The firm probably closed on our first short sale sometime in 2007. Having watched how the public has come to grips with the housing crash and subsequent recession, I’d have to say that the worst part of being delinquent on one’s mortgage is not financial; it is the stress.
By and large, even if your house is about to be auctioned, this isn’t the middle ages-at least not in New York. If you did nothing to help yourself (literally-nothing) and your home was taken over by your lender, you’d get a knock at the door and a real estate agent would introduce themselves and explain that the lander now owned the home. They would, in all likelihood, offer you a “cash for keys” program where the bank would pay you to leave the home. Rather than go through the expense and difficulty of en eviction process, they offer you moving expenses and cash to make your next arrangement for a rental, and you’d have some time to move.
You won’t come home to a padlock on your door. New York doesn’t have a cop or Sheriff show up and pile your stuff in the yard. If this doesn’t sound reassuring, that’s the point: no one wants to lose their home or face eviction no matter how nice the banks act. So even with cash for keys as an option, there is stress. There is a sense of loss. There is disruption. There is coping with a massive hit to the credit and the consequences of failure.
This isn’t lost on us. We understand that being behind on the mortgage is stressful. We get the anxiety, the lack of certainty, and the overall helplessness. We also have been beating the drum for utilizing your options from the day you face missing a mortgage payment to the day you successfully modify your loan or close to a new buyer on your own terms.
So, when facing the prospect of financial distress and the possibility of foreclosure, remember Franklin D Roosevelt’s famous words: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
