Asian Journal- The Filipino-American Community Newspaper

CALLER: I am trying to find a way to lower my payments, our loan currently is going to adjust by 25 percent come November 08’. At this point I am already having a hard time paying the mortgage, what should I do. I heard about "Loan Modification" and have been trying to do that for two months but am not getting anywhere? I also talked to someone wanting to charge me $3,000 for doing this for me.

Ken Go: First of all, I am repeatedly telling everyone that you should not pay anyone to help you deal with your lender or do a Loan Modification. There are government agencies and non-profit organizations that will help you do it for FREE. The key question here is whether you are currently late on your mortgage when you are calling your lender for a Loan Modification. If you are still paying them, they will more than likely not agree to help you, because currently there are about 7-8 thousand people going into foreclosure everyday nationwide. So, they will prioritize the customers that are already late, but don’t get discourage because you should still try and see if they will agree. But Obama has a new program helping people without any lates but curently cannot refinance because their equity dropped.

Ken: Again, you are calling at the perfect timing, Obama’s Package will allow you to refinance if you live in your home and have not made any late payments. You will have to qualify and your property value cannot exceed 105 percent of your current balance. Most lenders have this program and your loan amount can go up to $625,500. I believe this should help out qualified homeowners to get out of their ARM/Predatory loans.

Caller: I can’t refinance my house and my loan payments are going up to a point that I cannot afford it anymore. What should I do?

Ken Go: This is a growing epidemic that is getting out of proportion and I get calls like this all day long. My suggestion: get your finances together be honest with yourself and see what your actual monthly expenses are, include everything even your snacks, your small vices everything. Then put down how much you are netting from your pay stubs and you will be surprise to know that you are just living on the edge every month with your paycheck. If you cannot afford the house, then you have to really decide on other options to keep yourself afloat. See yourself six month to one year from now, even if you have a fixed rate loan, can you really afford the payments? If not, then be honest and sort out options. Treat this home buying experience as a business, its not personal definitely not sentimental.

Ken Go: This happened about 9 months ago where I tried to Short Sale this clients house and took me about 6 months to almost get the sale approved by the lenders. But towards the end, the sellers where solicited by a Loan Modification company and promised balance reduction of this property. Obviously they bought into this and ask me about it. I have interest in the short sale transaction but cannot be bias, so I said for them to be very careful because I have never seen a balance reduction approved before. So, sadly my 6-7 months of work went array. Just recently after another 5 months I got a call from the seller, they left me a message saying something about the Loan Modification. So, I called them immediately and they claimed that the bank declined them all together. I said how much did you spend, they claimed to pay $6,000 for two properties and that they would only get 15 percent back due to the work they put it. So, I suggested for them to demand for the entire amount and I called the lender to find out how many times did this Loan Modification Company actually called the lender. Guess how many time they called. 4 within 5 months for $3,000 a piece. I would think this is a major rip off.

I am very frustrated that my work was taken away by fraud, now we have sent in a report to the FTC and Secretary General in Sacramento with this companies short comings. Hopefully they will stop doing this kind of deceiving promises to homeowners.

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Call Ken Go of 1st Innovative Finance Group to give you a quote, call (888) 822-5363 or write to: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

( www.asianjournal.com )

( Published on May 6, 2009 in Asian Journal Los Angeles p. B4 )