If you're in trouble with your mortgage in Philadelphia, you need to call a housing counselor. In Philadelphia, you can call 215-334-HOME. A housing counselor can get you a better deal as you try to save your home. This is always true, but even moreso right now.

In Philadelphia, we have a Sheriff's Sale moratorium going on backed up by a court that refuses to kick homeowners out if lenders don't engage in a good faith effort to negotiate reasonable terms with the homeowner. Homeowners have to participate, though. They have to show up to court hearings and they have to engage in the process or they will still lose their home as quickly as they would have before.

The front page of The Daily News yesterday had a story about a successful effort by the Save our Homes Coalition (which included PUP) to win a better deal for Philadelphia homeowners facing foreclosure. Here's an example of one of the personal stories of a successful loan modification described in the article by Dan Geringer:

Swollen by bankruptcy legal fees, her $3,500 bad debt ballooned to
$20,000. Her house was scheduled for sheriff's sale last month. She
needed a miracle.

Freeman and hundreds of equally desperate Philadelphia homeowners

have found that miracle in the person of Common Pleas President Judge
C. Darnell Jones II, who recently issued a court order that may become
a national model for saving the homes of people drowning in debt.

Whether they succumbed to the teaser-rate adjustable mortgage loans
that suddenly readjusted skyward or predatory lenders or deceptively
expensive bankruptcies or fragile personal finances that collapsed due
to loss of income - all of them could lose their homes to foreclosure
if they don't grab the lifeline that the judge is tossing them.

Judge Jones has give homeowners a chance to hold onto their houses and lenders a chance to stay in the black.
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The Philadelphia Unemployment Project
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