“Stop Foreclosure!” “Save Your House!” “We Buy Houses”
You’ve probably read the news or seen the ads and signs around you home town. People are standing in line to make money from the rise in foreclosures nationwide. It is in the press regularly and is a reality. Adjustable rate mortgages are adjusting and people can no longer keep up with the rising payments. So what is someone to do when they get in a situation where they are behind on their mortgage payments?
As a real estate investor, I have done research on a number of different ways to make money with real estate including various ways to get people to speak with me about selling their house. I started focusing on the pre-foreclosure market and found that there were a lot of people that were in foreclosure but really wanted to stay in their house. They didn’t want to sell right now. In some cases, they were in denial because they really couldn’t afford the house any more, but in other cases, they were back on track but were having difficulty working with their bank to get caught up.
I decided to learn how I could help people in foreclosure to keep their homes when they do not want to sell. Quite often, people had a temporary hardship that caused them to get behind on their payments. Now the hardship is over, but their bank won’t accept their payment. They are requiring full payment (plus interest and legal fees) to reinstate the loan or they will foreclose. So what do you do if you don’t have that much money available?
I started studying loss mitigation. What I found is that there are a number of companies out there that offer you the opportunity to become a “loss mitigation consultant” or “locator” and outsource this service to the company. Companies such as US Loss Mitigation or Freedom Foreclosure Prevention Services or offer people the opportunity to start their own business as a “consultant” and earn commissions on loss mitigation cases. Sounds reasonable right?
The problem with these companies is that Loss Mitigation in and of itself does not really work out well for most people. The typical “successful” loss mitigation case will get the client a forebearance agreement whereby the homeowner will agree to pay half their unpaid balance up front and the remaining balance will be spread out over 6 payments. That is a typical arrangement. Most homeowners who are behind on their mortgage payments do not have the ability to make these payments and quite often end up losing their homes anyway. Now they are out all those loss mitigation fees and the legal fees begin to build up again.
So what is the answer for people in trouble? I learned that to be a successful investor with morals, ethics and honesty, I could not simply offer loss mitigation alone. So I kept searching. I ended up finding a company called Consolidated Solutions Group based in Texas. They are a full service foreclosure prevention company that does a lot more than just loss mitigation. They do offer it, but only as a last resort if necessary. They really work with the homeowner to find out their situation and determine what the best solution is for them. They have a number of different program options available so they can focus on the actual homeowner and what is best for them.
So what does this have to do with a business opportunity site? Well, they recently began offering people the opportunity to sign up with them as a foreclosure consultant. It is free to sign up and there is an option to upgrade to a senior level to earn higher commission rates. This is perfect for people who have been considering getting into the foreclosure prevention business. I signed up and upgraded to senior (LM2) status within a week. I have been able to get all my questions answered directly from one of the principles of the company and I am comfortable with their company as both a real estate investor and a business opportunity seeker.
CSG offers a lot and you can get started with them for free to see if foreclosure prevention is something you would enjoy. The duties of a foreclosure consultant with CSG are few. You only have to make contact with people who are behind on their mortgage payments and gather some preliminary information. You offer to interview them to see how you can help them. You are not selling anything at all and there is no cost to the homeowner for your part of the information gathering process. You then pass on the interview questions to CSG and they take it from there. You earn a nice commission on the company’s income generated from your cases.
If you are looking for a business opportunity in loss mitigation or foreclosure prevention, I highly recommend checking them out at the following link:
UPDATE: I No Longer recommend Consolidated Solutions Group as a business opportunity or a Loss Mitigation service. Please read some of my other posts to see my story and that of others who have had issues with CSG.
