Over the last year or so, I have personally spoken with more than 1,000 people about whether or not a loan modification was right for them.
Many of these people were not currently late on their payments, and were wondering if the loan modification process was “going to hurt” – meaning, was the outcome going to be worth the pain that they were convinced they were going to go through.
Is the loan modification process worth it?
I don’t know.
But I give one piece of advice to anyone who is thinking about trying to get a loan modification done:
Before you begin any part of the loan modification process, prepare yourself for the worst possible outcome.
If you do this, any outcome better than the worst-case-scenario will make it seem like a “win”.
If you know that the worst possible case is usually that you will have to go through a foreclosure and you prepare yourself for that, you will mentally be setting yourself up for a win.
If you set your expectations as being able to get your lender to write off $100,000 of your principal balance and give you a 1% interest rate for 30 years?
Get ready for heartache.