There's "HOPE" for the "F" Word

NeighborWorks America and The Ad Council have launched a National Foreclosure Prevention Awareness Campaign.

NeighborWorks® America, one of the nation’s largest housing and community development organizations, announced a new public awareness campaign today with the Ad Council aimed at preventing home foreclosure that urges homeowners in financial trouble to call 888-995-HOPE. The Homeowner’s HOPE hotline, provided by the Homeownership Preservation Foundation, is the cornerstone of a foreclosure prevention effort involving many of the country’s largest mortgage market companies. The public awareness campaign strives to reduce the number of homes entering the foreclosure process, which is expected to exceed one million households in 2007.

Is this because they just nice people and care about the national overall real estate market? No. Here's the real reason why as stated in the release.

Given that each foreclosure costs $30,000 or more, the total cost to the housing finance system of one million foreclosures could approach $30 billion.

Basically they're trying to save their own behinds. Which they should seeing as how their poor predatory lending practices are the reason this HOPE number is even necessary in the first place. Shame on them.

And on a self serving note, good agents will help their clients avoid "creative" financing which ends up hurting thier clients in the long run. In my experience, those people who purchase homes without using a Realtor are the ones who get srewed the worst. IJS.