Jason Biro counsels homeowners facing foreclosure, and has written a book called Saving Your American Dream. The book covers ways to protect against becoming a victim of builder, realtor, broker and lender scams and predatory practices. It also helps you navigate through—and survive—default and foreclosure. Biro says when people start having trouble making house payments, the biggest mistake they can make is waiting too long to solve the problem.
“Once you’re 30 days past due and you’re technically in default, that is the precise time where you need to be addressing your situation, where you need to be getting you lender involved, you need to be getting free counseling, like what we do. You need to be reaching out and really identifying what your problem is, and know that there’s a solution out there, but the quicker that you address it, the quicker you’re going to have a better solution down the road.”
Biro stresses the importance of monitoring your credit.
“And this will help you for when you are trying to get financing of any kind, really. It will help you if you are turned down for credit to know what you can work on and how you can make those changes. And then the second one would be understanding the process of lending. It’s so intimidating, and it has been for years, and it’s so technical. But know how to speak to a broker, how to speak to a bank. Know what your note is, know what your mortgage is, know what your title is, know what your promissory note is.”
Biro says lenders like consistency, and showing that you can manage your debt impeccably for 12 to 24 months is important to a lender.