One of my customers called me today. This is not an unusual call for me to get these days. He states that his wife got laid off from her job of 17 years. Her company made auto parts for new cars and with the slowing of new car sales, she got laid off. His company has cut back on his hours drastically (he is in computer operations), and they are running out of savings.
He has blown through his entire savings over the last 4 months trying to keep paying everything on time and protecting his credit rating. But now, the money has run out. He wanted to ask me about hardship programs for homeowners. He makes all his payments on time, but soon he will start getting behind.
Unfortunately, there is nothing I know of to help him. I set up the loans, not service them, so I tried to steer him in the right direction on where to get more answers. But quite frankly, I think he is SOL. I have not heard of anything that helps people BEFORE they get behind. There are programs to help if you are 3 or more months behind on your mortgage, but of course, by then you have ruined your credit.
I don't know what the answers are, but something has to change soon. It breaks my heart to hear these people that say they don't want to move (lose their house), but they don't have any other choice.
I mean, this guy wasn't blowing wads of cash living a champagne lifestyle. He had a low interest rate, a low debt-to-income ratio and 20% equity in his house. But the economy turning has brought it's worst on him. And he had a fairly good attitude about it. Some people calling me hate the world right now, no matter who is in "their world". He said he know there are tons of people in the same boat as him, but he is still trying to stay afloat.
I just feel bad for those people. Hopefully things will change soon.
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2 comments:
I feel their pain. I guess you just have to do what you have to do.
Anyway, congrats on the win tonight.
I got smacked with the bad economy when my wife saw her position eliminated by the local school board. Thank goodness that I have a good secure job, but right now we're looking at appoximately 38% of the family income out the door. She'll come up with something else, but unless it is a teaching job within the same district, her income will be much less.
The thing that really seems to suck is that the people who have been responsible borrowers are getting screwed, yet we bail out the people who have made poor choices.
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