Foreclosures are soaring in California with 473,652 foreclosed homes and thousands more nearing foreclosure. California continues to have the highest number of foreclosures regardless of the government intervention loan modification programs.

The home loan modification plan released by the government includes many attractive incentives for both the homeowner and servicer/lender. Remember, be patient. Lenders and mortgage service providers have started to implement the new program and there may be a slight delay before they are prepared to process all applications. Many lenders have made a commitment to delay foreclosure on all loans that meet the minimum eligibility criteria for a home affordable modification.

While the Obama administration has been pushing lenders to modify loans rather than foreclose, most attention has been paid to first mortgages. But what about second mortgages? Rates on those are always higher than firsts, and it's been a popular way for homeowners to draw on equity, and thus, get in trouble.

Many people can't seem to figure out which is better, loan modification or mortgage refinancing, making it difficult to decide which option they should choose. Both of these options can help someone with an unaffordable mortgage but both seem to take some time to get into as there is lengthy application processes involved with both.

Mortgage Fraud Examiners, the company that was warning the public about loan modification services months before the Obama Administration, is now warning of a new “criminal loan modification trap” which the government 'doesn’t'(?) want you to know.

Why would anyone pay thousands of dollars to try to get their loan modified by 'Joe the Modifier', when the federal government and several non-profits will do them for free?

A home loan modification is something given to people who have already purchased a home, when they can no longer make payments on their original loan. Loan modification use has risen rapidly in America in response to our current state of affairs. Home owners can simply no longer make payments on their mortgage.

The U.S. government today launched its new website makinghomesaffordable.gov helping the U.S. homeowners to find ways of what they can do for making their homes affordable in this financial and mortgage crisis.

Today the Obama Administration released the mortgage plan that will allow millions of homeowners to refinance or get some type of help. The question in many homeowners' mind is where do we start from the loan modification process? The place to visit is the www.financialstability.gov site, which the government has set up to carry the process.

Congress gave some struggling homeowners a gift last December. On December 20, congress enacted the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 allowing homeowners whose mortgage debt has been partially or fully forgiven to claim special federal income tax
relief.

In the midst of the widening housing crisis, there’s been quite a lot of criticism from voters aimed at the recent efforts by the government to bail out financial institutions that are being dragged down by souring mortgage securities.