Monday March 2nd, 2009
Over the past year many start-up companies jumped
into loss mitigation and attempted to define their place in this industry. In reality, 90% of the people involved with loss mitigation start-ups are green and don’t fully understand the complexities associated with loan modification. They make statements like, “I hire this company to do our processing”. If the people running these companies think negotiating a home loan from foreclosure is the duty of a processor, then they are in for a surprise.Home Rescue Programs’ success rate is higher than any other firm in the country. Our three (3) phase process is the backbone of this achievement.
Phase 1: Hire a team of seasoned & over qualified underwriters. These underwriters have all previously worked for some of the top lenders including Wells Fargo, Countrywide, Option One, New Century....the list goes on. Their qualifications include 10+ years of underwriting experience, passing strict personality tests, and organizational assessments. Why underwriters you may ask? Seasoned underwriters have the analytical mind set, necessary to negotiate a home loan. In fact, most lenders hire former underwriters for their own loss mitigation departments. Underwriters know how to communicate with fellow underwriters. The bottom line is the lender only cares for what is in its best interests. The lender also has a fiduciary responsibility to its stock holders and investors. So we map out the full costs and ultimately the loss the lender will endure by foreclosing on a homeowners’ loan in today’s depressed real estate market. We customize each proposal for each individual homeowner. We show the lender why a performing loan is better for them than a foreclosure.
Phase 2: Most loan modifications are negotiated in phase one, but sometimes lenders want to play hard ball. When this happens, we bring out our Forensic Loan Auditors. These analysts conduct a full review of the homeowners’ loan documents to reveal lender mistakes in RESPA, ECOA, HMDA, TILA and APR. Because such a large number of loan docs were drawn between 2001 to 2007, many mistakes were made during this time. We show the lender the serious legal mistakes it made and use the results of this audit as leverage. Many times this additional tool provides the weight necessary to obtain the modification.
Phase 3: Bring out the attorneys. If the lender is still not being nice, our attorneys take over. We don’t like to bring in our attorneys until phase 3 for a variety of reasons. Primarily, we have a good relationship with the major lenders and service providers. Our attorneys take a vastly different approach. They show the lender all of its legal blunders reveled in the audit. They aggressively advise the lender as to what it did wrong. Lenders don’t like hearing that. Furthermore, our legal team can pursue a series of other tactics that includes asking for the original note. This simple request can stall a sale date for well over a year. By this time our attorneys usually have enough ammo to pursue a case against the lender. In such cases, the settlement typically results in a loan modification.