If you have questions, you can also log onto ShortSaleSully.com or if you 'd like some independent counseling, please read the following article from the New Your Times...
SINCE foreclosures started to rise sharply in 2007, struggling borrowers have been offered a lot of help online. Some is well-meaning, but some is simply a scam in the form of expensive “debt relief” services that may be offered free elsewhere.
This month Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored entity that helps set lending standards for most mortgages, started a Web site, KnowYourOptions.com, that has elements setting it apart from most of those aiming to prevent foreclosure. Everything on the site is available in Spanish or English, for example, which helps to reach the large number of Hispanic borrowers who mortgage executives and analysts said were the targets of subprime lenders in 2005 and 2006.
In some areas of the site, a guide offers videotaped explanations of what users might accomplish in that section. For instance, in a section titled “Take Action,” the spokeswoman advises among other things that “you can’t get help until you contact your mortgage company,” while explaining how to get started.
To encourage borrowers to take that step, the site includes video testimonials from people who have experienced similar issues. A section on forbearance, for instance, features a video from an owner who qualified for such help, and one from a housing counselor about the process.
Some analysts said the new site went further than previous efforts to help those at risk of foreclosure. “Frankly, I like it,” said Brad Strothkamp, an analyst for Forrester Research. “There’s a clear need for this type of information, especially from a source that is not looking to sell a service or a product.”
In each section of the site, borrowers are offered numbers of mortgage companies and loan counselors, along with calculators to determine if they qualify for help. Borrowers can send those calculations via e-mail to themselves and others, an important feature, said Jeffery Hayward, senior vice president of the National Servicing Organization of Fannie Mae. “That way, if you call the counselor,” he said, “you can both have that information, so you can have a much more meaningful conversation.”
Not everything on the site is geared toward avoiding foreclosure. Some sections on “graceful exits,” like short sales or deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure, guide those whose financial situations are so dire that they cannot reasonably hope to stay in their homes.
Many borrowers have complained about their mortgage companies’ failure to respond to inquiries until foreclosure is the only option. Mr. Hayward said the Web site’s features could help borrowers avoid that situation.
“If you have as much information as you can get off this site,” he said, “you have more confidence to keep calling because you know what you’re talking about.”
Another new online option for borrowers is Hope LoanPort, which allows struggling owners and housing counselors to submit financial documents to mortgage companies and track the status of their efforts to avoid foreclosure.
Brad Dwin, a spokesman for Hope Now, the consortium of mortgage companies that created Hope LoanPort, said each of the nation’s major mortgage companies had agreed to join. At inception late last year, six mortgage firms and six housing counseling agencies had joined.
Now, 12 mortgage companies and 250 counseling agencies are accessible to borrowers in 48 states. Wells Fargo, the latest of the major lenders to join, is likely to start participating in next two months, Mr. Dwin said.
After Bank of America began using the system in June, Mr. Dwin said, Hope LoanPort experienced a sharp increase in borrowers being served.
Mr. Dwin said the new Fannie Mae initiative, KnowYourOptions, could speed the process of helping borrowers. “It’s all part of the larger effort to find ways to reach out to homeowners and give them more tools to get their applications submitted, without missing paperwork,” he said.
The New York Times By BOB TEDESCHI-August, 2010 A version of this article appeared in print on August 22, 2010, on page RE10 of the New York edition.
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