Counseling Helps in Saving Properties From Repo Home Listing

With the increasing number of properties on repo home listing and proliferation of fraudulent foreclosure prevention schemes, distressed homeowners are finding that there are few options that can help them avoid foreclosures. Or so they think.

Foreclosure counseling services have proven to be a great help to distressed homeowners who want to save their properties from being placed on repo home listing. Housing experts are one in saying that foreclosure counseling can help distressed families remain in their properties.

And even if foreclosure counseling services failed to stop properties from being placed on repo home listing, they could at least help troubled homeowners get through the stressful process of foreclosure, housing experts said.

Housing experts in Minnesota pointed out that homeowners who have good credit standing are finding options are scarce for them who did everything right when choosing their mortgages. The foreclosure problem that rocked the housing market started with high interest subprime mortgages. The situation became a crisis when mortgage payments increased beyond the capacity of homeowners to pay.

Last year, the foreclosure problem affected about 26,265 families in Minnesota and in the first quarter of 2009, it wreaked havoc on 5,157 lives. And as the economy continues to languish and unemployment rate increases, even homeowners who have traditional mortgages were in danger of losing their properties to foreclosures.

The Minnesota Home Ownership Center has been a haven to homeowners who are on the brink of foreclosure. The center has helped troubled homeowners communicate with counselors from various nonprofit organizations that provide help, including the Lutheran Social Service.

Lutheran Social Service’s financial counseling program director Dan Williams said that if a homeowner can prove that he can continue to fulfill his monthly mortgage payment, then the organization can surely help him.

However, if a homeowner is financially strapped and the value of his property is worth less than his mortgage, the chances that the organization could help him save his home from repossession is doubtful, Williams said.

Lutheran Social Service has been providing foreclosure counseling in the city of Duluth. Williams claimed that the organization has benefitted from its relationship and close collaboration with the administration of Mayor Don Ness who last year, ordered the setting up of a task force to address the foreclosure problem in the city.

Data showed that 418 homeowners sought foreclosure counseling in St. Louis last year. Out of these numbers, 241 homeowners or 58 percent were able to save their homes from being placed on repo home listing.

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