You’ve had more than your share of difficulties in the last few months. You’ve lost a loved one or been through a difficult divorce. You’ve lost a job or had to change jobs. You’ve lost your health and have medical expenses stacking up. Maybe you’re struggling with increased utility prices or fuel expenses or an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) that is unbearable. Perhaps, your property tax bill has gone through the roof.

However, while you’re occupied by trying to stop foreclosure from happening, you’re being constantly deluged with calls, letters and even house calls.

These investors are in the business of buying homes from people who are in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure and then selling these properties for a profit. They know that many people who are facing foreclosure have no alternative other than to sell their home for whatever price they can get.

Is it a good idea to sell your home to these investors to prevent a foreclosure? This depends, it should not be your first choice though; before selling to one of these investors, you should investigate other options like rearranging your loan first.

You Can Stop Foreclosure Through A Workout Of Your Loan

If you have missed a few payments, your credit score will drop dramatically; once this data is on your credit report, it will be difficult if not impossible to get a new loan to refinance your existing mortgage.

Every lender has what is known as a loss mitigation department, whose purpose is to limit the potential losses, which could be faced by the lender on their loans. Part of their duties are to arrange payment plans with homeowners whose mortgages are in default to get them current with their payments again. This process of working with the loss mitigation department does not require getting approval for a new loan, which makes this an attractive alternative for those who are in default on their mortgages.

If You Do Work Out a Repayment Plan, Beware of the Challenges

Loss Mitigation departments are lightly staffed. One of the biggest problems with workout plans is caused by employee overload. At time of high default rates, like we’re experiencing now, the employees have too many files to work on. And they have a limited time to process each case. The result is, the lender offers you a ‘canned’ repayment plan that has too short of a ‘catch up’ time and too large of monthly payment increase that is not realistic for your budget to sustain.

Because you’re between a rock and a hard place you’re tempted to take it to keep your home from being foreclosed on. In reality you just set yourself up for a failure. A few months down the stretch, you’ll be back in foreclosure again.

How to Hire Foreclosure Workout Professionals

One of the easiest ways to get out of foreclosure by using the loss mitigation process is by getting a professional in the field to negotiate with the mortgage lender for you. There are companies who have extensive experience in this area and have negotiated thousands of repayment cases successfully for homeowners whose mortgages are in default. Some of these companies have strong working relationships with the loss mitigation departments of mortgage lenders all over the country.

Firms like these will take a thorough look at your finances and develop a repayment plan, which will meet your budget in order to allow you to successfully get back on track with your payments. These professionals have the inside track on the repayment programs, which may be available from different lenders, they may even be able to negotiate a lower interest rate to help you reduce your payments.

You may think that these services will be too expensive, given your financial difficulties; however, most of these services charge a low flat fee, usually about a months payment. With the money and time these negotiations can save you, they usually more than pay for themselves? They can often even negotiate a deferral of your next payment.

If Lender Mediation Is Not An Option

What if loss mitigation isn’t a possibility for you? Then you may have to go ahead and sell your home to prevent having a foreclosure record on your credit report. Listing your home for sale with a realtor is the best way to go if you have ample time, since you will be able to get a higher price for your home. If you are short on time, you may find that selling to an investor makes the most sense; just try to deal with an investment company, which has the resources to close the deal quickly.