Foreclosures numbers are breaking records all over the nation. Too many borrowers that stretched out their financial abilities when they took their loans, now having major troubles making their payment on time, or at all. They may have difficulties because of other reasons, as sudden unemployment, sickness, etc.

Few examples relating to foreclosure numbers of the 3rd quarter of 2006 :

Arizona: 5348 - up from 4512 in the 2nd quarter. (3231 of those were in Maricopa County, includes Phoenix).

California: 39,896  --  Colorado: 16,313

Illinois: Cook County 'leads' with 9950.  --  Florida: 9900 in the 3rd quarter.

It is a national problem, accross the country foreclosures were up by 24% from July to September 2006, and up more than 50% year over year.

If you have problems paying your mortgage, your best way of getting help, is to call your lender!! Communicate with him, don't 'hide' it. Beleive it or not, lenders are not in a real estate business, their business is just to lend money and to make money, nothing else.

Therefor, lenders will do the best (naturally, each one of them in a different way), to help the borrower, not to go down and into foreclosure. Do not delay the decision to talk with your lender, the sooner the better, and very likely they will work out a solution together with you. You want to ask, and they may agree to restructure the loan, or to refinance it, sometimes even to suspend mortgage payments until you recover and back on your feet. Or they might have another solution that you may accept.

If your lender, from any reason, is not going to help you out, you still need to find a way not to foreclose. Not only it will leave you & the family without a roof, it will hurt your credit badly,for the next few years.

Your option now is to sell your home, hopefully you have enough equity in your property, so it will leave you with some cash after repaying the mortgage, so you can start all over again, but at least you avoid a foreclosure, you don't have it on your records, your credit report is clean and you are looking foreward for a new successful beginning.

If you or a customer you know is in a financial difficulty, email me with the scenario, I may be able to help out and avoid the foreclosure process.

All the best,

Eli Magen, www.AbsoluteFloridaMortgage.com