How Bad is a Foreclosure and How Will it Affect Future Home Purchases?

A foreclosure should always be considered as a worse case scenario. There are a few reasons that you should go into foreclosure, however for the most part it should be avoided at all costs. A foreclosure is detrimental to your credit history. It will stop you from being able to finance anything for up to seven years.

As far as future home purchases it will affect your ability to buy a home for up to seven years. Mortgage lenders will especially be leery of a client with a previous foreclosure on their record. Once the seven year time period has elapsed there will be no record of the foreclosure.

Some mortgage companies, however, will lend to you after about five years of a clean credit history following the foreclosure. In this case you would have to prove a very stable work history, provide legitimate reasoning for the previous foreclosure, and have a stable credit history since the incident. If a loan is granted at that point, you can expect the interest rate to be very high; however you will have a chance to refinance your loan once the foreclosure falls off your record.

There are some immediate affects to consider when facing a foreclosure. Your credit score will be adversely affect immediately after your first missed payment. If the house that is being foreclosed is your primary residence you will need to find a place to rent to you once the foreclosure process has commenced. This may prove difficult as most landlords rely on credit reports to determine the reliability of their tenants.

The best course of action is to make sure you are current on everything except the mortgage payments. You can then explain to the landlord that your mortgage payments were way more significant than the rent you will be paying them. Seeing that you are responsible with all of your other debts may persuade them to give you chance. You may be turned down by several landlords so make sure you give yourself enough time to make other living arrangements.

There are many reasons that people face foreclosures. In this economy it is not uncommon to lose your house due to unemployment. There was also an influx of bad mortgage loans that included arms which made payments skyrocket after a certain period of time. Whatever the reason is, there are many options to fix them. Many mortgage companies are offering loan refinancing or a restructuring of your loan terms. There are also many foreclosure assistance companies that may be able to help consolidate your debts and negotiate your loan terms on your behalf. Make sure you exhaust all options before early before it is too late.