The flood of foreclosures is continuing across the U.S. Last year 2.8 million properties received foreclosure notices, according to RealtyTrac. Nevada, Arizona, and Florida — states that traditionally attract a lot of retirees — had the highest foreclosure rates in 2009.

Can a Reverse Loan Help You Stay in Your Home?

You may be facing the threat of foreclosure and looking for any number of possible solutions. If you are over 62, a reverse mortgage could be helpful. Talk with a reverse loan counselor to discuss your options and to determine how much you might be able to borrow. There also may be other alternatives to getting a reverse home mortgage that may help your situation.

Avoid Foreclosure Any Way You Can

In the meantime, consider the following tips to avoid foreclosure.

• You must continue making payments on a mortgage. Once you continue to miss payments your mortgage lender may move to repossess the home, forcing you to move.
• If you owe more on your property than it is worth when you default, the mortgage lender could pursue a deficiency judgment. Not only would you lose your home, but you could end up owing additional money.
• Open all correspondence from your mortgage lender and do not ignore phone calls. There may be a way to work out a new payment plan, loan modification, refinance, or some other solution to your problems.
• Do not abandon your home. Strategic defaults have become more common, and accounted for a quarter of all defaults in 2009, according to U.S. News & World Report. It’s a bad idea to walk away from a property because it’s worth less than what is owed on a mortgage for many reasons, including the fact doing so guarantees you’ll have a horrible credit history for many years.

Do whatever you can to stay in your home. If staying there is impossible, work like crazy to sell it rather than go down the road to foreclosure.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at 8:06 pm and is filed under Reverse Mortgage . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.