You have finally secured a mortgage of your new home, and now you are currently living in it, that’s the good part. However, it is still not yet the end of your responsibility as a homeowner.
This time, you need to face handling and paying off your mortgage. But what you thought would be easy, for some homeowners, getting caught up with the mortgage is a total nightmare.
Whatever the reasons behind a late payment of your mortgage, you should consider tackling the issue as soon as it arises. It surely is a steep road to take, but there are still options that you can resort to fix your mortgage repayments.
Here are the best solutions we have come up with for every struggling homeowner.
Talk to your lender.
The basic rule to remember never avoids your lenders’ calls and consecutive mails. You already know that you have missed a repayment for a month or two, or even more- the moment you continue with your sheer denial, more problems will arise. Sitting down and having a talk directly to your lender as soon as you recognize the problem will give you more options to solve the issue.
The best-case scenario is that your lender will open a table for discussion regarding your problem and help you with it. One of their reasons is that it is possible that the market already has a high percentage of foreclosed properties and they want to save yours.
That is why it is essential that the lender your mortgage broker found is approachable and open to assist you when such a case arises. The Precision Funding can help you look for a lender that you can efficiently work with when this kind of scenario happens.
Refinancing
Extending your loan out to a longer-term might be the best solution to your mortgage repayment problem. However, you can only resort to refinancing if you already exhausted all your other options. Refinancing your mortgage loan requires you to pay for extra fees- this is due that your lender will break your existing mortgage contract.
Yet it is imperative to emphasize that spacing your loan out for a longer-term makes you pay more interest rate a longer time. If you can handle reduced mortgage monthly repayment fee but with extended months in your contract, then go ahead and have a refinancing.
Switch to interest-only payments
The other helpful solution to handle your mortgage repayment issue is to have it switch to an interest-only. This method means, you only pay for the accumulated interest rate per month, which is more light to handle rather than having the monthly fee plus the interest fee.
However, this solution is considered as a short-term solution to your problem. You still need to pay off the capital amount at one point. But this solution can work, especially if you are trying to save your house while you are still on a hunt looking for a decent job to pay off all your debts.
Lower down your monthly payments
The day you have closed the deal with your mortgage lender, your mortgage contract is embedded in all kinds of insurance and other fees. Which is technically you agreed upon, when such a crisis happens like, shorter cash-flow, you can opt-out to having all these extra fees included in your mortgage contract removed.
The payments that go to property insurance, local taxes, and the PMI or the Private Mortgage Insurance can all be removed or reduced if you talk to your lender. See if you can lower all these add-ons while you are still struggling in paying off your monthly mortgage.
Lower down the principal amount
You might be wondering why your mortgage lender will agree to this agreement, well one thing is clear when it comes to foreclosed properties, the entire transaction is a gruelling process. The most mortgage lenders will agree to lower down the principal amount rather than to move forward with a foreclosure process. This is highly working on your advantage, so better use it to benefit you.
Forbearance
This solution is only applicable for homeowners who are temporarily halted with their field of work due to health reasons, accident, or other unanticipated misfortune that requires them to be on temporary leave. Asking your mortgage lender for a forbearance gives you an allowable time to collect and save money to pay for the monthly mortgage repayments.
Forbearance technically means to suspend all the mortgage payments temporarily. However, a payment plan should be presented and must make sure to have the account up to date.
Takeaway
As a responsible homeowner paying off the monthly mortgage and making sure it is up to date is just one of your responsibility. However, unprecedented cases happen and monthly repayments are delayed but don’t lose hope yet as there are still options that can help you resolve the problem. If you are struggling with your mortgage repayment, it is still not the end, just look for alternatives and start talking to your lender to have professional advice.
