In the spirit of Jerry McGuire, "Help me help you!", let me offer a new perspective, the BGS3 perspective.  The Wall Street Journal reported that one is six homeowners owes more on a mortgage than what the home is worth.  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122341352084512611.html   Put another way, nearly 12,000,000 households are facing potential default or foreclosure.  In many markets, this number is very optimistic.  No homeowner should experience foreclosure.  Through the efforts of BGS3 and great Realtor partners, many of these homeowners are being helped... at no charge whatsoever.

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC, reports on this statistic from an insider's perspective.  He claims bank losses on these mortgages will continue for a long time and that short sales will number in the millions.  Estimates from Baker have short sales accumulating between $125B and $500B in bank losses.

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press_archive?month=10&year=2008&base_name=almost_one_in_six_homeowners_u  

I have blogged about the specific benefits for a homeowner to short sale as an alternative to foreclosure. The National Mortgage News covered the efforts of BGS3 relating to this topic in their September 8th, 2008 publication with the article, "BGS3 Lessens Damage to Borrowers Through Short Sales". With the continued dreary outlook of our economy, more Realtors are beginning to understand that by helping homeowners avoid foreclosure they are helping themselves too.  Are you doing your part...and at a volume level yet?