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Apr 29, 2009 -- New web resource for help with mortgage workouts

Whenever Clark makes a public appearance, he's constantly bombarded by questions from people who are in over their heads with their mortgages and want to know what to do.

Conventional wisdom holds that your monthly housing expenses should only be slightly more than 30% of your take-home pay. However, many people are paying more than 50% of what they bring home. In extreme cases, some even owe more than 100% of their income!

The consumer champ had previously spoken about the Making Home Affordable (MHA) initiative and the opportunities it presented for refinancing. But many people were frustrated in their efforts to make any headway with MHA.

Now there's a new free website from the Fair Isaac people that should help homeowners who've been waylaid in their past efforts to get some kind of mortgage workout.

MortgageReliefOnline.com poses a battery of questions and then instantly tells you if you're eligible for assistance under the MHA plan.

Unfortunately, Clark won't be able to answer any questions submitted via commenting. If you have a question, please try posting it to our message boards.

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What others are saying

  • Mortgage Assistance
    WOW! I actually feel better now after seeing all the comments. I am a Realtor and you can imagine my life right now. I had perfect credit and started last Oct. asking for help. The lost paperwork and 2 times denied modification. (I was lucky and unlucky enought to get 2 two jobs this year and then be laid off.) The lender then says you have no budget to work with and throws out the modification. I say help me and I will find a way to make it work. Come get my house lender...you will be much better off working with me. WTF!!!
  • Mortgage
    I completely understand everyone’s frustration. I have contacted my lender several times and they refuse to speak to me. My lender will not speak to me as long as I am current on my payments. My mortgage it 29% of my pre-tax income not the required 31%. Unfortunately I also pay $500 a month to student loans which nothing including a bankruptcy will ever alleviate. And I find it interesting that they do not ask what amount of taxes you pay, because I got a promotion at work and now I pay more taxes, so things are even worse. I end up seeing less money each month. I realize I should be glad I have a job, but I have not heard of anyone that the bill and all the taxes that everyone will be paying for it for years to come has actually helped.
  • Making Home Affordable.gov SCAM
    I submitted my information for Loss Mitigation to my lender according to the Making Home Affordable Guidelines. This was approx. 48 pages I faxed to the lender over 90 days ago. As other folks have said in this blog, I am not currently behind in my mortgage. I am however strapped for cash and house poor at this point. What I would like to point out is that the buzz I have been hearing is that you have to go 30days late on your mortgage. This in turn raises the red flag on your account within the Lenders database. They will then contact you and try to "assist/help" you. This is a crock of you know what! Basically having stated that, in my opinion they are giving these programs out to people who go 30days late on their mortgage. So people that continue to pay their bills are being punished with no relief.
  • LOAN MOD
    This turned out pretty bad.They were pleasant people but it took 3 weeks(the time zone thing)After all was said and done once again my mortgage company said that they didn't receive all of my documentation(they've said the last 3 times i've tried to modify)..whats really weird is that I began getting calls from folks that stated for a small fee they could help me I became livid!..this was not a good experience.Clark should do more homework before referring
  • LOAN MOD
    If you are current and credit score is good but your life circumstances have changed, we thought this was our answer. It is all a very ugly joke. Chase reps. were misleading. They had documents for over 90 days and then offered a streamlined 90 day trial. Send them $3200 in a cert. check and make 3 mo. payments on time which amounted to $189.00 higher than our current payment, then they would re-negotiate my current 20 yr. mort. but would not give me any details other than it could be a rate deduction of .5 to 1% or approx. $100-150 lower mo. payment. We are thinking of cashing out, paying off debts and moving to Costa Rica. Don't be suckered by supposed govt. rescue plans unless your name is JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs or Bank of America!
  • Cluesless
    Not sure I understand this modification crap. We asked for help in November with Chase. Since then they have lost our paperwork, jerked us around, said one thing and then another. Today they tell us that we dont make enough money to help us/.... HUH??? WHAT???? I cant help that since we bought our home that we have lost jobs and all other life situations hit us one after another. We asked for help prior to the snowball and now we dont make enough money to help. I really just don't get it.
  • Mortgage Relief
    Called and set up appointment with lender. Excellent Credit Score, not behind on payments, qualified. I wanted to combine 1st and 2nd mortgage because I wasn't making any head way on the second mortgage. They offered an interest rate that was at least a point higher than I was already paying! What's the point?
    This was pointless.
  • People need to listen better
    The phone call you get is from a debt counselor. They figure out your financial situation to see if you qualify for the program. They are not a debt consolidation agency. If you qualify they then make recommendations to your existing lender about lower interest rates, longer financing, lower payments, etc. But the key is the have to qualify you and to do that they have to get your income and expenses. They were very professional with me and how someone can gripe about a free service to help them shows how ungrateful they are.
  • wish I had read: comments first
    I wish I had read the comments section first before sending out my information to MHA. I do not need debt relief- just assistance with my mortgage (and a divorce).
  • obamas mortgage help?
    so what are we supposed to do when someone else own our loan and we cant get refinanced and the most we can do according to this page is negotiate with the bad mortgage lender that bought our loan. this will only be a temporary fix we will still be you know what after the six month modification we can negotiate. do you have any idea what else to do because none of the programs that have came out can help me
  • REFINANCING
    I HEARD ABOUT THE MOTGAGE RELIEF ONLINE ON YOUR TELEVISION SHOW. AND I HAVE A TRAILER HOME THAT I'M TRYING TO REFINANCE, THE MORTGAGE ON IT IS 64,000 AND THE INTEREST RATE IS 9 1/2%
  • MortgageReliefOnline.com
    after I completed the questions a window popped up that said that an HUD mortgage consultant would call me?
  • Very Unprofessional
    After hearing about this from Clark on the air, I went to the web site and took the test to see if I was qualified for the mortgage relief program. Since we are not behind in our payments, we met the criteria so I went ahead and made the appointment online. They said we would recieve a call in 48 hours. Well sure enough, we got a call within that time frame from a woman who called an hour earlier that we had scheduled so my wife wasn't home yet and then once we got our paperwork together then told us she didn't have a "counselor" to speak to us that night and would have to rechedule it. So we did that. O n the night of the reschedule, we didn't recie a call at 7PM, the appointed time. So I did a redial of the number they had called us on and got a woman who looked up our appointment and told us it wasn't set until 10PM. This was apparently a time zone issure since they are in Pacific time and we are on Eastern. So now we have a 3red appointment just to get this thing rolling. So far this has been a very unprofessional experience and after reading what others have said here about it being a debt consolidation service, I am not sure I want to be involved with it anyway. I do plan to bring it up if and when we get another call from them later thisd month for our next appointment. Very disappointing.
  • Mortgagereliefonline.com
    This is a debt consolidation scam. Not at all what Clark indicated on his show.
  • Mtg Relief Online
    I have an appointment with a counselor this week. The person that I called to make the appointment said that the would be the middle man in working with my lender. We're not behind on our payments and I called my lender and they're sending out a package regarding the bill that President Obama signed. Confused.
  • Scam
    I think this a debt consolidation type place not sothing I think Clark Howard should endorse.
  • Mortgage Relief Online
    I happened to listen for a few minutes to your program for the very first time
    this week and you mentioned the 'Mortgage Relief Online' program. It
    turns out that these are attorneys out in California (www.Morgandrexen.com) integrated legal systems - a debt consolidation company. They want me to
    stop paying my credit cards bills and
    let them consolidate them. I'm leary about this and I'm asking your advise.
    Thanks
  • I am unemployed and am not behind on my home but will be soon, got same evasive answers about contact lender.
  • Mortgage Relief Online
    Yes, more vague answers to the question,"Do I qualify", but then tells you to contact your lender who then proceeds to be even more vague and elusive. Why do I have to default in order to be rewarded. Very sick indeed!
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