About a month ago I met with a single parent with a teen ager who was three months behind in her mortgage. She has no family to turn to, no savings, no retirement plan and after almost 20 years at the same company, the company moves out of state. A recent sale on her street equals approximately the balance on her mortgage. Other homes have sold for more. I can tell that she is a hard worker but right now she is experiencing sleepless nights and lots of worry. She will sell the home if she has to, maybe we can sell for more than the debt but the homes in her area continue to decline in value. I suggest a free listing on craigslist looking for a housemate, and let everyone know at the new job you are looking for a housemate and see what happens. Within 24 hours of making the announcement at work that she has a walkout lower level with a bath she gets an offer with enough rent in advance to bring the mortgage current. She is looking for a second job to make up the difference in lost income between the old and the new job and she has a happy ending with a simple solution that affords her the opportunity to get some breathing room while working on a more permanent solution. So many sellers than I meet who are in trouble seem to freeze and become unable to cope when under this heavy stress. As realtors we have opportunities to reach out and suggest alternatives to waiting for the gavel to fall at a foreclosure.
I met a woman in her early seventies who takes care of foster children. She got into financial difficulty when a second property she owned with a mortgage was no longer easy to rent. She fell behind in her own home and was two months behind in both mortgages. When I met with her to list her home, she looked me in the eye and said somehow I am going to save my home, I don't want to move. I asked her if she had family who could help. She had many children but only one child who could afford to help but the womans pride would not allow her to ask her daughter for help. I suggested a business venture with the daughter where the daughter would be offered a percentage of the ownership of the home based upon a mutually agreeable sale price. She would have to purchase at least enough ownership to pay for six months of mortgage payments. I told her that she probably owed more on the rental than she would net in a sale. I suggested that she focus on saving the home that she lived in and that losing the other home might remove enough financial burden to be able to afford her own home. A few days ago, she and her daughter came to terms and the mortgage on her home is current. The other home is on the market and may or may not sell. Being able to help homeowners figure out a way to keep their homes during these troubling times is one of the reasons that I am proud to be a realtor.
Jim Thornton
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