If you’re like a lot of the people that visit this site, you found us through our sample hardship letter. We’ve literally had over 5,000 download the sample letter since the beginning of this year.
There’s been renewed interest since President Obama’s Home Affordable Modification program. Last week, I interviewed a professional hardship letter writer to get answers to homeowner-submitted questions. Becky DeGrossa has spent the last 2 years writing hardship letters for homeowners in all sorts of situations.
She used to be a professional counselor that helped couples through divorce and began writing hardship letters when one of those couples asked her to help them. Since that time, she’s been asked by local real estate agents and mortgage brokers to write letters for their clients and has even started taking clients online at Hardship Letters Written for You.
What’s a legitimate hardship? (1:05)
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Do you have to be behind in your mortgage payments to put in a hardship package? Should you miss payments to make them pay attention to your package? (1:40)
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Should you “make ‘em cry” in your letter or keep it more business like? (2:45)
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What absolutely MUST be in a hardship letter for it to be successful? And what shouldn’t be in the letter? (5:20)
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We also discuss:
1. How to make sure your package gets attention at the lender rather than being ignored
2. What you should include in your hardship package even if the lender doesn’t require or ask for it
3. How to document cash only income so your lender will allow it
4. Whether or not you can include income from people not included in the original loan when applying for a Home Affordable modification
All you have to do to listen to the rest of the call is put in your name and e-mail address below and we’ll you a link to download it. This will also sign you up to be automatically notified as articles are posted to the site. You may unsubscribe any time you like, of course.
Tags: hardship letter, Home Affordable Modification
June 1st, 2009 at 9:24 am
Thank you for sharing such important information. We are facing a foreclosure because of the loan modification offered by the lender was too high. Yet, all the “new” modification experts say they can reduce our payments lower that what the lender offered. I will never understand why one would have to pay a third party for help.
Todd Reply:
June 1st, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Thanks for writing…I’m glad you found it useful. I agree that no one should HAVE to pay for help. That doesn’t mean, however, that choosing to pay for help is necessarily a bad thing.
Becky and I discuss this on the call a little bit. Some people are too busy. Others are too emotionally overwhelmed. Others don’t speak English as their first language. There are all kinds of legitimate reasons people might choose to pay a company.
The big problem I have is loan mod companies scamming people by telling them they can get lower payments than is possible. For an example, register to listen to the entire call and then listen to the questions at the end.
September 16th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
We have been informing B of A since January that we were facing financial issues, and here it nine months later and we still have no resolution with our request for assistance. I am told this is because we have a jumbo loan and do not qualify under Obama’s plan for assistance. We are using an Attorney as well!
Our income has been affected by the economy like so many other Californians’ at no fault of our own. Our income has dropped in half, but yet because we owe over the jumbo limit on our home; it appears the government expects that we should have enough money not to be faced with financial distress. ”
We have had our home on the market since January and we have not had any interest in our home. We have exhausted our savings are now able to make partial payments. I have notified the bank this would happen in every letter since January and explained that if there was no immediate restructure plan in sight, we could not manage the whole payment any longer, so now we are now in default on our loan. The bank is not working with us and only offered to RAISE our payments instead of reducing the payment. It appears they want the house back.
Is there anything anyone can do help change this situation? Why are only people that have lower mortgages being helped? We are going to lose every penny that we have invested but that does not seem to matter to the lender or Obama. We get zero benefit from our tax contribution each year. We have a baby and will soon be homeless with ruined credit. Why is it that we are not just as important as people with lower home loans?
Todd Reply:
September 28th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
The reason there is no help for jumbo loans is because the number of them (in comparison to conforming loans) is fairly small. And there’s a limited amount of money to go around.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t help you or your family.
Your only real option is to move. I’d recommend not making any more payments and saving that money until they foreclose. Then you can use that money to move into a rental place and start over.
March 22nd, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Hey Todd!
How are things? You’re still amazing me with your content generation. How the heck do you do it?
Wanted to let you know that my old URL is history. It got hacked and I decided to let it go. Would you be so kind as to change the URL for me in this post to http://www.hardshipletterpro.com
I’d very much appreciate it!
Hope you’re well,
Becky
Todd Temaat Reply:
March 24th, 2010 at 10:32 am
It’s done, Becky.
Is our discount page still good? Shoot me an e-mail with the address you want me to point that discount link to.
Thanks for the kind words. Hope all is well with you!