Speaker 1: 1:39

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the presenter and do not necessarily reflect the views or position of the podcast host. That are facing foreclosure with options so that they can make the best decision for their situation or exit the property with dignity. Today, folks, we have a very special guest and you definitely want to get your pen and paper out because she is going to drop some gems today. Her name is Julia Iden. She's the president of Events Advanced Mortgage Education. Julia, welcome. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Speaker 2: 2:32

Amy, I appreciate you having me and I look forward to the opportunity to helping your listeners, because you know what. There are hundreds and thousands, if not millions, of homeowners in this country who woke up this morning and they are facing foreclosure and they have no idea. They have no idea how the process works, they have no idea what options are available to them and they have no idea how bad that foreclosure is really going to be. And in my 30 plus years in the mortgage industry I have had many, many homeowners come back to me after the fact and say I wish somebody had told me this information.

Speaker 2: 3:18

How come my real estate agent didn't tell me? How come my real estate attorney didn't tell me? How come my loan officer didn't tell me? How come my real estate attorney didn't tell me? How come my loan officer didn't tell me? And I said, because you know what Nobody told them. They learned about loan origination and how to get that consumer into the loan and what the products were that were available to them Fixed rate, adjustable rate, interest only, that kind of stuff and they got them into the mortgage. But now these folks are in a mortgage and some of them, you know these mortgages are 30, 40 years in term, they'll be committed longer to their mortgages than many will be committed to their marriages, unfortunately.

Speaker 2: 3:55

Right the marriage, I think, is easier to get out of.

Speaker 1: 3:57

Right, and that is why Foreclosure Chronicles is created, so the homeowner will know that they do have options.

Speaker 2: 4:06

And, plus, I've been there I lost doors during that great time in 08 so I get it, and that's why I have you on the show to help shine some light and let these homeowners know that they do have options and that they can get help and provide, get help to get help, pretty much so during my career, I've had many professionals who say to me when I tell them I work with delinquent homeowners who are struggling to make their mortgage payments because something bad, a hardship has happened to them, and they go oh, you work with low income rural housing folks and I go no, bad things happen to good people all the time. Hardship has no regard for your social standing or your financial status. Okay, in my 30 plus years of doing this, I have worked with millionaires. Okay, but just because you're a millionaire, you know that I did a deal once with somebody who had a house in Connecticut and their mortgage payments were $40,000 a month. They made more in a monthly mortgage payment than I earned in an entire year at the time.

Speaker 2: 5:20

But because something happened to them and they could not afford to make their mortgage payments. And they had a $40,000 mortgage but the house was only worth 25. And they didn't have the money to cover the difference and they were trying to do a workout deal with their mortgage company because something bad happened to them. So homeowners out there I've worked with doctors, lawyers it runs the gamut. Okay, bad things happen to good homeowners and they need to know that they do have options available out there to them. Okay, it has happened to me more times than I could count and I'd need more than two hands where, before we could get through a resolution, the homeowner committed suicide because they just didn't believe they had any options available to them, and that's a terrible, terrible thing. That is.

Speaker 1: 6:11

That is and I'm glad you mentioned that because on the last episode mentioned earlier, we actually had a counselor on the show who went through the five stages of grief. So if you haven't listened to that, make sure you go back to listen to that, because that's one thing we do not want to happen is for you to end your life over something that you can get help for. So, julia, what do you bring to the table?

Speaker 2: 6:39

Okay.

Speaker 2: 6:40

So I started in the mortgage industry way back in 1987, working for a mortgage insurance company, and I was an auditor. I became very familiar with the life of a mortgage, the entities who have a vested interest in this mortgage and what their interests are, the processes that can affect the mortgage, like bankruptcy and foreclosure, and the timelines associated with those things, because each state is different. And so I did that for several years. And then I moved into their loss mitigation department and there I was a negotiator. I was the person who the homeowner, when they were in trouble, had to come in front of, present their documents, lay out their story to me and I decided whether I was going to help them or not, based on their financials and their hardship letter. So here's tip number one of the session Okay, many people will say to homeowners keep your hardship letter. And that's a letter that you write to the mortgage company. And there are three parts. Part number one what happened to get you behind? Okay. Number two what did you do to try to fix it? I took a loan against my 401k, I got a part-time job, I sold some stocks and bonds, you know. I sold off some assets. You did something. Okay, what did you do to try to fix it? And the last part is your desire and homeowner. You're going to say, if you want to stay or you want to get out. And I've had the homeowner say to me we're fighting over the money like cats and dogs and if we don't get out of here, one of the two of us is going to be dead. Okay, we don't want to talk about staying in the house and the options available for that. We want to talk about what we have to do to get out of here because we are not interested in staying. So what is that homeowner's desire? Do they want to stay in the house and try to work it out, or do they want to get out? So that's their hardship letter. It's the most important document that they will send to the mortgage company because after reading that letter, the person who is the negotiator is going to decide whether they're helping that homeowner or not, based on what's written in that letter.

Speaker 2: 8:50

So, for example, real estate agent called me up and said I've been working with this guy and I think he needs to talk to you. Usually, can he have given your number and let him call you. And I said okay. So he called me up and he said look, we haven't made a mortgage payment in two months and the mortgage company is about to refer me over to the foreclosure attorney and start the foreclosure process. And I said well, why haven't you made a payment in two months? And he said well, my wife is a school teacher and so she hasn't worked the last two months and because she didn't work she didn't get paid and we didn't have the money to make the mortgage payment.

Speaker 2: 9:27

Now, what I find, amy, is, it's not one thing that puts a homeowner behind, it is a combination of things that got them into the situation. So what I say to the homeowners, I want you to go back. So in your letter, when you write it, you'll go all the way back to when this very started and you'll tell the story from then until now. And I said go back to the beginning and tell me what happened. And he said well, he said four months ago, my two teenage daughters were on their way home from college for a weekend and they had an automobile accident and one of our daughters died and we had to cash in our life savings to pay for her funeral and my wife was on bereavement leave and while she's on bereavement leave she doesn't get paid.

Speaker 2: 10:11

So we don't have enough money to pay the mortgage payment. Wow, and I said, okay, that's what you need to put in your hardship letter, because that mortgage company get their phone rings off the hook every day. They're talking to homeowners, okay, who aren't paying. So you really have to make your case. And so some people will tell homeowners to keep their hardship letter to a paragraph or two. Make it short and sweet. That's not what I say. I say if it takes you 10 pages to write your letter, you take 10 pages to write your letter because at the end of reading your letter that person will decide whether they're helping you or not. Your letter will make or break your deal.

Speaker 1: 10:53

You know, I've heard that where some of the we'll say gurus out in the industry was like, like you said, keep it short, but with these three pointers it's like you can't keep it just to a paragraph, right? So if you don't get anything out of today, your hardship letter pretty much pour your heart out and go back to the beginning of where it all started. Now, now I know you say you were loss mitigated. So in today's time will that loss mitigator read that five to 10 page letter?

Speaker 2: 11:28

Yeah, they're still reading the letters. They get scanned into the system and they get read, because that's how they determine whether you qualify or not. So they are reading the letters and they're very important. So as a negotiator, it was my job to contact delinquent homeowners and, if at all possible, cure the delinquency, bring the loan current so that the homeowners can make the payment, because the name of the game at the insurance company is don't pay that claim or pay as little as possible. You know how it works girl.

Speaker 2: 12:01

Well, let's say it's a $100 thousand dollar loan with 10% mortgage insurance. So if the mortgage company, the insurance company, just sits back and lets this property go to foreclosure sale, we're going to pay 10% of the outstanding balance on the loan. So, a hundred thousand dollar loan, 10%. We're going to write a claim check for $10,000. But if I can fix it so the homeowner can make the payments on a go-forward basis and that property doesn't go to foreclosure sale, I just saved that insurance company $10,000. So my job as a negotiator was to contact delinquent homeowners, talk with them, make sure they had a valid hardship okay, have them pull together their documents, write a hardship letter, submit it in Okay, we would run it through the system. And so the process. Homeowners, there's nothing for you to be afraid of. You have been through this process before. It is the same exact process as loan origination. So you're going to submit bank statements, tax returns Okay, pay stubs. You're going to fill out a financial form, just like you did to get the loan. They're going to pull your credit report okay, they're going to read your hardship letter. So there's nothing, homeowners, don't be afraid. You've been through this process before. The only difference is, instead of verifying income and assets. They're just looking to make sure you're not hiding income and assets and as diligent as they were in making sure that you were telling the truth. Because when you lie, cover up by trick, scheme or device a mortgage company, that is called mortgage fraud. Okay, and you'll go to jail for a long, long time if they catch you. I do not recommend that you ever try to lie to your mortgage company. Always tell them the truth. So they're going to fill out that financial form. So it's the same process as loan origination. We're just looking to make sure that you truly don't have any assets.

Speaker 2: 14:03

And here's two big misnomers for consumers out there. Misnomer number one my credit sucks because I've been struggling financially. And when I got the loan, the one thing I learned about mortgage companies is you got to have a good credit score in order for them to work with you. But when you're going through the loss mitigation department, that bad credit score just substantiates your claim that you are struggling financially. So if you have poor credit, don't let that stop you. You still need to be talking with your mortgage company. Ok, so don't be afraid. It's the same process as loan origination. The same types of documents you're going to fill out and submit to that mortgage company. Ok, and be honest. Okay, when you're filling out the forms. And hey, if you got a $5 million house and it's only selling for three and you got a million dollars in a bank, it's still not enough money to cover the difference between the sale and what you owe. You still could be in trouble even though you got a million dollars in the bank. Okay, so fill out. The form needs to be true, it needs to be accurate, it needs to be correct. I'm going to send that into the mortgage company. So I was a negotiator for the mortgage insurance company calling delinquent homeowners, getting them on the phone, trying to get them to do workout deals, and I did that for several years. And then I became their corporate default manager, started traveling around the country going to large mortgage servicing shops, holding training sessions for their collections department, for their loss mitigation department.

Speaker 2: 15:53

Tip number three for your listeners how do you know you're in the right department? Because collections their job is to collect in full or get you to foreclosure as fast as possible. It is not their job to help you do a workout deal Okay, and the only thing a collector can offer you is to make a payment in half. So if they answer the phone and said, hi, this is Juilliard Mortgage Company and you said, look, something happened to me, I can't make my mortgage payment, they're going to say here's your options you pay in full today on the telephone or you make a payment in half for the next, however, months until your current. Other than that, we are sending you to foreclosure. You are talking to a collector. You're talking to the wrong person. They get bonus measured and paid to collect in full, not to help you with a workout deal.

Speaker 2: 16:30

OK now, after being a corporate default manager for several years, mortgage investor came to me and I went to work for them and I was their on site loss mitigation consultant at one of the top five mortgage servicing departments in the country. I had a $5 million stop loss limit, so as long as it wasn't more than $5 million, they could walk into my office, which was on site at the mortgage company, and they could lay a deal in front of me and I had the authority to look at that. And so it was my job to manage mortgage servicers and make sure that they were offering homeowners who were in default, who had a valid hardship, a workout opportunity. Now, what's a valid hardship? What will get you a deal with your mortgage company? Death, divorce, illness, military deployment, self-employed borrower with a decline in business?

Speaker 2: 17:27

There are a lot out there of options that will get you a deal with your mortgage company. What doesn't? Well, I had a baby and I decided I didn't want to go back to work. And they are not doing a deal with you just because you decided you didn't go back to work. Okay, did you see that? Did you see that? Yes, and it's one of the biggest ones. That happens all the time. Well, what happens is they have the baby and then they realize how much daycare costs. And when they sit down and look at the dollars and cents, by the time they have to get their clothes cleaned, pay for lunch at work, pay for daycare for the baby and all the stuff that requires, then it actually costs more money than it would be just to stay at home. And so the wife says I'm not because I have two or three kids, and when you start adding up that much in daycare, it really does. So just because you quit your job to stay at home and take care of the kids, that is not going to get you a workout deal with your mortgage company. My boss is a horse's patootie, so I quit my job. Well, you knew you had financial obligations. You should have lined up a new job before you quit that old job because you knew you had a mortgage payment to make.

Speaker 2: 18:50

We do not do deals with people who just willy-nilly quit their job. However, sometimes exceptions can be made. So the negotiator comes into my office and she says Julie, I know that Freddie Mac investor guideline is you don't do workout deals with people who quit their job. But let me tell you what's going on. There's this nice young couple. They live in Clayton, north Carolina.

Speaker 2: 19:16

The husband has a sister. She was a crack addict. She got pregnant, went to the hospital, gave birth to the baby and during the night she snuck out and left the baby behind. His name was listed on the paperwork when she was admitted to the hospital. The hospital called him up and said it's you or social services? And he said, no, we'll take the baby. But because of the mother's crack addictions, the daycare centers would not take that child till it was a year old because of the health complications associated with her addiction. So his wife had quit her job to stay at home for the year and take care of that baby.

Speaker 2: 19:49

And the negotiator said now I know you don't do deals with people who quit their job to stay at home and take care of a baby. But I thought, if I explained this to you, that you would be willing to waive the guideline and make an exception. So if the mortgage company is telling you, homeowner, that there is a guideline and you're not meeting it, you need to say to the person over the phone look, you can't make the exception for me, but you know who can Transfer me to the person who has the authority, who can make an exception on my behalf. Okay, and so if they're telling you you're not meeting the guidelines, ask them whose guideline is it? And can you get me through? Is it the investor's guideline? Is it the insurance company's guideline? Whose guideline is it? Give me their number so I can call them up on the telephone and talk with them.

Speaker 2: 20:43

Now here's another helpful hint. It is much better for the homeowner to make this call themselves. I know they don't know anything about mortgages. They don't know anything about investors or mortgage servicers or mortgage insurance companies, none of that stuff. But here is the truth, the raw truth.

Speaker 2: 21:03

It is very easy for me to say to the real estate agent no, because then you have to call them back and tell them over the phone that the investor said no and listen to them cry, and it's really hard. Okay, she's already crying on the phone that the investor said no and listen to them cry, and it's really hard. Okay, she's already crying on the phone, but when he starts crying too, those are really hard conversations to have. It's easy for me to say to their attorney no, because then their attorney has to call them on the phone. It is very difficult for me to say directly to the homeowner no, I'm not going to help you.

Speaker 2: 21:38

Okay, because in the back of my mind I'm thinking as soon as I hang up the phone what is this homeowner going to do? Are they going to go to that? I hate my mortgage company website which tells them the day before foreclosure, run down to the home improvement store and you buy a couple bags of cement. And if your pipes run through the cement slab and that's how they build them in Texas, on slabs, with all the pipes running through the cement slab and they pour cement into their pipes the day of the foreclosure sale, now what does the investor have to do with that property? Scrape the house to the ground and all they have left is a vacant lot. That homeowner thinks they have no power over that investor or that insurance company, but the investor and the insurance company and the mortgage servicer are very concerned about what that homeowner might do to this house. Amy, have you ever seen some of these houses by the time they get to foreclosure sale?

Speaker 1: 22:33

Oh yeah, and you know what? There is a movie out about that. What happened back in 08, 09, there is a movie out I think it's something 99, and it showed people putting stuff where stuff don't need to be on.

Speaker 2: 22:51

I'm telling you, I had one one time. If I hadn't seen the paperwork and the photos for myself, I never would have believed it. They took the windows, the doors, all the trim, all the light fixtures, the switches, the outlets, all the appliances, the toilets, the tubs. They rolled up the sod out of the yard and took the air conditioning system off the pad. It was nothing but walls on a dirt patch, and they took some red spray paint and they wrote me some messages that I cannot repeat over the air because I'm sure that you would be in trouble and so would I. Okay, these people, they are very mad because nobody they feel like nobody's helping them, and the reason is is because they keep hitting collections and they can't get through. So, as I was out working on site at this mortgage servicing shop on behalf of the investor for a couple of years, I made friends with the people who actually do the jobs and after a couple of months they started to feel sorry for me and they started to tell me the truth. Okay, I know the VP explained it to you this way, but let me show you how this really works. My friend Wanda, who is the manager of a collections group, pulled me aside one day and she said girlfriend, let me tell you how this really works.

Speaker 2: 24:11

The VP of collections gets a bonus at the end of the year and it's based on three things. The first thing is call talk time. We have to keep our call talk time under two minutes. There is a giant board up in the corner of the room of collections and across the board it says we have 15,000 calls to make today. Currently we've made 5,000 of those calls and our average talk time is and if it's over two minutes the board turns red. If it's under two minutes it's green. So you, out of the corner of your eye as a collector, can see that board turn from green to red. And what do you know? You need to make more calls faster because we're over on the time. So at the end of the year was the call talk time less than two minutes and in two minutes it's not time enough for that homeowner to explain what's going on. It's time enough for the person to say paid a day in full payment in half for the next couple months or we're sending you to foreclosure and get off the phone. Okay, she said.

Speaker 2: 25:08

The second thing they're measured on is what percentage paid in full. Of all the people we spoke to at the end of the year, did 90% of them pay their loans current like they were supposed to? If they did, yahoo, I'm getting a big old fat bonus. And then the third thing is when we look at our delinquent portfolio, where do the bulk of these delinquent loans fall? Do they fall into the 30 day bucket, meaning the 15th of the month has passed and they've not yet made their mortgage payment, but it is not past the end of the month. So technically they just have to make a late payment. And as long as they make the payment and it's applied prior to the last business day of the month, they don't get reported to the credit bureau. The only thing that happens is they pay the late fee $50 to the mortgage company. And you know what the mortgage company gets to keep that money. They'd like every single homeowner to make their payment on the 17th, because the only thing that would happen is they will collect more money. So if the bulk of the delinquent loans fall into that 30-day bucket of collectors, yah, that VP is getting a big old fat bonus at the end of the year. But if the bulk of those delinquent loans fall 60 to 90 or 90 to 120 days into fall.

Speaker 2: 26:29

Now it's costing money. They're having to hire foreclosure attorneys, they're having to do drive-bys and I don't mean a bang bang bang drive-by oh, they'd get more money if they did it that way. What I mean is they have hired a real estate agent to drive by the house and do what they call a BPO, a broker's price opinion, and it just tells them three things. One, is there a house there? And I've gotten these before and it said there's no house there and it turned out to be loan fraud, okay. Two, does it look like the people in the house are the people who should be living in the house?

Speaker 2: 27:03

Because sometimes the homeowners hey, if they don't want to stay, amy, they will get a truck in the middle of the night, they will pack all their belongings and drive away before the sun comes up and you will never hear from them or see them again. Okay, they will disappear. You cannot make them stay if they want to leave. And I've had homeowners that we've hired attorneys and then gotten sheriffs, evicted them out of the property and over the weekend they busted in the windows and got back in the house again and we had to go through the process all over to get them out. So if they want to stay, you can't get them out, and if they want to go, you can't stay. So really, that homeowner's desire is key, because you can't make them do what they don't want to do okay.

Speaker 2: 27:49

So let's see where was I got off track, talking about, or? Sometimes I just get so worked up. So I was trying to help homeowners do workout deals my entire career and then, in 2003, I looked around and I could see 2008 coming like a freight train in the night. We were in the middle of the re-fi boom. Okay, my husband, the loan officer, making money hand over fist. All you needed was a heartbeat and the ability to sign your name with a credit score of 580. And that's bad, ok, and they would give you a stated yeah. Now, internally in the industry, we call them liar loans because we knew the homeowner was lying to us when we looked across the table and said now you just tell me how much money you earn, and I'm not going to verify a thing, I'm not asking anybody, you don't have to produce any documents and the homeowner said well, in that case, I make one hundred fifty thousand dollars a year.

Speaker 2: 28:52

And I said now tell me how many assets you have, and, as a matter of fact, I'm not going to verify those. And I said well, I got $250,000.

Speaker 2: 29:00

And so we knew that was happening and I looked around and I knew, when you were doing 100% financing no money down, with a credit score 580, stated income, stated asset loan I knew where this was going. Okay, this was going to foreclosure, sale these people as soon as they something happens a flat tire, a flat tire on the car? Okay, the refrigerator dies, as soon as something happens, they are not going to be able to make that mortgage payment and they are going into fault on this loan. And so I looked around and I said you know what? Nobody is teaching the real estate professionals about this. We're teaching them about loan origination, but now that this homeowner's got a 30-year mortgage and all these things can happen to him, it's called life.

Speaker 1: 29:46

Okay.

Speaker 2: 29:47

You can't expect to go through 30, 40, 50, 60 years of life and nothing bad ever happened to you, but if something bad, a hardship, were to happen to you, that there are options available to homeowners out there. And so in 2003, I trotted on down to the North Carolina Banking Commission, the North Carolina State Bar and the North Carolina Real Estate Commission and I said, hey, I'm going to teach your licensees how to work with delinquent homeowners. And they said girl, don't you know? We're in the middle of the refi boom and all you need is a 580 credit score and we have the ability to sign your name in a heartbeat and we'll give you a loan. And I said I know, and I know exactly where these are going. And I am here to tell you, after speaking with tens of thousands of delinquent homeowners over my many, many decades in this industry, that the first call they make is to their loan officer or the mortgage broker. And it sounds like this hey, bill, it's Julie. Look, I wanted to give you a call because I lost my job two months ago. I thought by now I'd have another one, but when they closed the plant, all of us got laid off, so the job market got flooded and I cannot find a job to save my life not any kind of job and now I need some money to catch up on my mortgage loan and hold me over till I can get a job. At which point the loan offer said oh, you're unemployed. You see, that's going to be a problem and you're not paying on the loan that you currently have with us. And if you're not paying on the loan you have now, I can't make you another loan.

Speaker 2: 31:26

And the loan officer hangs up the phone from the homeowner, who now calls to their real estate agent and said hey, since you sold me the house, I'm thinking about selling the house. Why don't you stop on by, take a look at it, tell me what you think I can get? And the agent says sure. And at three o'clock I, the homeowner, called to my mortgage company and I said how much do I owe you? What's my unpaid principal balance? I said, julie, you owe us $200,000. I said thank you very much and I hung up the phone.

Speaker 2: 31:54

The agent showed up at seven o'clock at my house and sat down with my husband and I, gave us a very nice presentation and then, at the very end, she said based on the most recent sales in your neighborhood, I think the best we can do for you is $175,000. Isn't that great. Now I am doing the math in the back of my head. $200,000 minus $175,000 means I got to come up with $25,000 just to pay off the mortgage company. That doesn't count the real estate commission or any closing costs. I got to pay and, heck, if I had that kind of money, girl, I'd be making the payment Till the real estate market turned around. Then I would sell the house and make money on it. So my husband and I, we looked at the real estate agent and said thanks for coming, we're going to talk about it and we'll give you a call. And we let the real estate agent walk out the front door. We looked at each other and said I guess we're just waiting for a foreclosure sale because we don't have any other options available to us, when in fact, if they did get in to the loss mitigation department, there are options. So earlier I said how do you know the difference? How do you know when you're in the right department? And I said I explained how you'd know if you were in collections.

Speaker 2: 33:08

In law mitigation, the very first thing they're going to say to the homeowner is we can't do a thing for you till we have your financial packets. So we're going to send a letter off to you. It's going to tell you how to write a hardship letter. It's going to have a blank financial form for you to fill out and then it's going to have a list of documents that you need to attach bank statements, pay stubs, tax returns and you're going to send that stuff back into us. We're going to enter it into our system. We're going to pull your credit report. We're going to order an appraisal. We're going to load that into the system, just like we did with loan origination Okay, except for on the back end. It's a different system. We're going to load it in there and then it's going to generate which options you qualify for Repayment plan, special forbearance, loan modification okay, short sales deed and lose special forbearance.

Speaker 2: 34:01

So there are lots of options available to homeowners out there. They just have to get to the right department. So that's how you know if you're in the right department. If they are not asking you for documents and telling you you have to write a hardship letter, you're in the wrong place. And so my friend Wanda said and to add insult to injury. Here's the deal At the end of the day, when the collectors are done, there is a report that is generated and if they see that you did anything other than hang up the phone if you transferred that call over to loss mitigation, the first time you get a verbal warning.

Speaker 2: 34:43

The second time they write you up because it puts the loan in the more than 30 days delinquent bucket which is having a negative impact on the VP's bonus. They don't want you doing that. So if a collector heard you talking about your hardship and they felt sorry for you, this is what would happen at that servicing shop I worked at Because I would train those collectors. These are valid hardships. When you hear a homeowner say these words, transfer them to loss mitigation. That's when Wanda said they can't Because if they transfer it over it shows up on the report at the end of the day. First time they get a verbal warning, second time I write them up and the third time I fire them.

Speaker 2: 35:19

So what these collectors do is they write the loan number on a sticky note, then they have to ask for permission to disconnect from the call queue to go to the restroom and they walk through loss mitigation and they throw these sticky notes in the chairs. And everybody in loss mitigation knew exactly what that was when you came back to your desk and there was a sticky note in your chair. Somebody from collections had talked to a homeowner that they felt terrible for and they wanted to help. But if they transferred the call over and you see, I looked around and said, oh my gosh, they have got a system. And if you don't know how the system works and I, at this point, at 20 years in my career, working with insurance companies, investors and mortgage servicers, and I had no idea this is how it worked and if I had no idea, the real estate agents, the loan officers and the attorneys out there, they had no idea. The real estate agents, the loan officers and the attorneys out there, they had no idea. And so I need to teach them about this.

Speaker 2: 36:16

So when the consumers come to them and ask them for help, that you can point them in the right direction, into the loss mitigation department, where they can talk to the people who can help them. Okay, and so if you are behind on your mortgage, this is what you need to do Go back and get a statement from when you are current, because when you are current on your mortgage, it is the 1-800 number to customer service that prints on your statement. As soon as you get behind on your payment, the 1-800 number on your statement is the 1-800 number to the collections department. That is who you want to be talking to.

Speaker 1: 37:01

Can you repeat that, because I think everybody needs to hear this.

Speaker 2: 37:05

Okay, everybody, make sure you're writing down With that pen and pad you're going to go back and you're going to get the statement when you were last current and you're dialing that 800 number. So you're talking to customer service because as soon as you're delinquent the 800 number on your statement is the 800 number collections, where they get bonus measured and paid to collecting you at full. Okay, they do not get paid to help you work it out. Now you're going to call and the very first thing you will hear is the automated attendant Welcome to Julie Iden Mortgage Company. Please enter your loan number, don't.

Speaker 2: 37:42

If you enter your loan number, the computer will recognize it as a delinquent account and where will it transfer the call? To Collections. So do not enter your loan number. If you hold on, eventually a real live customer service rep is going to come on the phone. They're going to say welcome to juliette mortgage company. Can I have your loan number? Please do not give them your loan number. As soon as they pull up your loan and they see it as a delinquent account, what are they told to do with all delinquent accounts, no matter what the homeowner says, you send them where To collections so they can be collected on in full.

Speaker 2: 38:21

So here's what you say. Before I give you my loan number, let me tell you why I'm calling Because these people, they don't get paid to fix it, they get paid to identify what the issue is and get you off to the right department. So you're going to say here it they get paid to identify what the issue is and get you off to the right department.

Speaker 2: 38:39

So you're going to say here's what I need. I need to be on the phone with your loss mitigation department Now. Hold on, before you transfer me, I want you to give me the 800 number directly to that department. So from now on, when I call in to the mortgage company, I am calling the department who gets bonus measured and paid to help homeowners with workout deals, not the department who gets bonus measured and paid to collect in full or get you to foreclosure as fast as possible.

Speaker 1: 39:05

Wow, that right there was worth a whole diamond Liking it to a salmon swimming upstream.

Speaker 2: 39:16

these homeowners have gone off into the wrong direction, into collections. They've got trapped here and they can't get out and they're dying. Okay, they had no idea that there was an entire department who gets bonus, measured and paid. Okay, to do workout deals for Yale.

Speaker 1: 39:36

Wow, who would have known?

Speaker 2: 39:39

Yep. So for the last 20 years I've been driving around North Carolina teaching real estate agents, loan officers, mortgage brokers about what these options are, how they work, what needs to be pulled together. And they catch on very quickly because it is very, very similar to loan origination and they're like yeah, I can point my people in the right direction. Not only can I help them get into the mortgage, but God forbid if anything went wrong and they called me up. I know enough now that I can point them in the right direction and get them into the right department. Okay, and I can help them. I've had homeowners call me on the phone and say you have no idea what you have done for us Mortgage company called me on the phone.

Speaker 2: 40:22

They said you guys have the mortgage insurance on this loan. Here's what happened. This young couple has a four-year-old daughter who's got leukemia. Doctors have done everything they can do. There's nothing else they can do for the child. They've given the child three months to live. The mother and father have been approved for family leave. But on family leave you don't get paid. You just guaranteed your job, a job, not even your job, just a job when you come back.

Speaker 2: 40:47

So they wrote into the mortgage company. They gave them the letters from their employer showing that they weren't going to be making any money for the next three months and they weren't going to be able to pay. And that negotiator called me up at the mortgage insurance company and said okay, julie, they got a thousand dollar a month mortgage payments and for the next three months they're not going to pay. And I said look, it's a hundred thousand dollar loan with 10% insurance and if it goes to foreclosure, I'm looking at paying a $10,000 claim. Do I want to lend them three or pay 10? Lend them three or pay 10. I said I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to advance $3,000 to you, the mortgage company, right now. You're going to put it in suspense, as each month, as the payment comes due, you're going to pull the money out of suspense and apply it to the account. They're never going to go into default. They're never going to have a late fee In the future when they go to get more credit.

Speaker 2: 41:34

They're not going to have to bring this up and have to explain to stranger after stranger after stranger what happened. They'll never get a call from a collector. They'll never be referred to a foreclosure attorney. Okay. And when they found out that this is what we were going to do for them, they said you have no idea what you have done for us. We could spend the last three months focused on the most important thing to us and not have to tell stranger after stranger, because that mortgage company doesn't call you once a month, they call every day. Okay, until the loan is brought current. They're on an automatic dialer. It's a computer, it's not a person and it's calling every single day. And we would have had to tell somebody every single day what was going on with us.

Speaker 1: 42:23

Wow, wow. This has been amazing and I hope the listeners have received some valuable gems today and I hope they took notes. This is one. I would say this is one podcast you want to download rewind because Julia dropped some major gems. So, julia, you mentioned homeowners, that you work with homeowners, so are you currently doing that now, helping homeowners? Are you strictly work with like people like myself agents, attorneys?

Speaker 2: 42:58

I mostly work with agents and attorneys, but every now and then they'll get something and they'll say look, this is really out there. And instead of me having to relay all the information because it's a lot of information I've had consumers who said to me the stuff that the mortgage company is asking for now is more than I had to produce to get the stinking loan to begin with. But if you want a workout deal, that's what you're going to have to do, and sometimes they hit roadblocks. So they call me because they're trying to get past those roadblocks. So I do do some consulting with real estate professionals when they're trying to help consumers work out deals, awesome, awesome.

Speaker 1: 43:37

Well, definitely, look, I got you in my back pocket.

Speaker 2: 43:42

So you'll have me back again. Yes, yes, because Wow, we can do another run on workout options, because we didn't even get to talk about those hardly.

Speaker 1: 43:52

I know that that is definitely something. Yes, because the homeowner needs to know everything that that goes on and they can do it themselves.

Speaker 2: 44:05

That's right and filling out the financial forms. All you need is a little coaching to make sure you're filling it out correctly. Ok, and so that could be another part of it. So more information may be to come to those listeners. Go ahead Call Amy, email her, all right. Well, we thank you so much for being on Foreclosure Chronicles, julia.

Speaker 1: 44:29

All right. Well, we thank you so much for being on Foreclosure Chronicles, julia, and, yeah, you definitely will be coming back. If you like this episode, please, please, please, download it on all your favorite platforms, except for Apple. I'm not on Apple or iTunes yet. Get in there. Make sure you subscribe Foreclosurechroniclescom and share, if you know someone that is in foreclosure or going through a distress situation, for this podcast to them. Again, julia, thank you so much, and everyone have a great day.

Speaker 2: 45:08

Thank you you.