Bloomfield Financial Services, Inc.

A loan modification restructures the terms of your loan—without refinancing—so that the rate and monthly-payments for the loan fit your current income or financial situation. Lenders prefer to accept a lesser payment that you can afford versus incuring the expense of foreclosing and reselling the property.

A loan modification is a good solution if you cannot refinance, if you're struggling to make monthly payments or have experienced a genuine hardship, and you want to keep your home.

Absolutely! Banks and lenders have been mandated by the federal government to make every effort to arrange payment plans that the borrower can afford. Because of the mandate, coupled with the cost of foreclosing and reselling a property, mortgage lenders look to foreclose only as a last resort. If you can present the bank/lender with a realistic and mutually-beneficial offer, you are likely to succeed in modifying your mortgage-loan to make your home affordable to keep.

In today's market, lenders want to avoid foreclosing on more properties. Banks would rather make arrangements with the current homeowner/borrower than to incur the cost and expense of a foreclosure. As such, anyone experiencing a financial hardship may qualify for a loan modification especially if:

• You are at least one-month behind on your mortgage payments
• You have a negative amortizing-loan
• Your loan will adjust in the near future
• Your mortgage-loan is upside-down (you owe more than the property is worth)

There are no credit checks when applying for a loan modification and the greater your financial hardship, the more negotiating power you have with your lender.

Loan modifications take at least two months to negotiate; so, the sooner you chat with a foreclosure advisor or have a free consultation, the better your odds of beating foreclosure before it's too late.