Confidential
Behind on the mortgage. Start with the options that keep the house.
A job that ended, a diagnosis, a divorce, a business that stopped covering itself. If the mortgage is the thing keeping you awake, there are more options than most people are told, and several of them do not involve selling anything.
Before you consider selling
Four things to try first
None of these earn this business anything. They are listed first because they are what a homeowner in this position should do first.
-
One
Call the servicer
Forbearance pauses or reduces payments for a set period. A repayment plan spreads the arrears over following months. A loan modification changes the terms. All three exist, all three are easier to get early, and none of them are offered to people who do not call.
-
Two
Get free counseling
Free, funded, and on your side. They know which programs are open in Louisiana this month, which changes, and they will deal with the servicer with you. Start at the HUD counseling agency search rather than with anybody who advertises.
-
Three
Check the assessor
If the house is your primary residence you should be receiving the homestead exemption, which takes the first portion of assessed value out of the parish tax calculation. People who moved in without filing for it have been paying more than they owed for years.
-
Four
Get a real valuation
Equity changes every option on this page, and most people in a hard month are guessing at it. A free comparative market analysis takes about a day, costs nothing, and turns that guess into a number you can plan against.
If selling is the answer
Two versions of it, and the difference is equity
You have equity
Then a sale pays the mortgage off and hands you the difference, and the only question is which sale nets more after costs and after however many months it takes. Listing usually produces a higher gross number. A direct as-is sale produces a date you can count on, which matters more than usual when there is a foreclosure calendar running in the background.
The honest comparison is on one page, with the arithmetic written out.
You are underwater
Then the lender has to agree to accept less than the balance, which is a short sale. It is slower than a normal sale, not faster, because the servicer has to approve the buyer and the price. It also does less damage to your credit than a foreclosure does, and it ends with the debt resolved rather than pursued.
A short sale needs a listing agent who has done one, a servicer package that is complete the first time, and a buyer patient enough to wait for an answer. It is not a fast exit and anybody promising one is guessing.
This is general information, not legal or tax advice. Forgiven mortgage debt can have tax consequences. Talk to a Louisiana attorney and a CPA about your specific situation before you commit to a short sale.
Warning signs
What a predatory offer looks like
- Money up front
- A fee to stop a foreclosure, paid before anything happens. Legitimate counseling for this is free.
- Sign the deed over
- Any arrangement where you transfer the title now and are promised the house back later. You will not get it back.
- Rent it back from us
- Sale-leaseback pitches to distressed owners are a well-documented way to lose both the equity and the house.
- Stop talking to your lender
- Nobody with your interests in mind tells you to stop answering your servicer.
- This offer expires tonight
- Real offers do not evaporate at midnight. Urgency is a sales technique, not a market condition.
None of the above happens here, and if you are hearing any of it from somebody else, that by itself is the answer about them.
Questions people ask quietly
The ones that are hard to ask out loud
Should I call my mortgage servicer if I am behind?
Yes, and sooner than feels comfortable. Servicers have loss mitigation options that only exist while the loan is in default but before it accelerates, and every one of them gets harder to reach as the file moves along. Being one payment behind is a conversation. Being six payments behind is a much shorter list of choices.
Is there free help, or does everybody charge?
There is free help. HUD-approved housing counseling agencies are funded to work through your budget and your servicer options at no cost to you, and Louisiana has several. Anybody who wants a fee up front to stop a foreclosure is a bad sign. That is a common enough scam that state regulators publish warnings about it.
How fast does foreclosure actually move in Louisiana?
Faster than most people expect. Louisiana lenders commonly use executory process, which lets a mortgage in the right form move to seizure and sheriff's sale without a full trial. That is why the advice everywhere on this page is to act early. An attorney can tell you what stage your specific file is at and what stopping it would take.
If I sell, do I get anything out of it?
That depends entirely on equity. If the house is worth more than the payoff plus the costs of sale, the difference is yours and it comes to you at closing. If it is worth less, a sale needs the lender to agree to take less than the balance, which is a short sale. Both are better outcomes than a sheriff's sale, and both need to start before the calendar closes them off.
Will this be public?
A conversation with Chris will not be, and nothing said in it is filed anywhere. A foreclosure filing is public, because it is a court record in the parish where the property sits, and so is a tax sale. That asymmetry is the whole reason to have the private conversation early rather than the public one later, while forbearance, loss mitigation and an ordinary sale are all still on the table.
It stays between you and him
Where things actually stand
How far behind, whether anything has been filed, and roughly what is owed. There is no judgment in the reply and no obligation attached to asking.
Free help exists
Where to get help that costs nothing
Every claim on this page can be checked against a public source. These are the ones it rests on.
-
The CFPB
Plain-language guidance on loan estimates, closing disclosures, and what a servicer must do when a borrower asks for help.
-
HUD fair housing
What the Fair Housing Act protects, and how to file a complaint if you believe you were treated differently in a housing transaction.
-
Down payment help
The state agency behind down payment assistance and the mortgage programs that go with it.
-
Louisiana law, in full
Successions, usufruct, indivision, partition and mineral servitudes are all in the Civil Code, published by the state.
Related
Where to go next
The pages most people read after this one.
-
Listing versus cash
The full arithmetic on one house, three ways, with the assumptions written down.
-
Compare your options
Four paths for a house that has to move quickly, and what each costs in money and in weeks.
-
Free valuation
A comparative market analysis from a person, against an automated estimate.
-
Vacant land
Lots, acreage and heir property, and what holding it costs every year.