Читать книгу Foreclosure Investing For Dummies - Ralph R. Roberts - Страница 58

As a real estate broker, I once met with a couple facing foreclosure. The husband worked two jobs and the wife took care of the bills. Though the husband was working hard to make ends meet, the couple had fallen behind in their mortgage payments and were receiving notices from their lender. We set up a meeting at my office to do a conference call with the lender to negotiate a solution.

When the couple arrived at my office, I immediately saw the nature of the problem. The wife was decked out in designer clothes and adorned in jewelry that would have made the queen of England jealous. After looking over their finances, I explained that to avoid foreclosure, the couple would need to slash expenses and sell some of their more valuable assets.

Upon hearing my words, the wife was visibly upset. Angry and near tears, she stood up and asked, “What do you want me to do … take the clothes off my back and the rings off my fingers?”

I said, “You can leave your clothes on, but let’s take a closer look at those rings.” The couple were $10,000 behind on their mortgage payments. I agreed to take the jewelry and give them $10,000 in return so they could sell the house and move on. The next day, I took the jewelry to a friend of mine who owned a jewelry store. He appraised the rings at $5,000. So I took a $5,000 loss, but I scored a great Valentine’s Day gift for my wife!

You can’t offer legal advice if you’re not a licensed lawyer, but you can inform homeowners of their options and recommend professionals who can help. If the homeowners can refinance their way out of a foreclosure, you may be able to steer them to a loan officer or financial adviser who can provide additional assistance. In Chapter 4, I explain how to assemble a team of experts who can help you buy and sell foreclosure properties so that you’ll have plenty of experts on hand to recommend to the homeowners.