When You Need to Do a Short Sale or Loan Work Out, Who Do You Call?

I have had numerous home owners contact me lately who owe more on their homes than they are currently worth. Some of these home owners are trying to keep their homes and would like to renegotiate their loans and others would like to sell and need to negotiate a short sale with their lender.

Many of them have not fallen behind on payments yet, but foresee it happening soon, due to an increase in their interest rate or some hardship in their lives.

In order to determine if their loan servicer is willing to renegotiate their loan or accept a short sale, home owners need to speak with the loss mitigation department for the company that services their loan.

Unfortunately, that is easier said than done.

Dealing with a mortgage servicer can be very frustrating. Just trying to get a correction on a phone bill can feel like an act of congress when dealing with a call center. When trying to renegotiate a loan or arrange a short sale, the stress can be overwhelming.  Even when you do get to a "customer service" representative they are often unwilling or unable to help.

I have one client who literally went to their local Bank of America and had a Bank of America employee contact their own call center. They were unable to get through to a decision maker and the call center employees were actually rude to the employee.

I have no proof, but I think lenders and the companies that service their loans have intentionally buried their loss mitigation departments, to make finding them more difficult.

There is no guarantee that a lender will approve a short sale, loan work out, deed in lieu or forbearance, but if you are interested in finding out, you need to get in contact with the loss mitigation department as soon as possible.

I recently came across www.loanworkout.org, which is a blog dedicated to helping people navigate through this mess. The owner of the blog has gone through the trouble of creating a list of contact information for the loss mitigation departments for most, if not all of the major loan servicers and lenders. To view that list, click Lender Loss Mitigation Contact Numbers.

This list is easy to take for granted, if you have not tried to find this information out on your own. Luckily, with the power of user created content on the internet these numbers are now public knowledge, whether lenders want them to be or not.

Hopefully, for those of you trying to find the right person to talk to the list will point you in the right direction.