Oregonlive.com has two stories of Oregonians trying to get loan modifications. (Remember, loan modifications are tough but I do know of at least one person that has completed it. But the stories are few and far between.)
As of late July, fewer than one in 10 eligible homeowners who had missed two payments had been given a three-month trial modification, the government said. The trial deal trimmed his payment to $890 for three months while Citi determined his eligibility for a longer-term modification. He would owe a balloon payment of $1,780 in July if rejected.
I don’t like the 3-month trial. It seems like they just want to get money out of you and leaving you more destitute when it is very likely they won’t approve. Fastforward a month or so,
Twice representatives told him the repayment program he’d qualified for was no longer valid. They promised to enroll him in another program, possibly Obama’s. They advised him not to make his balloon payment until he’d been qualified.
Twice, other reps told him they had no record of him ever being enrolled in that second program.
You should read the whole article. It shows all of the things that can go wrong. Loan modifications are where short sales were a year or two ago. Short sales were finally hitting the market and banks were getting overwhelmed while understaffed. With loan modifications being talked about on most media outlets it has led to one lender saying they are getting 15,000-20,000 requests a month.
Once again, I am not saying not to try, just don’t leave it to the last moment and have a back up plan, like a short sale.
