and insurance for customers throughout Australia. If you need car finance then we can arrange a low rate loan for you. We are accredited with several car financing comanpanies. We help you get a loan for self-employed customers, PAYG customers, new migrants, those who are new in their job and also for first time car loans.
We pride ourselves on providing help with selecting a loan and operate in an efficient and friendly manner.

The world of CAR LOAN can be too complicated especially if you don’t have the overall knowledge on how to choose and deal with the offers at stake. Also, don’t get overwhelmed with the multifarious offers. Your aim is to find a cheap loan with a guaranteed quality. When going for a cheap car loan, never fail to take note of these essential steps. Or else, you will end up wasting so much money and time for nothing.

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Same Day Cash No Debit Card — Easy to Get Fund in a Day

Debit card is not inevitable to have when you would like to derive a loan. Even if you are deprived from taking financial due to absence of debit card, you are suggested to go for same day cash no debt card and get the money as per your financial requirement. These loans are designed to succor people who are out of debit card or have not any card. Such borrowers have these loans as a great way to generate funds as fast as possible. Anyone can meet with various short term expenses easily by taking the succor of these loans.

The significance of same day cash no debit card is referred to all those who haven’t debt card for accessing the finance. In thee loans you are allowed to apply for the amount ranging from £100 to £1000 for the repayment period of 14 to 31 days. The most beneficial feature is that there is no collateral involved in lieu of the fund. Another plus point is that you can extend the repayment term as per your convenience by paying the nominal charge as fee to the loan provider for extension of repayment period.

These are short term loan schemes in nature and so there is no security as collateral required to put aligned with the loan provider. And because of it, the interest rate charged is a bit high. Money that is granted to you through same day cash no debit card helps you covering up miscellaneous short term purposes such as health check up bills, credit card payments, grocery store bills, home rentals, out of the blue travel expenses, child’s school or tuition fees, celebrate birthday or wedding anniversary party, traveling expenses, loan installments etc.

Even though you are running on bad credit scores and your application for the loan is deferred by the lender because of risk involve then same day cash no debit card can be your right way to make funds with ease. This is reason that they are offered to the salaried people and dependent on their repayment capacity. For this reason, you are struggling with bad credit facts including defaults, arrears, foreclosure, late payments, missed payments, CCJs, IVA, etc, are allowed to get the money through these loans.

Any inhabitant of United Kingdom above 18 years of age and has a valid active bank account can easily enjoy same day cash no debit card in as little as possible time. The candidate just has to fill out a simple online application form on the website and then, submit it. After confirming your details, the money is transferred directly into your active bank account on the very same day of application.

Chris Barry is an expert in the field of finances has provided plenty of genuine information to the borrowers by same day cash no debit card, same day loans for bad credit & unsecured loans. By the help of his authentic information, financial consumers have now the prerogative to derive same day loans with ease.

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