What is a Foreclosure?

Posted on October 15, 2009
Filed Under Foreclosures | Leave a Comment

Getting behind on your mortgage payments does not mean you are a bad person, but it may mean you are facing foreclosure. What is foreclosure? By definition, a foreclosure is:

fore-clo-sure: “A proceeding in which the financier of a mortgage seeks to regain property because the borrower has defaulted on payments.”

Basically you can’t pay your mortgage payments anymore and the bank or mortgage company seizes your property to try to resell.

What a Foreclosed Property Can Be

Foreclosed property, what is it? It can be a business, a home, a piece of land. Usually and traditionally it’s a home. People fall upon bad times, can’t make enough money and their property goes back to the bank and they must move out.

It Is Happening to People You Know

There are approximately 1.9 million foreclosed and pre-foreclosed properties on the market today. My brother and sister in law had to file bankruptcy, which for them was an alternative to being foreclosed on. She had quit her job due to illness and he just could not make the payments anymore. They filed, moved to overt having a foreclosure on their credit, opting for bankruptcy instead.

Repercussions of Foreclosure

Having your home foreclosed on can be traumatic, stressful, embarrassing because it’s a public notice that is placed on your door in most states, all your friends and neighbors can see this, and it’s humiliating to face the reality that you just can’t make it.

Moving your children from their school and friends, you from your job, often times your church and friends yourself can be overwhelming. Hundreds upon thousands of people experience this every day. It’s not fun, nor is it something anyone wants to live through.

Thanks to an Economic Resssion

With today’s society, the price of everything is skyrocketing, and our paychecks can’t keep up. I lost my job last year, when my company closed it’s doors. 315 people, 90% were single mothers lost their only source of income. I would not doubt that a few have lost their homes by now to foreclosure.

Being Vigilant About Spending

As a society today, buying more than we can really comfortably afford is a problem. And if we all took the time to truly evaluate our finances, catastrophic circumstances and events in mind, we all would be in more of a position not to have to have our homes foreclosed on.

I was lucky, my husband still works and pays the bills, I’m still looking for work, but I’m an older American, 46, quality work is difficult to come by. Hopefully we can pull out of this in the near future with help from the banks and the government. Then maybe no one will have to ask the question: “What is a foreclosure?”