Mortgage Counselors Working Full Tilt To Help Prevent Foreclosure

Posted on November 12th, 2007 by saman

Nationwide Mortgage Counselors are working at an epic pace to help homeowner’s in trouble save their homes. As the numbers of pending foreclosures skyrocket upward, people are desperately seeking someone who might be able to present them with any workable options to avoid foreclosure.

There are now literally thousands of counselors working at non-profit housing agencies who are a possible way out for even more troubled homeowners. They are the recipients of untold numbers of heart-wrenching tales of woe and have extremely stressful job. But they often can help. Homeowners of all age groups and levels of income are getting into a tough spot with sub prime mortgages and declining house values. Foreclosure filings almost doubled in September of this year and projections are calling for new home sales to go down 23 percent between now and the end of 2008.

What Can Counselors Do?

Mortgage counselors help homeowners consider their finances, try to find a way that they can catch up on arrears in payments and also explain just how the foreclosure process is handled. They also frequently work with the lenders for hours trying to define any workable options for homeowners and this can be a frustrating process. Some officials at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have expressed concerns that the counselors will leave for better jobs due to being overworked just when they are needed the most.

HUD has certified more than 2,300 non-profit housing agencies to offer counseling but more are needed. Regrettably, financial constraints have prevented them from increasing the number despite an obvious need. One finance training agency, NeighborWorks, trained just 143 counselors in 2004, compared to more than 1,600 this year and is trying to train even more in new class programs to meet the ever-expanding need. Salaries for counselors range from $30,000 to $50,000 per annum and have not increased in view of the extra work required by the current situation.

Counselors have many roles to fulfill. These include negotiation, good listening, being asdvocates, and the ability to analyze financial situations. They often deal with very-frustrated homeowners who are confused and ashamed and sometimes quite angry about their current situations. Needless to say, the homeowners who are helped in the end are extremely grateful to their counselor for pointing them in the right direction.

Many of the problems mortgage counselors must deal with tactfully result from financially-unexperienced homeowners that got in over their heads becaue they didn’t understand the terms of their loan. Others were sweet-talked into signing by unscrupulous lenders who only cared about closing another deal.

The type and variety of troubled homeowners notwithstanding, mortgage counselors certainly have difficult jobs that demand tact, diplomacy and professionalism under the widest-possible range of circumstances. And most got into the counseling business out of a genuine desire to help people caught up in this nationwide squeeze. They deserve to be recognized for superior performance in the face of almost unimaginable pressures.