Daily Real Estate News  |  June 12, 2008  |   Hope Now to Pay for Mortgage Counseling
Lenders and mortgage investors are announcing a plan today to pay nonprofit counselors to help distressed home owners better manage their money.

Hope Now, a coalition of lenders and nonprofit groups, will pay $150 for a counseling session with a distressed home owner. Counseling agencies can receive more if there is a positive outcome for the lender.

"This is a great way to prevent foreclosures, to be connected with counselors," says Faith Schwartz, Hope Now's executive director.

The money would be available for counselors who work with home owners who are late on their payments – or that think they will be soon. It would not cover home owners already in bankruptcy or many who have had credit counseling within the past year.

The funds will be in addition to the $180 million in grants Congress has approved for nonprofit counseling agencies, as well as payments the industry already makes to the 450 housing counselors who staff a hotline for home owners. That hotline, 888-995-HOPE, has reported 315,000 calls this year, compared with 245,000 for all of last year.

Source: The Washington Post, Renae Merle (06/12/08)