Anecdote about a successful, professional mortgage modification company
I thought I was the only one who was treated like a crook and a card cheat when I talk about the mortgage modification and short sales I represent. Nope. Turns out we all get the same reaction. It doesn’t change our motivation or desire to achieve though. We know we’re in the right.
Martin Andelman has reviewed several mortgage modification firms. I believe all of them are law firms, and rightly so. The national attorneys are best equipped to cut through the treachery practiced by the nation’s lenders in avoiding mortgage modifications and short sales.
This recounting of his experience could be an identical anecdote describing the mortgage modification and short sale negotiation firms I represent. When you have 50 or so mortgage modification (or short sale) files in front of you for say, Bank of America, say (just to pick one at random, say), and you have the direct phone number of the actual decision-maker, it gets exciting to do your job and slap these treacherous lenders around.
The firms I represent do not advertise much at all. They leave that up to me. (Actually, marketing is a more accurate term. I learned months ago that to just advertise made me appear even more to be a crook in this highly charged economic climate; and the extensive negative press about crooked mortgage modification firms.) Even the exceptional firms must counteract that negative perception.
Mandelman points out how difficult negotiations with reluctant lenders is. (Think fourth quarter of an NFL game. Someone must wear out someone. Last man standing kind of thing. Extreme cage fighting, kinduv.)
Mandelman almost points out that these attorneys are actually the cops in the mortgage modification business. The HAMP law already exists. It’s just that proficient national attorneys are the only consistent, successful ones enforcing the regulations.
Increasingly, from now until April 4, 2010, the application for mortgage modification eligibility and a short sale will be identical, so the computer software will blend together as the U. S. Dept. of Justice works out the kinks. So for a general perspective here, mortgage modifications, short sales, and deeds-in-lieu-of-foreclosure are synonymous.
It’s gratifying to read that their consultation starts with proposing a mortgage modification first. It’s the only way to go.
If the actual decision maker dares to say that they don’t have a necessary document, by golly, we get it to them in seconds. No complaining about fax machines (that seem to work just fine for a mortgage or refinance application).
For the record, our definition of a beneficial, affordable mortgage modification is a new, permanent monthly payment that is 31% of the distressed homeowner’s new monthly income. Part of the bank’s demonstrated treachery is to offer mortgage reinstatements or deferments disguised as mortgage modifications. Or they modify at 50% of the distressed homeowners income. These are NOT beneficial nor affordable.
Mandelman goes on to quote the negotiator as lamenting the predictable response of the distressed homeowner that the mortgage loan principal wasn’t reduced. I explain to my potential clients, hopefully in the initail consultation, that loan principal is always the last point that the bank decision maker will consider. Our job is to get an affordable monthly payment. We can’t specify the terms most negotiable by the lender. Remember, the lender/servicer is counting on this mortgage defaulting in the future anyway. They’re going to preserve equity at all cost. Lender underwriters are not anxious for us to tear ‘em a new one. They’d rather intimidate un-knowing individual distressed homeowners, or free mortgage modification counselors who don’t know much more than the poor homeowner.
I certainly identified with the low esteem that the general public, and even some successful mortgage modified homeowners. I get that air of suspicion every time I start a consultation. It’s not just me.
Quoting Mandelman: “The only lawyers in this country that are honored and revered by history are the lawyers who stood up for others when it was unpopular to do so. In fact our country was founded by lawyers who stood up when it was unpopular to do so.”
It does help explain some of the inevitable flaming I see on the internet. There are customers that just don’t listen. I remember extricating a cat from a wooden trap he’d gotten stuck in. The hissing I got while I worked at freeing him was amazing. (By the way, grab the scruff of the neck with one hand and then pin their back legs with your other hand. Those back claws will cut your arm off.) And he didn’t even say thank you on his way out. I’d still do it again though. Wouldn’t you?
Read Mandelman here
