Ryan Rockwood: Hello! This is 60-Minute Loan Modification call. If you’re interested in Loan Modification, you’d come to the right place. This is our teleconference series. We’re here to beat the banks, save your home, and help you escape bad debt forever. Thanks a lot for joining us, guys. My name is Ryan Rockwood. And as usual, I’m joined by my father and business partner, Mike Rockwood on today’s call.
Mike Rockwood: Hi there, everybody.
Ryan Rockwood: Before we get started today, I’d like to make a couple of announcements. Announcement number one, if you use the calculator on the site, on our website and the calculator is giving you unlikely as a result, it’s usually because your debt-to-income ratio is too high. It could be that your DTI really is too high. This does happen. But most often people are calculating their debt-to-income ratio incorrectly.
So, if you are getting unlikely using our calculator, hopefully no one has just gone away and given up in frustration. And if you seem to be getting unlikely, but it seems like you’d be a good candidate, please e-mail us at help@60minuteloanmodification.com so we can check to see if perhaps you’re not presenting the numbers correctly. And also if you are putting incorrectly, nothing is really strict. So, you might just want to give us a call anyway if you are putting in the right numbers and are getting unlikely.
Okay, announcement number two. On Monday we’re holding a live event here in the South Bay of Los Angeles to help homeowners with their loan mods. We have extremely limited space in our conference room just because it’s a small conference room. But if you or any of your friends or relatives would like to join us and if you got friends in the area, you can give them a call. They can come. I believe it’s a free event. And it’s Monday, May 4 from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. Please e-mail at help@60minuteloanmodification.com. If anyone doesn’t know where the South Bay of Los Angeles is, basically LAX is about 20 minutes south of there. So, if you’re in the area, please do join us. It would be great to meet you and you can actually bring your documents and we help people actually crank on a get a loan mod right there.
Okay, announcement number three. We’ve gotten a ton of inquiries this past week about our elite express service and how it works. This call today is all about the Do-It-Yourself Loan Modifications. So, I don’t want to dwell on this. But briefly, this is how it works. We start with a simple prequalification application. You provide us with your basic loan and financial info and within two to three days, hopefully within 24 hours, we can tell you whether you’re a great loan mod candidate or not. Now, if you are a great loan mod candidate, then we polish up your application and present your case in the best possible light.
We mail you your paper work and then our paralegal takes over with automated followup and real time tracking. However, we actually can’t bill you or even start the application process until we get you pre-approved. Okay, so there are misconceptions about that and we just want to let people know that you can’t actually even submit the package and we can’t start until we get all those documents. So, we get you pre approved. Then if it’s worth getting all those documents together, I’ll spend a couple of days with you, hopefully a couple of minutes, I guess, on the phone and collecting all that, putting it all into a document, and getting ready to submit, okay.
Remember before you pay for anything you must pre-qualify. And if for some reason you pass the prequalification but do not get a loan mod, all fees are refunded 100%. So, there’s no risk to you.
Okay, enough of that for now. I just want to clear up the basic process of our elite express service and serve in a lot of questions. Okay, now let’s get on with today’s call. Today’s call, we’re going to talk about followup and we’re going to talk about the prequalification call.
Mike Rockwood: Right. All right. Hey, Ryan, before you launch up on that, let me just make a couple of comments and observations from clients from the past couple of days. The first one is I had a client who is really consternating about whether or not to order the elite express service and just hire us to do their loan mod or to do it himself. And he was a really knowledgeable or actually he had been a mortgage broker.
And so I counseled him about the fact that, you know the money is applicable either way and there’s a 100% money-back guarantee either way. So, what I had him do is, go ahead and order the Do-It-Yourself kit. And if after a week of looking at it, working on it a little bit of a time, he’s just not feeling comfortable, he just trades that $275 in towards an elite express and we do the whole thing for him. So, it really is a no risk deal. You’re going to get a loan mod with either of our products or you’re going to get your money back.
Ryan Rockwood: Yes, that’s a good point. The thing is, is that if someone can learn the tools to do a loan mod like any skill in life, it’s better to obviously teach him how to fish, right? But the thing is, is that a lot of – yes, don’t consummate over – take action if you can, learn it yourself. And if that fails, don’t let it sit there on the shelf forever like all the self-improvement books we all have or whatever. Mail it back and return it and have someone do it for you.
So, because that’s the thing, we also say that we believe what you believe that in a couple of years we’ll probably all be doing this again no matter how good a loan mod we got now. But rather than wait until then and continue to pay on all these bad loans, we want to get the loan mods now and we want to do it again. The initial benefit of learning to do the loan mod yourself is that in a couple of years you’re prepared to do it again.
Mike Rockwood: And so I guess this just – it was became clear to me that this was just another excuse to procrastinate. And honestly we all are so good at figuring out how not to take action. And what I’m so excited about is this week we had a number of real breakthroughs on several loan modifications for people for whom the loan mod really changed their lives. You know what I mean? I’m not exaggerating.
Like, we have this one client who is a retiree who had been literally going to their savings account and transferring the money into their checking account to write the check for their mortgage every single month. They were living off their savings. Their savings had declined so dramatically in the last 18 months because of the economy that they really only had about 12 or 18 more payments that they could make, and then this retiree was going to be broke. And I’m telling you the people at Chase did a great thing by taking this person in an aggressively going after a loan modification. And they accepted as proof of income things that this person gave them like a relative who was renting, proof that they had recently taken on some training for a new job, and a letter from that future employer about what they expect that the income to be.
So, honestly, this literally is changing the retirement outlook for this individual. And then another one, Gene in Atlanta, had lost a really high-paying job and now is working at a really low-paying job. And she saved $1,100 a month starting May 1st. Her May 1st payment is $1,100 less than her April payment was. And she did that without – I think she might have been that without a single – no she didn’t either. I was going to say, she may be the first person that had no damage or FICO score, which I remember now, she did have to miss two payments actually.
So, anyway, we’re getting some really great results. I am really impressed with what the lenders are doing. They’re getting so organized. The influx of loan modification is off the charts. And several times over the last few weeks, lenders have had the higher outside firms just answer their phones so the influx of application is off the charts but the lenders really are doing an offly good job of handling it. They’re taking it longer but if you ask me they’re doing a really professional job.
Ryan Rockwood: You know, we’re not impressed with the implementation of the new President Obama plan.
Mike Rockwood: Oh, tell me about it.
Ryan Rockwood: And it’s made all the more frustrating by the millions of dollars, I think, that are being spent on advertising by venture capitalists to get loan mods. Have you heard this? We can help you – the commercial say we will fight for you to get your principal reduced and your payments reduced. Well, the main thing is principal. And they say you need an attorney [indiscernible]. Here’s my problem with that is that you can fight for something all you want but we can tell you right now, we’re fighting for it everyday [indiscernible]. You know what I mean? Yes, and so to kind of real people in with this – I don’t know, I guess, I mean I guess …
Mike Rockwood: Well, with the whole Obama plan?
Ryan Rockwood: Yes. I mean I guess it’s the advertising right? You got to tell people to come in but it’s frustrating.
Mike Rockwood: Yes, but it’s so frustrating because the banks will – now they’ve even gone back to a practice that they use back at the end of February when the program was about to be announced and that at the end of March, a month after the program was announced and several days before it was supposed to be implemented, and that is they deny even knowledge of the program. So, now, when I talk to negotiators about, well gosh, when are you guys going to get the regulations to be able to deal with this client who is not – who has never missed any mortgage payment with you and has a clear hardship and a lousy loan. And now they’re back into the methodology of denying that they even know what I’m talking about.
Ryan Rockwood: And you know the frustrating thing about that is that these banks have received money from us. And when they went to Washington no one said, “Hey, well we don’t really know who you are or what you’re doing or getting the legislative lines and, well, maybe pass some laws this year.”
Mike Rockwood: Yes. We just throw them a check.
Ryan Rockwood: Right. They got a special session at congress, whatever, they went bananas. And now it’s just another very frustrating – for those of you that don’t know I should back up and say that President Obama plan came out on April 4th I think.
Mike Rockwood: Look, it was announced in March 4th and was supposed to be implemented by April 4th.
Ryan Rockwood: March 4th, all right, right. Yes, okay. That’s the plan that had some hope for helping people who hadn’t got behind yet. A lot of people, good people are working hard. They’re not behind yet because they’re forgoing all vacations, savings, college funds, all kinds of crazy stuff because they’re making their payments, right?
So anyway, that’s what we hope to see in the future that that opens up a little bit and some of these banks start to work with people before they damage their credit and everything. But the good news here is that anyone who is told that they need to be late to get help has the opportunity to oblige. And it only takes another …
Mike Rockwood: 60, 30 days.
Ryan Rockwood: 30 to 60 days. You’re late, you qualify. And you can kind of get that kind of stick it to them attitude that we have.
Mike Rockwood: We should remind folks that we all take our FICO score very, very seriously. It has become, as we all know, much more than just a numerical value and a group qualifying for particular loan interest rates et cetera. It has become even a status symbol and it’s become very important for a lot of reasons even employment reasons in our society.
And so we do agree with everybody that we should take our FICO score extremely seriously. I rewrote Chapter nine of the workbook about two months ago to more seriously address this issue because I could tell that a lot of clients were really upset with having wrecked their FICO score. So I changed the title even to Buckle Your FICO Seatbelt: Financial Emergency Preparedness. And this whole chapter is really a good look at just how to minimize the damage during a loan modification, number one, and then quickly recover. And I hope to have to write it again in about three months and advice people how to really be smart and not even smack your FICO score, not even take a thing on your credit and get a great loan modification.
But I can’t start writing that chapter yet until they implement this darn President Obama’s program at any rate. Also, I want to make another observation before I start talking about the pre-qual and that is, I’ve had a couple of clients this week that were really quite disappointed after I calculated for them what I expected the loan modification would do for them. That’s always a part of our pre-qual process. And it was because they had adjustable rate mortgages and two instances. Leonor in Orlando had a negative – he shed the option, you know, the pick-a-pay loan and she was paying the negative amortizing payment every month. Well in reality, she was borrowing money each month. She was going to the lender and taking out additional financing every month.
Ryan Rockwood: Well that’s negative amortizing means, right?
Mike Rockwood: Yes, so you’re actually paying less than you owe in interest.
Ryan Rockwood: So, there’s nothing on God’s green earth that’s going to make your payments go down.
Mike Rockwood: Yes, and so she was disappointed that in fact her payments would likely slightly increase. But what I had to counsel her about was the fact that her loan was going to go to a fixed rate. And that it was going to begin to amortize the value of the home. So, and another client from South Carolina was making the interest-only payment and they were similarly kind of disappointed that I said, you know, when I told them what I thought the modification would do for him. And my counsel to him was, you know, you’re not buying your home now but if you do get this modification, that loan is going to – the cost of that home is going to be amortized and include – a payment on the principal is going to be included in your payment. So, yes, your payment is only going to go down by about $200 but you’re going to start paying for that home. Start buying that home. So, those are just a couple of observations I want to make.
Ryan Rockwood: I mean, the double-edged sword there is that if we all had a clear mind, many of the people out there would choose not to buy their home. Frankly, it’s not very interesting. They’re not very interested in that or shouldn’t be. And that is something that we always talk about too, which is loan modification isn’t the solution to everyone and to everything. And even when you are pursuing a loan mod, you got to stay nimble. You got to stay on your toes and us being small-time investors, individuals, we can’t bear the market ups and downs like a corporation or like the …
Mike Rockwood: Or like the federal government.
Ryan Rockwood: Yes, yes. So, what we have to do is we have to be willing to move left, move right, do a loan mod, the loan mod fails, do a short sale. Do a short sale, time is dragging out, the loan mod gets approved; you go over the loan mod. You have to be fearless and …
Mike Rockwood: Or a deed in lieu …
Ryan Rockwood: And reckless …
Mike Rockwood: Bankruptcy or whatever
Ryan Rockwood: Reckless in your pursuit of solutions.
Mike Rockwood: Like Charlton Heston would be, right?
Ryan Rockwood: Then in placing your entire hope in one solution is of course dangerous you always got to be because it is so challenging for us to think about things that we don’t want to do, like perhaps selling the house. You know what I mean? A lot of people continue to fight for a loan modification on a home that’s hundreds of thousands of dollars upside down and so on and so forth. And that’s great. But you want to be clear that, I mean, in the meantime you better not be paying, make your payments or whatever. You know what I mean? You better not go on for a year, maybe a couple of months. But you got to be always moving and if you do have questions about alternatives to loan modification or short sale or foreclosure or what the heck should I do, you can always e-mail us at help@60minuteloanmodification.com.
Obviously, we can’t really help most people because they’re not in our area, but we might be able to refer them out or just give them some ideas that they hadn’t really thought about. And by the way, on this call you can e-mail help@60minuteloanmodification.com and e-mail us your questions for today’s call and we’ll be getting to those right quick.
Mike Rockwood: All right, now, it’s 6:18. We’re going to go to calls at about 6:30. So, I’m just going to talk briefly about the pre-qual call and then about followup.
Ryan Rockwood: What is the pre-qual call?
Mike Rockwood: Well, here’s the deal. This was something that we were doing early on that we thought was a great idea and then all the lenders started requiring and it is just flat out a good idea. Here’s how it works.
You prepare as if you’re applying for a loan modification. You go all through the steps that we advised ahead of time, and then you place a prequalification call to the lender. Now, almost all of the lenders are still doing them. Some of them, again, for people who are not behind them their payments they’re actually referring you off to the website and asking you to do it online just to kind of mitigate the workflow. But the pre qual call is where you actually go through your situation. You tell of your hardship and then you get pass that in an instant and then you go through your finances. They push a button and it goes through this cascading calculation, and it tells you whether or not you will qualify for any of the programs that the investor that owns your loan ascribes to.
And the beauty of it is that they will tell you why you do or do not qualify. And so if you’re really prepared and you really understand your situation, there is no chance that you will not qualify. You know what I mean? If you’re going into the pre-qual call fully prepared knowing what all your ratios are and knowing that your hardship is a clear hardship, then you flat out are going to qualify and you always learn something on that prequalification call that makes your application better without fail, you’ll learn something.
So, that’s what the pre qual calls all about. Now, I’ve recorded several of them and put them on the phone tap CD. So that those of you who have purchased our kit, go to that phone tap CD and search the index and look for those prequalification calls and listen to them.
Ryan Rockwood: You know what though? Like so many of these things, I know that people really gear the pre-qual call. No one has ever wants to – no one wants to contact the bank. No one wants to each – of itself. You know what I mean? Just do just mentally, more mentally than anything else.
Mike Rockwood: Right.
Ryan Rockwood: And also you can really screw up the pre-qual call. You can mess that up and get on there unprepared and disqualify yourself for a loan mod. Can you not?
Mike Rockwood: Yes, it’s true. You can and you get denied if you say the wrong things. But the truth is I’ve gone back and corrected myself the next day, literally dozens of times. I’ll just go back and I’ll say listen, you know, I made mistake that car payment is covered by my client’s business. I shouldn’t have it on and that and so take it off. It’s honestly that simple, it’s laughing – it’s laughable that it’s so simple. But it is best always to be very prepared, get through that pre-qual and get them to send you the documents and then you’re really on your way.
Ryan Rockwood: Okay. So, what do you have to have? What do you have to know prior to the pre-qual call?
Mike Rockwood: Yes.
Ryan Rockwood: Is this where you call in you and say it’s your first time basically, I want a loan modification.
Mike Rockwood: Well, the first thing we always recommend that you do is you listen to my free CD that you get at 60minuteloanmodification.com. The CD is called 60-Minute Loan Modification Secrets and it’s free. Get that. And the reason I recommend to people that they get it and listen to it is because I can’t tell you how many people have told me that they just got more comfortable with the whole process and certainly with the pre qual-call by listening to all my foibles and all the mistakes that I made and the ways that I learned to do good modification. So, that’s the first step.
Second step is withdraw any money that you have, any major money that you have on deposit with that bank. The third one is to prepare your hardship. And, of course, our workbook gives you real clear examples and a real fast way of getting to a verifiable hardship really quickly.
And then the fourth thing and far and away the most critical thing is to prepare your budget. And we went over the budget on our last teleconference this past Tuesday and transcripts of that will be available on our website by tomorrow. And the keys to the budget are really understanding documentable income, your debt-to-income ratio, and your total disposable income. So, the net on your monthly budget and what the ranges that are acceptable there. So, you want to have all that stuff done before you make the pre qual call so that you’re giving them information already knowing what they’re going to use that information for.
Now, a couple of tips, and that’s the beauty of having us as your mentor going through this whole thing is because we’ve been through it so many times. I always tell people say this and only this when you call in. “Hey, listen, here’s my account number, here’s my name. I’m having difficulty in making my monthly payments due to a hardship that I’ve encountered. We really want to keep this house and wonder if you offer programs that can help us like the ones we’ve been hearing about.” And then they’ll transfer you to the loan modification department and you begin your pre-qual call.
Now, another insider tip that honestly is really serious is, the less said the better. I always draw people’s attention to the Jim Carrey movie that I think is so funny called “Liar Liar” where he has to – every time he’s asked a question he has to tell everything he knows on the topic. You know, just pulled over by the cop and the cops said, you know why I pulled you over and he confesses to every traffic violation he ever made.
Well, similarly when you call the lender and they ask you for your hardship, you just say your hardship one sentence what your hardship is. When they ask you for your budget items, don’t offer anymore information. If they don’t ask you for a particular budget item, that’s their issue.
Ryan Rockwood: You know what? The tough thing for people though is realizing that the hardship can boil down to a word. Because I mean, it’s everyone’s life.
Mike Rockwood: I know so you want them to really understand that it wasn’t your fault that you got fired or …
Ryan Rockwood: No, I don’t think people understand that it’s a loss of job. I think people think that it’s – I mean, you too, you think it’s the bad economy affecting orders in your city.
Mike Rockwood: And we hold on as long as we could and then my [indiscernible] got together with us all …
Ryan Rockwood: Yes, and then we reduced our hours and then – you know what I mean? It’s just bottom line. So, if loss of job is at the heart of it, if death of a spouse, sickness, loss of income is a great one, and if those are at the heart of it, say those first. And maybe you have to explain, maybe no, by giving it a shot. Throw that out there, lost come.
Mike Rockwood: That’s a good way to say it. In fact we always critique for anybody who is our client. We always critique their hardship. And I did that just today, Ryan. I sent one back to a client and said, “Sounds to me like you’re saying that loss of income is your hardship. Why not just say it?” So that’s a good point.
Ryan Rockwood: All right.
Mike Rockwood: Another insider tip. Oh, okay. This other insider tip is if you don’t like the answers you get, ask someone else. It’s not just good advice in life. It’s also an incredibly effective way to deal with lenders. A lot of times you get poorly trained poorly informed individuals on the phone. And if on your pre-qual call you don’t get the response that you like, here’s the trick that I always use. As I always say, “Listen, I’m not entirely certain about this item or that item. I think I better go back and do a little research and call you back on this one very shortly.
That way they just – they enter into the system that you’re going to call back with more information and they don’t close your file. And they don’t say denied, and client was told why they deny it – why they were denied, okay? So, that’s a good little trick for keeping your file open.
So, enough said on the pre-qual call. I want to talk now about followup. Followup is so very critical for a number of reasons. After you have gotten pass the pre-qual call and then receive the paperwork and submitted your application, then you must follow up. And you must follow up for one reason is that it’s not uncommon for your file to be misplaced. So, you have to get confirmation from them because until they have your application, they have not got a qualified written request to consider your loan mod. So you want to be sure that you follow up and hear from them that it’s received and that it’s entered into the system.
Ryan Rockwood: Yes the thing is that, you know, people usually think about the followup being after following up with the negotiator or negotiating or something like that which is important, of course. But that you never going to get to that point unless you make sure that they got your application and that they have your application. And here’s the really frustrating thing or I guess the challenging thing. And that is when I’m in the mode, I say, okay finally I got my butt in action and I’m going to, I don’t know, mobilize [phonetic], whatever. I do it now. And when I get in the mood for [indiscernible] a sale [indiscernible] put off paying these bills. I’m going to pay him. Do it now. I do it now. But the problem with this is that followup is not something that you can do on your terms and in your time.
Mike Rockwood: And there’s no reward.
Ryan Rockwood: Yes, and so for the first – so I can submit my application now. It’s middle, like, 2:00 a.m. Super, I can fax it in. However, it’s not the next morning I can call back. It’s not two mornings. It’s maybe 72 hours later than it’s the first time – you call back all you want. But the first time they’re going to be able to tell you anything that anything is in the system is going to be 72 hours later. This fax number usually goes to some monster computer somewhere and it basically takes 72 hours to get to the intended recipient, you know.
So I think that’s a biggie for me is like, “Okay, you’ve done it. You finally got your butting gear and now you can sit around for three days and then start calling. You know, it can be more than once I have missed that and then a weekend or something. I get back on the stick and find out they’re just lost and I need to send it in again.
Mike Rockwood: Okay, so that’s one thing. It’s just the logistics in keeping it on track. The second one is a little bit more subtle and it’s something that I really believe in. And the busier and busier that these lenders get, the more I believe in it. Having worked in a large corporation and managed large call centers, I know the kind of pressures they’re under and I know how they’re measured and I know how their workflow comes to them. And having talk to a lot of these negotiators, I just know the environment that they’re in. I’m familiar with it and here’s how it goes.
They’ve got 10 options for the next thing that they do, the next item that they work on. And it makes a difference if they just received the fax or they received an e-mail from you reminding them that you are at the ready, that you are going to respond quickly to their inquiries, that you are most grateful for all the help that they have given you. In other words, they pick and choose. If they were cost [phonetic] out by this file and on your file, you always seem to answer the phone, number one. You always seem to get the paper work to them that they ask for. They’re going to be comfortable picking up your file again and they’re going to choose you over the other files. So, believe me, it’s important to send a friendly, cooperative, business-like message throughout the follow-up process.
Here’s the precise follow-up process that I recommend. I recommend that after you send in your loan modification application, you never again make a phone call to the lender until they call you. I recommend that you use faxes. And what I recommend is that you use a series of faxes that I give you in the black belt CD and in the appendices in the workbook, and they go like this. After you send in your application, I recommend you begin to fax at once to the customer service department asking them to confirm that they have received your loan modification application and that it’s in the system and that it’s complete because they always verify that it’s complete before they enter it into the system.
So, you send that absolutely every day until you get a confirmation call or fax or e-mail or letter in the mail from them saying, “Yes indeed, your loan modification application is received and complete and in the system.” Then you change your daily fax. And now it goes to the loss mitigation department. And everyday you send them a fax that says, “Please tell me who my negotiator is and let me know if there’s any additional information that I need to provide to him or her.” And you send that until they tell you, “Listen, your negotiator is John Nelson and here’s his fax number. Here’s his phone number or John Nelson contacts you.” So, you send that absolutely everyday.
Then once you are notified who your negotiator is, you change the faxes, the daily faxes to go directly to that negotiator and you just remind them everyday, “I am so at the ready.” This is the phone number you can use to get to me. I will pick it up when I see your number and I will get you information that you need. Thank you for your assistance.” You send that absolutely every day until they call you and say, “Listen, we want to talk to you about your modification approval.” So, that’s the process. It’s intense.
Ryan Rockwood: It doesn’t take a lot of time. That’s kind of the hardest issue buying the whole book.
Mike Rockwood: Right in fact the idea of this if you just – if you use the black belt CD and just type in your name and your lender’s name and leave off the date, and then just put knuckle notes on it every day, you can print off 10 of those on the day you send in your application and you’re ready for the next 10 days.
Ryan Rockwood: It’s like so much of life though unfortunately, it’s small, little that’s over …
Mike Rockwood: Now, you’re philosophical …
Ryan Rockwood: Period of time – it’s tough.
Mike Rockwood: You’ve been meditating too much.
Ryan Rockwood: All right. So, do you think you covered followup?
Mike Rockwood: Yes. That’s it on followup and the prequalification call. Why don’t we go to some questions?
Ryan Rockwood: All right. Remember, you can e-mail your questions to help@60minuteloanmodification.com or in about 10 seconds, I will just ask you to speak up. Hi, who’s got the first question tonight? Go ahead. Who’s got the first question?
Female Speaker: When do we use a dial note to get into the meeting? I can give you the code.
Ryan Rockwood: Oh, someone is giving the code. Hello. Hello. Does anyone have a question?
Female Speaker: [Indiscernible] later if you want to join in.
Mike Rockwood: Why don’t you just take some calls from e-mail until we get …
Ryan Rockwood: All right, okay. It sounds like people on the phone are still getting organized. So, what I’m going to do is take some e-mail calls and you can always e-mail your questions.
Mike Rockwood: E-mail questions.
Ryan Rockwood: help@60minuteloanmodification.com and also if you’re not going to ask a question or you’re not ready to ask a question, go ahead and mute that phone. Even most cellphones actually have a little mute function there. You just pull it off your ear and see it up there in the right hand corner, lower corner of the screen. Mute yourself when you’re not talking and definitely, obviously, unmute yourself when you want to talk, and that will just help us hear you. So, the first question I have by e-mail is got a guy asking if it’s important to hand write the faxes.
Mike Rockwood: Oh, no. The follow-up faxes do not have to be hand written. That’s because they are very often, most often, probably 100% of the time not being read by the person you’re addressing them to. They will just be forwarded and so that doesn’t matter at all.
Ryan Rockwood: Okay. We knocked [indiscernible] down.
Mike Rockwood: Yes, the answer, no.
Ryan Rockwood: All right. And we got another question here. On followup, that is basically, am I going to annoy the negotiator by calling the bank? I don’t want to – this says I don’t want them to basically not give me a preference.
Mike Rockwood: Yes. And I think that’s legitimate. And some people cut back to every other day. I still stick with every day. And I sort of feel like, you know, I don’t know. It’s a toss up. You’re right to be a little bit sensitive to that. And actually I have gotten some messages on my phone saying listen, you can stop sending faxes everyday as you’re just clogging up the system. We have assigned a negotiator. Here’s the negotiator. You know, I accomplished what I was after. I got the notice that the negotiator was assigned. So, my personal feeling is, and I am kind of a good manners corporate kind of guy. So, I say go for it.
Ryan Rockwood: You know what though? It’s not like something we’re passionate about, I think, right? I mean, whatever you’re comfortable with, regular followup, you know what I mean?
Mike Rockwood: Don’t let it go more than three to four days. There you go. That’s well said, Ryan.
Ryan Rockwood: Okay. Is a fax considered a qualified written request?
Mike Rockwood: Yes, unquestionably.
Ryan Rockwood: Okay, and the significance of that for other people that are …
Mike Rockwood: Oh, yes, okay. A qualified written request is a very important concept to be aware of. It goes like this. In Section 6 of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, which gives us all kinds of protections in terms of how transactions for real estate are conducted, there is a stipulation that is a protection for the borrower and it goes like this. It states that when a borrower submits a written request for specific information, a request for specific analysis or specific information about the contractual agreement between the lender and the borrower, that borrower or that the lender must respond within 20 days to confirm that they have received such request and they must respond within 60 days with a formal thoughtful and thorough response.
So, a qualified written request are hardship letters, are qualified written requests, are post negotiations request for additional concessions, is a qualified written request. In fact our application for loan modification is a qualified written request. Very often, borrowers want to know who their lender or who the owner of their loan is and you use the qualified written request to get that information as well. Now, that information, that qualified written request can be fax or sent by the postal service. And all your banks will have a special number that you send those to a special fax number, if they are not about a specific incident like a loan modification. And maybe I’m making this a little bit too complex. But any rate, a fax does qualify but you have to be sure that when you send the fax, you’re asking a specific question.
Ryan Rockwood: Okay. You know what? Something I’d like to mention is just that we use efax.com. It’s a service basically. For those of you that don’t know, if I’m working in a word document for example, I can go to print and print to eFax and it will send an e-mail that will arrive at someone’s fax machine. I never have to print it out. I never have to stand by the fax. I never have to feed it in and unjam it and all those, you know, the faxes are just so tedious and so lame that I would recommend that if people – you know, a lot of they say, oh, I don’t access to a fax machine or something like that. Everyone does if you can figure out efax.com or some similar service. Now if technology really isn’t your thing, stick with the paper feeder fax or do it at work or whatever, that’s much better. Okay, I got another question here. Will a lender always assign a negotiator?
Mike Rockwood: Absolutely.
Ryan Rockwood: That’s what takes a while though.
Mike Rockwood: Aren’t I good and brief on my answers tonight? Yes it always ends up with a negotiator and you might not see – you might chuckle about the term negotiator because some of these people are really just recently trained modification reps. Very often, Customer Service reps or collection reps or some rep from another department because the loan modification right now is sucking all the …
Ryan Rockwood: Do they still call them a negotiator? Do they get them a different name yet? Do they usually say your a negotiator is?
Mike Rockwood: Yes, you know, they do.
Ryan Rockwood: Okay.
Mike Rockwood: Yes, even though they have gone to these really politically correct names for the departments and for the whole process, they still do call them a negotiator. That’s an interesting point. You think they would call them an advocate or something like that.
Ryan Rockwood: Is it okay to say I’m not sure if you don’t know something when they call you?
Mike Rockwood: Good. Good. Did somebody ask that?
Ryan Rockwood: Yes.
Mike Rockwood: That’s a great question and the answer is an empathetic yes. That buys you time and it’s just completely acceptable.
Ryan Rockwood: And you know a lot of things – if you’re unsure about something, you might feel like rather dumb for not knowing something that seems kind of obvious that you might feel as obvious. But you know, people have no idea what their mortgages are or what their bills are or, oh my goodness. You know what I mean? They just don’t’ have that information. That’s very common. It’s really common. You give some – people have a hard enough time coming up with their addresses. And if you got some real properties, I would challenge you to come up with all those addresses actually.
Mike Rockwood: Yes.
Ryan Rockwood: You know. So, don’t sweat it and don’t be embarrassed to, you know, because I mean if someone says you might not want to say I’m not sure if it’s something that –don’t bluff it. If you’re not sure and you’re afraid you’re going to say the wrong thing, just go with that, row with that. All right, let me jump on here and I’ve got a few more e-mail questions. But I’ll jump on to see if anyone is ready to ask a question. Hey guys, thank you for joining us. Is anyone interested in asking a question?
Female Speaker: Hi. Hello.
Ryan Rockwood: Go ahead and ask your question if you have a question?
Female Speaker: Hello. Hello.
Ryan Rockwood: Young loan mod people out there. Anyone else?
Mike Rockwood: How did they qualify in the first place?
Ryan Rockwood: Does anyone else or are interested in asking question about your specific situation? Okay, I’ll jump back to e-mail.
Jane: Hello. Hello.
Ryan Rockwood: Hello. Go ahead.
Jane: I was wondering if my credit card approve any file judgment against the [indiscernible] for order of the Florida judgment. Will they go after the gravity [phonetic] or is there any way I can avoid?
Ryan Rockwood: Yes, well basically – what’s your first name?
Jane: I’m Jane.
Ryan Rockwood: It sounds like you got the credit judgment and you worry about them going after the property. How about your house? [Indiscernible] modification in your house?
Jane: Well the modification [indiscernible] sending me the application form, one is to [indiscernible] for the modification.
Ryan Rockwood: We got some loan modification. We’ve got some credit issued. And how about your employment, do you have currently now? Are you bringing an income every month?
Jane: I don’t have a job right now. I’m looking and I’m talking to somebody who said that maybe they will review my resume.
Ryan Rockwood: Do you have other sources of income like savings?
Jane: I’m renting out of the house, [indiscernible] family house that the Bank of America said that, well, we simply cannot help you if you don’t have a job. It doesn’t matter how much you earn. We just need you to have a job. And we [indiscernible] your family help you.
Ryan Rockwood: I understand.
Jane: And the credit card judgment is also from Bank of America. So, I have two lines of credit with them. I have a [indiscernible].
Ryan Rockwood: Okay have you tried to settle the credit cards? [Indiscernible]
Jane: I’m in the State of Washington.
Ryan Rockwood: Okay, I’m going to pause you and try to answer your questions as best as I can. Thanks so much, Jane. Hold on. All right. So, we’ve got a guy there talking in the background giving some directions or something, so I apologize for that. But we’ve got Jane. She’s in Washington. Sounds like she has a loan modification that she wants to do. She’s sitting there staring at the application. She’s also got a credit judgment against her. Let’s assume that’s for 30,000 plus because they’re not going to bother with something lower than that probably. So, let say she’s got 30,000 to 100,000 in credit card judgment. She does not have a job right now. She must have some savings or she’d be totally wiped out. And it sounds like she might be renting out the house that …
Mike Rockwood: Or renting some rooms, however.
Ryan Rockwood: Yes okay, any one of the two. And something that I would just bring up, who knows if this will fly. But you definitely cannot get a loan mod without a job.
Mike Rockwood: Without an income.
Ryan Rockwood: Without an income or something. So, I was going to say, well, let’s get her a job and the job could be landlord, investment property manager.
Mike Rockwood: Well, that’s exactly right. Yes.
Ryan Rockwood: Yes, so congratulations, Jane. We found you a job. So, when you get back to Bank of America.
Mike Rockwood: Bring it back, clear that resume.
Ryan Rockwood: You might want to still supplement your income, okay. But not having a job, you say those words and you’re out, okay. So, now you have a job and that job is, what should it be? Should it be investment manager, property manager?
Mike Rockwood: Property manager.
Ryan Rockwood: Well, say – well, your job is property manager. Okay, and you are self-employed, okay, instead of without a job. And also you have an income, okay, because you got that money coming in every month, okay? Now, you might be running a deficit every month. But plenty of people with jobs, with incomes are running a deficit every month, you know. So, don’t let that stop you. Add up all the money that you’re getting and put that on your budget as income, okay. And regarding the judgment, the credit card judgment, I really suspect that it’s probably …
Mike Rockwood: Yes, you really need to know more.
Ryan Rockwood: Yes, of course I’m guessing. My guess is it just has nothing to do with what the loan modification or you property in general. It’s unsecured debt and my guess is that unless you have significant equity in the house, they couldn’t go after the house anyway. Does that make sense? So, I think that the credit judgment should be something that’s really move on the side. Now, I don’t know if after a judgment is probably too late to make a settlement. However, I still think it can be charged – that can just be charged it off. Do you happen to know?
Mike Rockwood: No. I’m not sure.
Ryan Rockwood: You’re not sure on that one? Okay, you may want to consult. The person on that would probably be a bankruptcy attorney.
Mike Rockwood: Hey, Ryan, I see a question here that makes me think that we should either add a chapter to the book or we certainly should have it as a special topic on an upcoming conference call and that is “Charge Offs on Hillocks”. Because so many clients around the country now have seen their property values run right through their own equity, drop down below their 80% – you know the 10% or 20% hillock that they took out. So, now they just have their first mortgage. And so a lot of them are thinking of letting that hillock go to charge off.
Ryan Rockwood: You’re right. We need to deal with that. Yes
Mike Rockwood: And we should explain that whole process, how it works, what you have to do, what you have to say, how you have to conduct yourself, and what it will do to your FICO score and how to recover from it.
Ryan Rockwood: No, actually we should do a case. We should case study with you because you got a situation. We could write a whole another book on that. That would be really interesting to …
Mike Rockwood: Upcoming topic, that is so critical. [Indiscernible] on that.
Ryan Rockwood: Basically here it is. How many people that we’re talking to on the phone tonight that has a second with zero equity position. Is that too complicated to say? Does that make sense to everyone? Basically, what that means is if you sold your house, you would only be able to cover the first with the payment, the money that you got.
Mike Rockwood: Most of us are in that [indiscernible] in Southern Cal.
Ryan Rockwood: So, what the heck did you do with that second, okay? Yes, that’s a great one. We really should get on that. That’s so exciting. Okay. Let me jump back online here and see if any more brave souls are going to stand up and ask a question.
Mike Rockwood: Or we could just stick with the e-mail once too.
Ryan Rockwood: Okay, does anyone have a question?
Maria: Yes, I have a question.
Ryan Rockwood: Yes go ahead. What’s your first name?
Maria: Maria
Ryan Rockwood: Maria, go ahead.
Maria: My question is similar to James’ question regarding the judgment of a credit card. [Indiscernible] introduce. What is it best theme for us to do? I mean, we join the loan modification. We have credit cards. I owe like $50,000 in credit cards. And I just received from American Express. I owe them like $10,000. And what should we do?
Ryan Rockwood: Like another credit card?
Maria: The American Express, yes.
Ryan Rockwood: Another credit card or a bill?
Maria: Credit card.
Ryan Rockwood: Okay.
Maria: What should we do? Because [indiscernible] that we need to appear in court or I want in 30 days? Should we go to court? I mean will we lose anything if we don’t do that or …
Ryan Rockwood: You know there’s a real good solution to this problem and did you purchase our kit?
Maria: Yes, I did.
Ryan Rockwood: Okay. Did you get in there the book that I wrote on settling credit cards? Was that included?
Maria: Well I’m getting my kit. I think it’s going to arrive tomorrow.
Ryan Rockwood: Okay, good. Recently, we have this – we’ve been sending it out with them, all right.
Mike Rockwood: Just for the last 30 days.
Ryan Rockwood: The last 30 days we’ve been – basically I wrote a book. My name is Ryan and I wrote a book on what to do about credit cards because a lot of people like you are in the same situation, right. The book that’s in your – the book that will be included in your package is called the Credit Card Cure. It’s really just a – let’s say it’s a book. It’s overstating. It’s really a booklet and it gives you step-by-step instructions on how to settle that debt. Here’s what I would suggest is that you don’t let it go to a judgment. And what you do is you attempt to make a settlement. You said this is Bank of America credit card?
Maria: No, it’s American Express. But you think a settlement will be worth when – I don’t want to lose one of my properties. It’s going to go foreclosure. I mean, my FICO is already bad. Do you think we work it or should I just do bankruptcy on anything?
Ryan Rockwood: Well, that’s the good thing. If you’re going to do bankruptcy, it’s really a good thing to think about. What state are your properties in?
Maria: California.
Ryan Rockwood: What city?
Maria: San Diego.
Ryan Rockwood: Okay. San Diego is really hard hit, I know. Here’s the thing. How do you explore short selling those properties instead of letting them go into foreclosure?
Maria: [Indiscernible] I see that one of them might [indiscernible]. You know, even that short sale is kind of hard to get enough on right now.
Ryan Rockwood: Okay. Well, yes, it sounds like – Maria, I think at all stages you want to mitigate damage even though FICO score isn’t super important. Well, I should say it isn’t the end of life. Don’t damage it if you don’t have to. Don’t have a judgment sitting against you if you don’t have to. You know what I mean? Because I don’t know how long a judgment takes to go away. But then you’re down the bankruptcy route for sure. So, what I recommend …
Mike Rockwood: But you want to make sure that [indiscernible] is a real viable option. I mean, those laws are there for people getting paid in [indiscernible] corner and are just flat out to stuck. So, you really want to be sure Maria that you do get good counseling from a bank attorney about all the ramifications because sometimes it is just flat out is the very best option.
Ryan Rockwood: Do you live in any of these houses?
Mike Rockwood: Maria, do you live any of the houses that are in foreclosure?
Maria: Yes.
Mike Rockwood: Okay, so the bankruptcy trustee or judge will be able to – and congress is debating whether or not to give the judiciary even more power in this regard. He could rewrite the principal on your note. It may be a really good option so we don’t want to discourage you meeting with the bankruptcy attorney. They’ll certainly give you interview, you know, 15 or 30 minutes of their time just to determine whether or not [Indiscernible].
Ryan Rockwood: So, what I would recommend is talk with the good guy. I know we recommend a good guy in LA but it doesn’t matter what city they’re in.
Mike Rockwood: No. [Indiscernible] in California. Maybe he can help her.
Ryan Rockwood: Okay, well if you would like Maria, send us your e-mail at help@60minuteloanmodification.com and we could send you a recommendation to someone that has helped our clients out in the past a bankruptcy player. But start the loan modification process, use the loan modification as well, read the credit card as well. You’re going to have your options to be able to determine which ways is best to read settlement, bankruptcy, foreclosure, short sale and so.
Maria: Okay, I appreciate it.
Ryan Rockwood: So, e-mail us at help@60minuteloanmodification.com. Thanks.
Maria: Yes, I’ll do that. Thanks.
Ryan Rockwood: Okay, thanks Maria. Anyone else? Does anyone else have questions? Anyone else?
Jane: Hello. Hello. I was wondering if [indiscernible] there’s a form. Do I [indiscernible] 80% or a 30%. And so if I don’t have enough money to sum it up to pay all those guys, will they refuse me if my self-employment income compared to all the …
Ryan Rockwood: Oh is this Jane?
Jane: Yes.
Ryan Rockwood: Oh, okay. The question is will you be refused if you don’t have enough income?
Jane: Yes, based on 80% or 70% of the requirements?
Ryan Rockwood: Yes, I mean you definitely have to get enough income to qualify for that for the loan mod payment or unfortunately you’re told. If that’s the situation with you Jane, what state are you in Jane?
Jane: Washington.
Ryan Rockwood: Oh Washington, right?
Jane: Yes.
Ryan Rockwood: Washington. You may want to e-mail us directly at help@60minuteloanmodification.com because I mean, if that’s the case – I mean, unfortunately the income has to be there. And that’s our greatest problem in qualifying people for loan mod showing that they have enough income, not that they have too much income, okay?
Jane: Oh, okay. So I have to have some extra to sit down aside for the income compared to payment.
Ryan Rockwood: Well, really I think because we have to talk to you about your budget as a whole. Like every month, do you have any idea how much comes in and how much comes out?
Jane: Yes, thank you.
Ryan Rockwood: Okay, so basically Jane’s question is about – now, we solved her problem of employment.
Mike Rockwood: The job she has income but the ratio still have to be there. I mean you have to have …
Ryan Rockwood: So, she’s already asking for a raise.
Mike Rockwood: Oh, man. Jane …
Ryan Rockwood: All right, excuse me, Jane. Okay, so basically, I mean that’s the real heart of the matter now. We solved it right. I mean, that’s how it goes. We solve one problem. We’re on to the next, you know what I mean?
Mike Rockwood: That is exactly how it goes.
Ryan Rockwood: One by one we knock them down. So, the problem Jane has now it sounds like I mean, if she’s like anyone that I know the income of the house doesn’t match or doesn’t cover the expenses of the house, and it certainly not going to cover her own expenses or cost of living and everything like that. So, borrowing enough income there, far away the best thing is going to be to explore other options which include short sale and bankruptcy, okay.
And for further on that Jane, shoot us an e-mail at help@60minuteloanmodification.com. Okay, I got another question here from Jack. What is likely to be the largest percentage drop in monthly mortgage payment that a lender will do? For example, is the lender likely to go from $2,000 per month to $1,000 per month payment equaling a 50% drop? Well, that’s a good question because a lot of people – you know, they’re obviously they’re like, well, before I get involved in a loan mod, I want to know what a loan mod could do for me.
Mike Rockwood: Yes. And that is certainly – that’s not uncommon. But you know what determines that is how bad your current loan is. Certainly, with someone with an 8.5 % hillock can expect to walk away from a loan modification if all the ratios and everything are right with probably a 3% to 4% for at least two to five years. So, that would be a dramatic, almost 40% reduction or almost a 60% reduction in your monthly payment on that mortgage. So, it depends on how bad your mortgage currently is. It’s not inconceivable. I had one – let’s see this one. Jean’s was cut in half. This one that I just talked to, all right, I mentioned at the beginning of the call. So, her payment was actually cut in half. And a number of mine have been.
Ryan Rockwood: You know the thing is though is that while this is what people are going to be most interested in percentage off, it is a completely separate byproduct of the loan modification, right. We’re talking about debt to income – now as a percentage of debt-to-income ratio that might have some value. But I mean, we can tell you probably that, I mean 40% drop or something is what we’re shooting for but that number really doesn’t have any bearing in reality. It’s a byproduct of trying to get you to a good debt-to-income ratio. And the debt-to-income ratio that they’re trying to get you to is 38%, right, 38% isn’t that the goal?
Mike Rockwood: That’s where they make the most money is if they can pull you down to 38% by virtue of using three tools. One of them is going to a 2%. The second one is going to interest only. And the third one is stretching your mortgage out to 40 years. If they can get you down to 38%, and now that’s not debt-to-income, that’s just that your housing-to-income. If they get that down to 38%, then they win big and they get extra money. And the government will pull you all the way down to 31%, so they’ll pull your payment down even further. So, that’s when they hit the jackpot.
Ryan Rockwood: All right. Thanks so much, Jane. All right, well, thanks so much for joining us guys on this call. We’re going to close it up. Thank you so much for joining us. Loan modifications are probably the fastest, easiest, and cheapest way to fix a bad mortgage. So, we really applaud you for taking advantage of this rare opportunity.
The people to take action right now will be the real winners, while those that simply complain and play the blame game and maybe hope that one day they’ll get a better loan modification offer are just going to be the ones that fall deeper and deeper in debt. So, 2009 is a tough year for most people. You’re not alone and you’re not helpless. I hope that what we’re doing here is helping provide a bit of group of people who feel like they have someone they can lean on to ask questions that are going through the same thing. But the first step is to take action. Stop procrastinating and figure out what the best option is for you and your family.
If you want to keep your house, loan modification can be a sweet option. Chances are you’re going to need to help. So, here’s how we can help you right now. Number one, we’re here every Tuesday and Thursday at 6:00 p.m. on these teleconferences. Invite your friends, send us your questions, invite your spouses that say loan modification is a bunch of hoopla and your doubting friends. Although, friends and relatives always have a lot of opinions about this stuff, being on real estate, we know that most of the time, many times they are completely well intentioned and way off base. So, get the answers, get out there, and take those risks, and move toward solutions rather than just shying away out of potential fear.
Number two, if you don’t already own our 60-Minute Loan Modification kit, do yourself a favor, buy it now. At $275 it’s the greatest bargain you’ll find anywhere and could easily save you thousands each year. You can order it online at 60minuteloanmodification.com/products.
Number three, if you know that you simply can’t or won’t do your loan modification yourself, that’s okay too. It’s always best to be honest with yourself. So, if you’re not going to do it yourself, please take a look at our done for your service, called elite express. You can see it at 60minuteloanmodification.com. As long as you pre-qualify, we’ll take over and do everything for you. It’s not cheap but it is the best value out there. It’s extremely effective and it usually pays for itself within two to seven months. So, it’s well worth the investment.
As you can imagine we spend most of the day on the phone so e-mail us the quickest way to get a response to any and all of your questions. Also remember that all of the products that we’ve talked about today are 100% money-back guaranteed. Our point here is to help. So, if that’s a factor, so don’t let concern or fear or failure be a factor in ordering our product and getting started. Please e-mail us at help@60minuteloanmodification.com. Until next week. Thank you so much for joining us. Good luck with your loan modifications and we’ll see you next week. Bye-bye.
Mike Rockwood: Bye-bye.
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