During the great recession, we had foreclosures and short sales. As I recall there were loan modification programs for borrowers but the rules kept changing about who was eligible and who was not. Sometimes people who were behind on mortgage payments were eligible and sometimes they were not.
During the current crisis and it is a crisis there are forbearance programs and various laws that prevent foreclosure. Forbearance programs allow borrowers to skip payments. The payments are added to the end of the loan repayment period.
There is help for those who are struggling to make mortgage payments. The Minnesota Homeownership Center is a great place to start. They are a non-profit and provide free counseling and are generally knowledgeable about every program out there that can help homeowners.
As always be aware of scams. I am not aware of the latest but I know there are always people out there ready to trick people out of their homes and life savings. If a program sounds too good to be true the Minnesota Homeownership Center can help with that and the Minnesota Attorney General’s website has some useful information on it about scams.
Don’t be afraid to talk directly to your lender if that is possible. If you have n FHA loan there may be federal assistance. Serious mortgage delinquencies are up from a year ago. the last number I saw was at around 7% as compared with less than 4% last year.
