TRANSCRIPT of Mike Rockwood on FOX Business
“Time now for the diamond district on happy hour how we stop this housing mess once and for all move on. One thing we have to do is stop the foreclosures now I do not want to get into that tired old argument about whether we should. Bail out irresponsible homeowners that are not. Let’s be productive. Pro active let’s talk about how you can negotiate with your bank and get a mortgage that you can’t afford it is possible. Legal and the right thing to do. My rock would — Apple loan modification mercenary he joins me now. In the diamond district from Los Angeles thanks so much for joining me first about. Oh you better equipment to be here. Okay so how typical is it tuned get your loan modified it from a bank or from an hour to refinance with another bank when we have these wars stories about banks not doing anything for anyone anymore is that true.”

“nothing could be further from the truth actually actually the system has been in place for over a year. And with the Obama announcement on March 4 it really grease the skids and all the major lenders really. Invested ininfrastructure to do loan modifications fast and efficiently. So that infrastructure is there the compensation. Is there. Now what we have to do is and — getting plenty of application applicant African. Hence there is seven to 8000 applications. Per day per working day that are being submitted. I’m so glad to hear you say let’s just move on from the whole argument about whether or not this is about. Helping. People who are always going to need help this is about slowing the foreclosure. The rise in the numbers of foreclosures and to that extent right the banks are ready to deal and — ready to take out.”

“There might be ready to deal because yet they got bailed out by Obama administration they got a lot of my they have now as you mention. Financial incentive to modify loans I mean we can’t get paid them off. To basically do the right thing. All right let’s not getting to that let’s not argue the debate that’s what it is right now yeah — somebody go about doing it just pick — a phone call the bank it’s as simple as that.”

“Well you know it isn’t that much more complicated than that can actually my whole. A message my whole soap box is about doing a loan modifications yourself from the banks want you to do on yourself. And they put together an infrastructure that makes it easy enough to do to do it yourself. But just like you wouldn’t go to the IRS to fill out your tax forms he shouldn’t go to the lender unprepared. So my message is always that you should do your loan modification yourself and you should contact. The bank quickly that you should never do it alone. You should do it with the street smarts of someone who’s been there and done that. I personally modified six of my own mortgages over the last year.”

“What in my and then — confused before you move — you’re saying do it alone but don’t go added alone figures say yeah are you recommending. If people look at the these companies that offer to help. With Sarah refinance their mortgages are modified and market is that there’s so many scams out there with those kind of kind of company.”

“Yeah and I’m sure there are plenty of them that are really dangerous and I’m not really sure you know I mean. It’s hard to judge all of those firms I know there are plenty of bad apples out there but the truth is the process is very easy and really what you need is just street smarts. About you know what the questions are and what kind of fun environment you’re going to walk into you know I learned the whole language that lenders use in — evaluate. Your worthiness.”

“Sure sure abetting you’re talking points I have to point out that you say that everyone needs to miss at least one mortgage payment. ”

“Yeah unfortunately it’s true and even just two hours ago I was told by one of the major lenders that they had created a whole new. Division a whole new group a whole new call senator just four lenders are just for borrowers who had not gone late on their mortgage and when I tried to penetrate that organization because one of my clients. In fact had not gone late. Right I got the response that they’re really not open for business they’re really not doing business yet. So it always has been the case and it remains the case that you have to be late on your mortgage. In order to get a reasonable loan modification.”

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15 March 2009 l Clear Credit Mastermind

Ryan: This is the Clear Credit Group Mastermind Call. Welcome to our monthly teleconference. We’re here to beat the bank, protect our assets, and clean up our credit for life. Thank you so much for joining us today. We have a great call. We’re going to talk about a lot of exciting stuff. First, let me give you a quick overview.

I’ve got a special announcement and then of course we’re going to hit the latest in loan modification news, including the President’s housing rescue bill. We’re going to go straight from there into talking about real events on the loan modification front lines, including what we’re doing and what our clients are doing.

Next, we’re going to talk about seven critical secrets, absolutely current secrets, that we’re learning in loan modification and just in the process of doing them, and that’s actually a handout, so later on I’ll provide you the url where you can jump on and you can keep a copy of that. Okay, then we’re going to talk about newsworthy stories from around the country and we’re going to wrap it up with questions and answers. Okay, so everyone should have lots of time to get all their questions answered. Let me jump right into it, we’ve got a very special announcement.

This is really neat, we’re really excited about this and I hope everyone will take advantage of it. I hope you have a pen handy. Monday the 16th we’re offering a very special, free of charge, call-in day. And here’s how it’s going to work. From 12:00 to 4:00 p.m. on Monday the 16th you can call Mike personally and ask any questions you like about loan modifications, short sales, foreclosures, anything else you need help with. Now please note, each call is limited to a maximum of ten minutes, and actually we have a live event workshop that evening.

And so please respect our time on this offer. Here’s how we’re going to do it. Kind of like a radio call-in show. If you get a busy signal or voice mail, just keep trying. Don’t leave a message. Just keep trying. And we’ll get to you just one at a time. The call-in number is 310-602-7380. 310-602-7380. Now I kindly ask that you do not use this number at any other time than on the 16th, tomorrow, during 12:00 to 4:00. That’s our private office phone number, we don’t give it out, and I’ll give it to you one more time right now. It’s 310-602-7380. And I should mention that is for members of our Clear Credit Mastermind Group only.

Okay, let me back up a little. My name is Ryan Rockwood. I’m here with my father, expert and author Mike Rockwood, author of 60 Minute Loan Modification. We’re business partners here and we live in Southern California. We’ve been helping people all across the country do loan modifications, short sales, all kinds of things and right now we’re really focused on loan modification. It just seems like the best solution for the majority of the people, the best way that we can help people. In the news this week obviously we had a huge, huge, news week with the President’s bill. He basically announced $75 billion that we’re just going to throw at this housing problem.

And so, from our perspective, what we want to do on this call is help you understand how you can benefit from that. You’re surely paying into it, all of us are paying into it with our tax dollars and we probably will be for many years. So it’s vital that it goes to help you because all the experts say there just isn’t enough money to go around. So what we’re helping people do is get in line right now, right away, and basically get this bail out money back where it belongs. So let me introduce Mike, my father.

Mike: Hi, everybody. Thanks, Ryan.

Ryan: Sure. And if it’s alright with you, why don’t we just talk about basically the news? Let’s talk about the $75 billion.

Mike: Yeah, very good. Let me take a few minutes. We’ll kind of talk macro level for a little while and talk about the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan. And I know we don’t want to dwell too much on the macro level because it isn’t really what this group is all about. This group is all about actionable items and things that we can really do, actions we can take to thrive in a downturned economy and loan modification is just one of them. So I don’t want to stay theoretical and academic too much but it will help our conversation if we at least review what the overall strategy is and what the program is.

Ryan: I think that will be good news for people on the call because if I’m on the call here I’m considering doing a loan modification I really don’t care about the President’s announcement and the housing rescue plan. I just have to be certain that Mike Rockwood, that the 60 Minute Loan Modification is going to take advantage of whatever the heck it is.

Mike: Right. So you’re interested in, like you said, get in line? Well, what we want to help people do is go to the front of the line. Right? That’s what this call is all about. How do we get to the front of the line, be sure that our loan modification are the best loan modifications they can possibly be.

So let’s talk a little bit about this HASP. Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan. There really are three parts to it. It always occurs to me how much of these programs are always so politically motivated because even though, the very first part of this has to do with refinancing and addressing the issue that an awful lot of homeowners are still current on their mortgage are having trouble refinancing because their values of their homes have dipped. And of course, just to appease the people who are so upset with so many people getting help from the government, the government had to come out with a program to help people who are, in fact, not in such bad shape that they’re late on their mortgage.

So that’s what the first part of this program is all about. It’s a program to facilitate refinances but it only helps people who are really underwater only to the tune of about five percent. So they can re-fi up to 105 percent of the value. So it’s good news and it will help hundreds of thousands of people to re-fi to a lower rate. It really is kind of politically motivated in order to make sure that the program has a leg for those folks who are not late on their mortgage and that’s what the first part is.

Ryan: So it kind of sounds like it’s help for people who don’t need help but the other side of that is it’s not much help for people who don’t need help.

Mike: I guess that’s really true. It facilitates their getting a lower mortgage and a lower payment, but they weren’t in such dire straits that they needed the help.

Ryan: What we’ve talked about in the past is that some people inevitably are going to be helped by this that made poor choices or that lied on their mortgage application, they shouldn’t have had a home in the first place. And we just have to get over that as a society.

Mike: It’s so true. I second that.

Ryan: Yeah, it’s going to happen, fine.

Mike: I read one critique this week that was really true and it was all about how this is not about fairness. This is about reviving our economy so all of us can get back to semblance of order. We’re in disarray. We’re in complete free fall. And we need to stabilize the housing sector as well as other sectors. So it’s really not about fairness and people who are really stuck on the whole fairness thing are really missing the point.

The second part of the HASP program that the president rolled out is really the core of it. It’s $75 billion that will go to help modify mortgages throughout the country. It’s targeting to help three to four million at-risk homeowners. But those numbers are kind of staggering and that could really only happen over a number of years because the modification — all the banks working together are only able to modify at the most two million in this given year. So really some of it is just hyperbole.

But what we have seen so far is the program is going to result in a lot more standardization, all the participating banks are going to be required in the coming months just to adhere to the FDIC guidelines that have become so popular, that INDYMAC has them adhere to now for about seven or eight months and that most of the banks have started to anyways. So it’s going to result in a lot more standardization. It’s certainly is going to result in a lot faster process because they’re now is more financial incentive for the bank to do what they were supposed to do in the first place. The bailout money kind of got held up there for a few months while the banks had the money but weren’t really sure that they wanted to lend it out, kind of throwing our money after already bad money. So this program offers them from $500 to about $6,000 incentive to make and to keep good modifications. That’s really the heart of the issue, so we should get faster and we should get better modifications.

Ryan: Well, that’s kind of where my ears perk up because you’re watching the new, you’re reading the newspaper, radio all this, loan modification, housing foreclosure, blah, blah, blah. The key that I want people to know is that it basically, these changes that are going on in government, we believe will make things easier and faster to get a loan modification. Is that correct? And that’s all you can really take from it, right? You can’t sit around and wait and hope that a better bill is passed or something like that.

Mike: No, that’s right. So it’s better and it’s faster. And also some of the programs that had fallen flat at first, like some of the Hope for Homeowners programs, I think some of them will have life breathed back into them and I think probably it won’t be that long before we start to see some principal reductions going on.

Ryan: I was just anecdotal but I know that on the day of one of the announcements we got a call back that was real positive. And on the day and that was a little bit unusual. So, and we will talk about some of our real successes that our clients have had in the last couple of weeks specifically. So that is exciting. I don’t know if we can really be thanking the President for it specifically.

Mike: No, I believe it. You’ve got to think there was some pent up number of modifications when the banks knew that next week we’re going to get $1500 for having modified this loan you sure think they would have slowed down.

Ryan: Oh, well, that’s true. And the thing is that it’s a double edged sword because how many more millions of people are now submitting, applying, for loan modifications.

Mike: Absolutely right. Now the third leg of the whole HASP program is just the federal government emphasizing at what great lengths they will go to support Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, and that is mostly just to re-emphasize to everyone that Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac are solvent. They will be solvent and they will get up to $400 billion in additional federal money if they need it. So we shouldn’t be concerned that they are going to go belly up.

Ryan: The other thing is that other people have loans on this call perhaps, from those government backed banks and again, they don’t really need to know the specifics of it but you need to apply for loan modification regardless of who backs your loans. But is there anything they need to do differently or no? Affected by that announcement?

… continued [full transcript available by email at help@60minuteloanmodification.com]

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Our credit scores have become much more than simply a financial reward for prudent use of credit. With the information explosion of the past 25 years, credit scores have become a measuring stick used by prospective employers, insurers, private investigators, marketers and lenders of all types. Further, during the economic run-up of the past 7 years, a person’s FICO score became a status symbol of the new “real estate wealthy class”.

And so, it is with great trepidation that many of us face the untenable prospect of trashing our good credit standing by missing payments as part of a real estate “workout” with the lenders. But, tough times require tough decisions by tough people.

And, like in any impending “emergency” we can minimize the damage and speed the recovery by understanding it and preparing for it. Specifically, you should know: 1) how the credit rating system works, 2) how much damage will be done by a mortgage late payment, short sale, deed-in lieu, foreclosure, and bankruptcy, 3) street-smart ways to minimize the damage and 4) street-smart ways to speed our recovery.

What’s your credit “Heritage”?
For many of you this dip into poor credit is a first-time thing and you hate it. You’re the lucky ones. Your displeasure will propel you back into 700+ FICO range within 24 months. Your good habits and the street-smarts will control your actions in the coming months, reaping you financial rewards and renewed peace of mind.

For others, bad credit has been an ongoing issue – like a bad penny that just keeps turning up. No matter how much you try to avoid it you seem to slip back into it periodically. Like chronic dieters, you keep reverting to doing exactly what you don’t want to do. You’re frustrated.

You probably often give up trying and just tolerate the financial limitations, frustrations and occasional embarrassments that come with poor credit.

Such folks face the biggest challenge of adult life – changing habits. It’s not nearly enough to want to improve your credit score…although that’s an important start. Financial habit-changing requires all the psycho-social support that any major habit changing effort does. It is beyond the scope of this chapter, but it’s a topic that I am passionate about.

Minimize the Damage
Most of my clients miss 3-5 mortgage payments and most suffer at least a 100-150 point FICO decline. My own score dropped to 550! Not fun, not financially rewarding, and not something to be proud of. But,…well you know.

It’s important to know that the FICO scoring formula is a “predictor” of future credit performance. It’s not meant to reward or punish, but rather to predict the likelihood that someone will pay their bills as agreed over the next few years – based solely on the information in a credit report. It is, therefore, complex and difficult to accurately assess (and it is a carefully guarded secret).

When looking at late payments, the FICO scoring formula considers the information on a credit report by 1) Recency, 2) Severity and 3) Frequency. In your default situation you cannot control the severity (mortgage lates are severe) and the frequency really depends on how fast your lender responds with a reasonable workout plan. Recency is THE issue that you should focus on. Delay the credit damage as long as possible and then get it over with as quickly as possible.

Speed the Recovery
Seven Credit Repair Best Practices will help you to recover faster. These are measures that should become part of your ongoing financial management. Now is a great time to implement them and develop them into habits.
Never make a payment late again. Take this seriously and figure out how to get your payments in on time, every time.

Never close any credit accounts and use all credit accounts. You’ll not improve your credit score by avoiding the use of credit. Don’t let any accounts lie dormant, even if you have to go to Sears to buy laundry detergent on their card!!

Open new accounts only after careful evaluation and for specific smart purposes. You may (if you have 4 or fewer credit cards) want to open a new credit card account to raise your total available credit limit. Having more than 4 credit cards is not advisable.

Constantly apply for higher credit limits with your existing accounts. Using only a portion – a low percent – of your available credit is beneficial. This will be especially challenging in this economic downturn. In fact, many credit card companies are reducing credit lines in an attempt to reduce their exposure.

Make payments on every account 2X per month. You get FICO benefits for making a payment AND for paying your required amount each month. So you’ll get additional benefits by paying half the total, twice per month. If your cash flow doesn’t allow this, then make at least a minimal additional payment each month to get the benefit.

Pay down your non-secured accounts (such as credit cards) to 30% of your available balance and keep using the accounts frequently. Don’t let them exceed 30% ever again. This is the very best use of any monthly savings from missing mortgage payments…get these balances low!

Hire a reputable credit management company to dispute your credit report negatives. Don’t even THINK of doing this yourself. I know this advice flies in the face of my usual “do-it-yourself” mantra. However, my experience is that this process (disputing) is an essential part of credit repair and it’s WAY beyond the ability, patience, or capacity of mere mortals.

I’ve NEVER had a client succeed in removing all they needed from their credit report, even using the online dispute services offered by the three bureaus. It’s costly to use a credit repair company, but well worth it.

If you implement these practices, you’ll fully recover from any FICO reduction in 6-24 months. Track your progress by checking your FICO score at FairIsaac.com for about $15. Expect it to take at least 6 months for significant progress.

Hardship Letter Questions?

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What exactly is a loan modification?

A loan modification is a permanent change in one or more terms of a borrower’s home loan, allows the loan to be reinstated, and results in a payment the homeowner can afford.

I AM NOT IN FORECLOSURE, CAN I STILL LOWER MY PAYMENT?

Yes, in many cases, this is easier because you have maintained your good credit with your lender. If your ARM is getting too high, we can help lower and fix the payment and interest rate.

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