Don"t Be Fooled Again - Avoid Underwater Mortgage Advice Schemes
If you're like Kristin and me, you've already been fooled once-fooled by the real estate bubble into thinking that it would never be possible for you to be faced with an underwater mortgage.
We all know how well that's worked out for us, don't we? But if you're in an underwater mortgage now, don't let yourself be fooled again (with thanks to The Who) by falling for one of the underwater mortgage advice scams out there.
No one is going to be able to make your underwater mortgage go away, no matter what they promise and no matter how high their fees.
And they won't be able to give you any advice that you can't get from actual legitimate sources for free or for the small price of an e-book! What they might do, though, is give you mortgage advice that will actually set you back or that might even be illegal.
An underwater mortgage is more than challenging enough without that kind of help! In one common underwater mortgage scam, a "short-sale service," will offer to represent you in your short sale-for a fee, of course.
Then the service gives a low-ball offer from a "straw buyer" to your mortgage lender.
When the mortgage lender accepts, the service then flips the house to a new, legitimate buyer with a higher offer, and keeps the difference for itself.
This is called fraud.
And since you hired the scam artists, you could be on the hook for it.
The fact is that there are a lot of legitimate real estate agents available to help you through the short-sale process.
And while you may want an attorney to help you look things over before you choose to foreclose, you can learn all you need about strategically defaulting on underwater mortgages from this website and other legitimate sources like it.
You also don't want to let yourself be scammed by your mortgage lender.
The mortgage industry is outraged about people strategically defaulting on underwater mortgages.
How dare we treat our contracts exactly the way that other businesses do?!? Your lender and people representing the mortgage industry-including members of the federal government-will tell you that your life will be ruined and that you're an irresponsible person if you walk away from an underwater mortgage.
What's that, again? In February 2010, the Mortgage Owners' Association defaulted on their own headquarters! Why? Because their mortgage was underwater! Kristin and I think we've all let ourselves be deluded by these stupid, dishonest double standards enough, don't you? The fact is that you aren't out of options at all when you discover that your mortgage is underwater, even if you're seriously underwater by 20% or more.
But you can't listen to people who have a financial stake in your decisions if you're going to have a hope of making good choices about your family's financial future.
Finally, don't let anyone tell you that you're alone in your underwater mortgage.
If you're in this situation, you're one of the 25% of homeowners in the exact same boat! So, no, you didn't do anything wrong other than assuming that the financial services community knew what it was talking about when it said that property values would just keep rising.
But we all know better now, right?
We all know how well that's worked out for us, don't we? But if you're in an underwater mortgage now, don't let yourself be fooled again (with thanks to The Who) by falling for one of the underwater mortgage advice scams out there.
No one is going to be able to make your underwater mortgage go away, no matter what they promise and no matter how high their fees.
And they won't be able to give you any advice that you can't get from actual legitimate sources for free or for the small price of an e-book! What they might do, though, is give you mortgage advice that will actually set you back or that might even be illegal.
An underwater mortgage is more than challenging enough without that kind of help! In one common underwater mortgage scam, a "short-sale service," will offer to represent you in your short sale-for a fee, of course.
Then the service gives a low-ball offer from a "straw buyer" to your mortgage lender.
When the mortgage lender accepts, the service then flips the house to a new, legitimate buyer with a higher offer, and keeps the difference for itself.
This is called fraud.
And since you hired the scam artists, you could be on the hook for it.
The fact is that there are a lot of legitimate real estate agents available to help you through the short-sale process.
And while you may want an attorney to help you look things over before you choose to foreclose, you can learn all you need about strategically defaulting on underwater mortgages from this website and other legitimate sources like it.
You also don't want to let yourself be scammed by your mortgage lender.
The mortgage industry is outraged about people strategically defaulting on underwater mortgages.
How dare we treat our contracts exactly the way that other businesses do?!? Your lender and people representing the mortgage industry-including members of the federal government-will tell you that your life will be ruined and that you're an irresponsible person if you walk away from an underwater mortgage.
What's that, again? In February 2010, the Mortgage Owners' Association defaulted on their own headquarters! Why? Because their mortgage was underwater! Kristin and I think we've all let ourselves be deluded by these stupid, dishonest double standards enough, don't you? The fact is that you aren't out of options at all when you discover that your mortgage is underwater, even if you're seriously underwater by 20% or more.
But you can't listen to people who have a financial stake in your decisions if you're going to have a hope of making good choices about your family's financial future.
Finally, don't let anyone tell you that you're alone in your underwater mortgage.
If you're in this situation, you're one of the 25% of homeowners in the exact same boat! So, no, you didn't do anything wrong other than assuming that the financial services community knew what it was talking about when it said that property values would just keep rising.
But we all know better now, right?
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