The Bothell Short Sale Blog

Straightforward Bothell Short Sale Solutions to Avoid Foreclosure:

The Short Sale Solution

Lenders don’t want to foreclose and own your home and one of the most effective methods of foreclosure avoidance is the short sale. Lenders lose less in a short sale when compared to a foreclosure, and have been working hard with real estate agents to make this option more viable and efficient.

Short sales are increasingly becoming a popular alternative to foreclosure because they help minimize loss and the various harmful repercussions of foreclosures, such as damage to credit, security clearance, future employment, neighborhood value loss and disrepair.

Lenders Ramp up Staffing to Assist in Processing

If you thought you were alone in your financial struggles, think again. Over 2.5 million homeowners defaulted on their mortgages in 2010 due to unemployment or other unexpected challenges. Lenders are working hard to increase their resources in handling the sheer volume of defaulted mortgages across the country. We are in regular contact with these lenders and, as you can imagine, they’d like to avoid the high costs of foreclosure and facilitate as many alternatives as they possibly can. Lenders and the federal government have recently updated and enhanced their foreclosure avoidance programs, making more members of our community eligible for assistance.

Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA)

In late December 2010, the Department of the Treasury updated and improved eligibility standards for the HAFA program. They also enhanced efficiency guidelines for lenders, streamlining the process and making it a more effective solution for homeowners to avoid foreclosure. HAFA is a federal initiative put in place to benefit homeowners who do not qualify for mortgage modifications and would like to pursue short sales. This program is designed to expedite foreclosure avoidance options for homeowners in need. HAFA promotes the swift execution of a short sale or deed-in-lieu through financial incentives to all parties involved, facilitating the transaction. In a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure, the property is given fully to the lender because the homeowner can no longer make payments, and the property is then sold to retrieve part of the loan balance owed. A deed-in-lieu, however, may have some of the same effects as foreclosure on your credit report.