Should You Do Your Own Loan Modification?

Everyone wants to know the “secret” behind getting a loan modification done. Homeowners are looking for any inside information that will get them approved for a loan modification without having to pay thousands in upfront fees. With the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) otherwise known as the Obama Plan or Making Home Affordable Program, the lenders have uniform guidelines that allow them to determine whether or not they can help you.

Thousands of homeowners have tried to work with their lender directly and did not have any success in getting their modification approved. For one reason or another, the lender did not approve their application. Then the homeowner gets discouraged and frustrated by their lender so they think another company will have more success.

What these homeowners don’t understand is that they got their application denied for a reason. Once this reason(s) is uncovered, it makes the process a lot easier. Loan modifications are not as clear on how to get approved and that’s why people pay a company to do it for them. However, most companies are just as unclear on the guidelines as you. They just sell themselves really well and after you give them some rough income numbers, they tell you that you are pre-approved and promptly ask for your money. If this is your experience, the first thing you should do is Google the company, input their name and the word scam. Then see what comes up. Either there will be minimal information or there will be customer feedback on their experience with the company that probably isn’t very positive. Doing this basic search will save you a lot of headaches down the road.

As for whether you should do your own loan modification, the main reason most people don’t do the modification on their own is because they are intimidated by their lender. What homeowners don’t realize is that no matter who does your modification, whether you go through a company or you do it yourself, you still have to gather all of your income and asset documentation together. You still have to complete a financial worksheet and the hardship letter. A company cannot do this for you no matter what.

The main reason we released the HAMP Guide was because we received calls from so many homeowners who paid a company thousands of dollars upfront only to never hear from them again or just never got approved and didn’t get their money back. We also hear daily from homeowners who say they want a company to do their modification because they tried to do the modification on their own and their lender rejected their application. Due to this result, the homeowner thinks a company will have more success because they didn’t know how to deal with their lender on their own.

Unfortunately, most of these homeowners learn the hard way that the result with a company is no different. Ultimately, when you fill out the modification application, you have to know how to do it. Most companies don’t tell you because they are so busy and since they already have your money, what is their incentive to help you?

Anyway, to make a long story short, we created the HAMP Guide to give people an affordable option to modify their loan. The U.S. is a huge country and people have house payments from $400 and higher so if someone is struggling already, it’s not realistic to ask them to pay thousands of dollars to someone to modify on their own. Yet, these same homeowners need help, too and no one should be at a disadvantage if they truly need assistance but don’t have the finances to pay someone to do it for them.

Everything we have utilized to modify loans with just about every lender is in the guide. All of the insight, the steps, and things you need to avoid. We show you how to complete the forms, how to negotiate, etc. We give you a guide that walks you through each step along with all of the forms you need to fill out. We will answer your questions via phone and you can fax us your completed forms and we will make the same revisions on your forms as if we were doing the modification for you. This isn’t a profitable venture for us. We spend so much time and energy coaching homeowners on what to do and we review the financial worksheet to make sure we exhaust every angle to get you the best modification.

Ultimately, the goal is to make your big bad scary lender look very approachable. Once you know what to do and what to say (and not say), the clouds will open up for you. Then getting the modification approved should be just a question of making sure you follow the steps.

Lately I’ve felt that lenders would prefer to deal with homeowners directly because they trust homeowners more than these outside companies who have developed a bad reputation for everyone in the industry. Lenders want to hear from homeowners and if you have a compelling hardship, they will do everything to help you. That being said, you need to know how to make sure they help you by filling out the forms to give you the best chance at approval. The way I look at it, you have nothing to lose if you at least try to work with your lender by using the guide. If it’s too hard for you (which it won’t be) you can get your money back. I just don’t understand why homeowners are so anxious to give $1000 (usually more) to a company without at least trying the guide.

You have no one to blame but yourself if you pay a company upfront because they told you they could get you some crazy low interest rate without seeing your financial worksheet. Going over numbers on the phone is not the same!

We are doing everything we can to reach out to you. If you question us, I can only promise you we have never misled anyone. We are the only accredited company on the Better Business Bureau site with no complaints and the only one with positive reviews. Before this is all said and done, we want to save as many homes as we can. Life is just too short not to be able to enjoy it.