How Mortgage Modification Programs are helping Consumers in Select U.S. Locations

Transcript

okay good afternoon everyone thanks for joining us this is pink mic legal confessions as you know i'm stephanie garces donet thank you so much for joining us for our episode today where we're going to be covering how mortgage modifications programs are helping consumers in select u.s locations and i'm going to be introducing our wonderful guest today he's an expert in this um igor and i know that you're going to be telling us a little bit more about you but i was told you were the expert so i believe you are one um so just as a way uh a background for those of you who some people have were actually messaging me asking me about what this topic was about so just to kind of wrap up um a quick intro here countless americans as we know are struggling to bounce back um after covid because of miss mortgage payments i know a lot of people have lost work uh perhaps they don't have the same income that they had once before so on this week's pink mike legal confessions we are sitting down with attorney and our expert in loan modifications um igor roitberg i'm saying that right to learn more about the court approved programs that allows consumers to request modifications on their loans their mortgages specifically with a licensed attorney and so this is really important because if you don't even know this is a option i hope that you know it by the time your this show was over because it's so important for our consumers to understand really what it is that we um we offer you know the viewers um as far as knowledge and things that you may not necessarily know unless you go and google it which google for the most part has most of the stuff that you need but it doesn't necessarily replace a licensed attorney which i've preached about many times in this show so um so yeah like i said i'm stephanie garces donet i'm the owner of garces law firm where we help parents secure their legacy in the invent of an unexpected absence in their life so um for no with no further ado my colleague here igor roitberg has joined us today um so just as a background he's the managing director of stretto he's one of the um co-founders of dmm portal that law firms use to manage the mortgage modification process uh agro thank you so much for joining me can you give us a little bit of background about yourself thank you for having me stephanie uh yeah sure um so as you said uh i am one of the co-founders of the dmm portal uh and what the dmm portal is is it's a tool uh where it's a set of tools i should say uh that helps borrowers and their attorneys get mortgage modifications we started this back in 2008 and for the last 12 plus years i've been working with bankruptcy courts across the country mostly uh to help facilitate mortgage modifications uh so we're very well aware of what the problems in the industry have been uh and i've been working for the last 12 plus years to try and solve those issues uh and today currently we have over 20 different jurisdictions across the country that use our systems in our programs and we've helped tens of thousands of people get mortgage modifications through our system uh very quickly and efficiently wow that's amazing and so um when you said this is available so this is something that um if any of our viewers are from out of state or in illinois or outside of illinois this would be uh readily accessible to them as well is that a fair statement yeah that's correct i mean our programs we tend to work with certain courts that pass their programs uh and not every court has a program but we are working with courts all across the country for the ones that don't currently have them to hopefully have them adopted very shortly because the courts that do have them are having tremendous success and other courts are noticing and we're very optimistic that you're going to see this nationwide very soon yeah yeah that's wonderful i mean i was checking out your website before the um for our podcast and i knew that it was something different i know that people see loan modifications are in the attorney world we talk about those all the time you know we actually get calls a lot about that a lot because we do a lot of real estate a lot of estate planning probate work where something sometimes the mortgage people have just not paid or they're just behind because of you know work or something like that that they've lost or something has changed in their in their dynamic that has really forced them to consider a potential loan modification and so um now while covey you know i know that there's been measures taken to like relieve some of the stress and some of the stuff that the american people are going through but um those percentage preventative measures are going to expire soon right so really um the loan modification even though loan modification is one is one avenue i know there's a lot um of other avenues about like four barons and whatnot and maybe we talk about that later which is not the same thing so let's make sure we make it clear and not the same thing um i always tell people that cause i'm like it's totally different like even though it sounds attractive and guess we're talking about it like in the abstract but they're two different objectives and so i just want to make sure people understand and we'll talk about that today so um kind of to talk about a few talking points today igor uh one of the things i wanted to ask you is what is the difference in your opinion about the housing crisis post-pandemic um maybe now and what you're seeing now as opposed to what was um going on in 2020 2008 when the when the market crashed i mean what is the biggest difference that you're seeing so i in my opinion one of the biggest differences between now and the 2008 crisis is the 2008 crisis sort of started from the financial markets and the housing values whereas this was an external shock to our system and what concerns me most about what's happened this time around is people have lost their jobs um at the end of the day even those that have found jobs some of them may not be operating at the same income levels that that they were uh i think that's you know concerning because at the end of the day uh any program or any way to put people back on their feet has to depend on them having income um so i think that's a major difference and another major difference is i think the financial institutions have gone through this once recently uh there's been some learning and some experience as to how to address this uh and hopefully with tools such as ours we've made it a little bit easier more uh you know there there's a greater process and a better process for people to hopefully find solutions um so i think there's some good and some bad but uh hopefully net will be able to facilitate more modifications and put people back on their feet a lot more quickly and help them keep their homes sure so just a trip back because i did tell the viewers i was going to basically explain this you know so if you could explain loan modifications in the most simplest term how would you describe that just so that our viewers understand what it is that we're mentioning when we say that stephanie that's a great question because a lot of people sometimes don't understand the difference between a modification and a refinance right and what a modification is you have an existing loan right you've agreed to pay x percentage over x number of years in a particular payment there's a contract between the borrower and the lender to make a payment a modification basically allows uh the mortgage servicer which is a fancy term for the company that's responsible for administering the loan collecting the payments and all that other stuff it the modification essentially allows that servicer within their rules and guidelines to help the borrower obtain a different payment right so and a lot of times it really depends on who the investors are what the contractual rights are but essentially they look at things like changing the interest rate changing the term of the loan some cases they will extend the loan up to 480 months um you know capitalizing missed payments which basically means folding them back in so it is basically working with the existing loan that you have and changing the terms which is not to be confused with something like a refinance right where you go out and you actually are getting a brand new loan with a brand new lender and you are paying off the existing loan with a modification you are working with the existing loan and just changing the terms yeah absolutely and and as a caveat to this as well different than um the for um the two things we mentioned refinance and loan modification is the third option which i want to talk about this forbearance thing because i talked about it before but forbearance could you maybe dive into that a little bit i mean i realized to us because we talk about it all the time you know the attorney world is completely separate in our mind of like you can compartmentalize but you know i think about like if i wasn't an attorney if i was just um if i was a consumer when you listen to like ads the way that they you know advertise uh for forbearance makes it sound really attractive but agar what is your thought on that how can you dumb that down for me because i'm trying to think of a way to say it maybe i'll leave it to you yeah sure so a forbearance you know to me a forbearance is a little bit like uh out of sight out of mind in the sense that all it basically does is it puts a pause on the payments in terms of the lender or the mortgage servicer physically collecting the payment it doesn't do anything to change the terms of the loan it doesn't do anything to change the amount that's due or the interest rate or anything like that so in a lot of ways i almost think of it sort of as an ostrich sticking its head in the sand where it's like you don't see it out of sight out of mind right and it's okay but it's very you know it's temporary relief um and it really doesn't do anything to solve the root cause or the problem it just delays the day of reckoning uh and in some cases could make it more difficult uh because the longer you don't make those payments the more they compound and add up and then have to be addressed at some point down the road because that money is not forgiven that money is not forgotten uh it's just simply the servicer saying you know we're going to put a pause on it and with covet in particular because there were so many shutdowns that emanated from the government itself the government said look we're causing this so we're also going to tell you to put a pause right if these loans are connected to federal loans we're going to put a pause on collecting it because we're understanding we understand that we've made it difficult for you to have you know your jobs do things that you normally would do so we're going to put a pause on collection that doesn't mean that that loan is going away and it doesn't mean that the missed payments or the payments that haven't been made are going to be forgotten they will have to be addressed in one form or another absolutely and that's what i want the viewers understand today because when you think about forbearance it's nice to not have to make payments because of your financial uh you know downturn and maybe or a moment that you had at work where you're no longer employed or sometimes they've even been furloughed and hired back but whatever the case may be you still owe the money so that's the difference between a refinance a forbearance and the loan modification very different things um so i know we talked a lot about um bankruptcies in general in the courts so this is interesting to me because i um i don't practice bankruptcy but i will say i do understand it's the basic knowledge of the fact that these courts are now seeing or maybe even uh adjusting to what's going on so um what are you seeing the bankruptcy courts do to oversee um the programs that are in place and can you kind of elaborate on what some of the court approved programs are sure so i mean the court approved programs i mean for those people who don't know in bankruptcy court um you deal with obviously your debts uh but interestingly enough uh because your mortgage is secured by real property that's not something that the bankruptcy code deals with head on and so what a lot of times happens is they'll basically tell people that you know the borrow and the lender go deal with your mortgage over here on the side and not part of the overall bankruptcy um and so what our programs basically do is the court says look we understand we can't tell you what to do how to modify the mortgage what you know we understand you're a secured credit nobody's trying to do that but we also recognize that this process is very important to the debtor that mortgages tend to be the largest debt that people have and so we also understand that the process of a mortgage modification can be very complicated and very difficult to navigate so what we're going to do is just simply provide some basic infrastructure for how the borrower and the lender are to communicate with each other how they exchange documents how they exchange information and we're just basically going to facilitate that process and make sure the parties are working towards getting a resolution many people may have heard particularly in the you know 2010 2011 2012 when there were a lot of mortgage modifications being done i'm sure a lot of people heard about all the frustrations about submitting documents documents being lost and having to go back and forth and through that process our systems and these court programs basically provide the tools and the infrastructure that borrowers and lenders need to have a streamlined process and get these things resolved in our model programs we're seeing you know reviews done and completed in about 30 to 45 days which is unheard of because they typically take 15 to 20 months yeah no kidding i mean talk about like time is money right people always people always think i love using that term because i think about like you know as more innovative things are more available to consumers and to attorneys enter the courts time is money so like less money is spent overall because if you think about 15 to 20 months it's a long time for anyone to be waiting on something like this um so with these court programs um you said that they're more and more places are adopting them so so in in your experience who has been adopting them and who is still kind of thinking about it i think what we're seeing is it's really there are courts all across the country that as they learn about them and understand how beneficial they are to their debtors and even honestly to the lenders themselves because you know notwithstanding the fact that i know a lot of people especially at the height of the mortgage crisis thought that you know lenders are trying to foreclose they want to foreclose they don't they really would prefer a performing loan but the problem is again if you remember what i was talking about with the mortgage modifications it's redoing an existing loan there are contracts in place there are agreements in place there are investors in place right and so you have to follow certain guidelines and unfortunately that means that there are a lot of paper papers that need to be exchanged a lot of information that needs to be exchanged every eye has to be dotted every t has to be crossed and any misstep in the process can sort of set you back to square one and what these programs do is again try and keep everybody on the straight and narrow and in terms of you know across the country we're everywhere from the east coast west coast midwest southwest north everyone is starting to see the benefit of these things and understanding that the court doesn't have to dictate a result right but the court can certainly say okay here's your sandbox over here go play nicely here get this resolved and come back to us with the result um and like i said you know because the process is more efficient you don't have more missed payments right because we talked about 15 20 months right what's happening to all those payments they're just being tacked on right and if you can address that problem sooner it's a lot easier to deal with you know five thousand dollars in arrears than fifty thousand dollars in our years yeah absolutely and one of the questions i always get is uh especially with people that are struggling and thinking about loan modifications and but they don't really know the impact it could or could not have uh what is the um let's say the lasting effects of a loan modification for purposes of credit or people trying to sell is there anything that they should be worried about or is it or is there nothing associated to that uh you know uh the reality of it is with a modification things can only get better that you can't change the past so to the extent that you've got missed payments there obviously it's going to be a ding on your credit right but the sooner you can get onto a modified plan on to a modification and start making those payments and having those payments which hopefully are a little bit more affordable right that will get you on on the straight and narrow path and it's important to note that some of the programs for example you may have heard of fannie and freddie uh and fha they obviously are backed by the federal government they own about 50 percent of the loans or have an interest in about 50 loans and their programs are specifically designed to reduce the borrower's payment by at least 20 right on the principal on interest right so that's gold because they understand that the reason why the borrower's in this message because they couldn't afford the payment right so their programs and the tools that they have by lowering the interest rate extending the term maybe you know putting some of the interest uh and the amounts that have been missed to the back of the loan all of those things are designed to try and create a more affordable payment which is why the modification can be such a beneficial thing in getting people back on track yeah absolutely and if you think about it the banks also like this option because of the reasons you just mentioned i mean the bank rather work something out with the consumer as far as new terms your interest rate and all of that as opposed to just not having you pay at all and then completely defaulting on the loan because some people really have a school of thought of oh i'll just forget about it i'll just walk away and that's horrible a horrible way to think because you know there are lasting effects of something like that so i you know i get a lot of calls on that and i'll tell people you know i could never advise you to in good conscience to just walk away and never pay or to move to their country because again it follows you forever right your credit is a it's just a ding so a loan modification just so everyone's aware like igor said there's good things that come of it only things can go up from there instead of backwards so thank you for highlighting that um so what options do people have now um you know and the potential challenges that they could wait excuse me they could experience if they wait to make payments um once they become due like in in general in your opinion all right so let's go back to your topic of forbearances for a second because a lot of millions of people have been put on forbearance plans right so there's all these payments that haven't been made right and now you're going to have to address those right so you know there are programs that are coming out you know fannie freddie private mortgage services all of these companies are going to have to figure out a way to deal with these forbearances right and i know that i've heard a lot of rumors of people saying well you just have to pay the full amount right the reality of it is most people aren't going to be able to do that and the reality of it also is is that fannie and freddie have come out and said that's not what we expect you to do right if you can great that's the best option for everybody right then but if you can't there are going to be different programs there they are developing different repayment plans and the options i think will evolve um and you'll see what programs are available people may remember the word hamp right the federal government came out with the hamp program which was a set of tools and a set of programs that they allowed servicers to modify mortgages to a certain targeted level of their income payment at 31 right i expect to see servicers doing similar things and designing and developing programs and plans to make sure that people are able to afford their homes based on their existing incomes that they're receiving at that time and again that will require some documentation some information and that's what our systems are designed to do help you understand what that is help you put that together and help you get through the process of getting that reviewed yeah great well thank you for explaining igor and i just want to do a quick recap because some people just joined us now um to recap my name is attorney stephanie garces donet i'm the owner of garces law firm where we help children and families stay protected in the event of an unexpected absence in your family uh today we're talking about a very important topic very relevant to uh the world and everything that's going on how mortgage modifications programs are helping consumers in certain u.s locations and i have igor with me who's giving us wonderful knowledge um about stretto he's an attorney and managing director there um that talks a lot about we're talking a lot about modifications and forbearance and refinancing what the difference is so um just so you know legal technology organizations kind of like yours are really the future and so it's great for people to understand what is out there and the fact that there's quarter-proof programs that are now being developed and are already available for you as an option so that if you are watching today and you don't know if you can afford your mortgage payment that's coming up or haven't been able to pay them there are options for you so just know that um as we continue to do the discussion so um and it really quick if you missed our last episode we cut we covered a very important topic for some of you parents whose kids are now in college we talked about college selection what to expect um in challenges and really the issues that a lot of students and young students face in today's world so you can watch your recording on our youtube channel or on facebook um anytime you want to catch up so i know a couple of people have questions regarding some of the topics we've been discussing today so um here's one that just came in for one of the audience members um someone is asking if i miss mortgage payments in general am i disqualified for refinancing on my home ah you're not gonna again it depends on the circumstances that you're not going to be disqualified per se uh but you will probably end up paying a higher uh interest rate uh if a refinance is available and not all lenders will participate and uh you know it in a refinance of a property that that's in default uh so your choices are a little bit uh more limited so you're not disqualified per se from a refinance but it is a little bit harder than if you had you know perfect credit and a perfect you know payment history yeah you know that's a that's a great point um it's all like it depends like a lot of a lot of viewers ask questions specifically but it really depends because every blunder also looks at things a little bit differently but for the most part they consider it doesn't mean you're disqualified but they certainly consider it so i would still think about refinancing refinance can always be a good option depending on what your goals are so make sure that you don't disqualify yourself hopefully that answers the question um we had another question come in kind of similar to what we just uh discussed but it says if i cannot make any um of the missed payments so far will the lender automatically foreclose in my home uh eventually they will uh but but it depends on which state you're in it you know foreclosures are governed by state law uh and some states foreclose more quickly than others some take a while uh so eventually yes but the reality of it is you know you should be getting notices and again there should be opportunities for you to do a modification to reach out to your lenders um you know i really do want to stress stephanie to your audience that lenders and their mortgage servicers are more than happy to work with their borrowers to try and see if there are resolutions they don't want to rush to foreclosure it costs them a lot of time it costs them a lot of money um it's not a it's not a result that's beneficial for anybody eventually if they're left no choice that's what ends up happening but it's not you know the first choice so if you find yourself in that position you know seek counsel seek someone that can help you and try and get a mortgage modification or some other resolution to your uh to your issues with your home payments yeah and just to kind of add to that um some viewers were asking just now about where can they find those types of programs like as far as loan modification so where were they where would be the first stop for them to check in if they can do that so that's an excellent question because uh you know you can check out for example if your loan is owned by fannie or freddie and there are links if you just look up you know fannie look look up or freddie look up it'll tell you whether or not your own loan is owned by them and they have a program called flex mod flex mod um and you can look up at that you can see the rules now it's a government program with government rules so you know it's somewhat challenging to make your way through it um we're dry probably right but that's part that's part of the challenge in all this stephanie is that there is not a like there's not encyclopedia or a resource of you know loan modification programs that you can look at and a lot of it depends on who your investor is what the programs are is it privately backed is it federally backed and you know we literally just this week we saw a debtor in one of our programs uh get a modification where all of us you know were you know we thought that the chances of getting a modification were not great just because of the nature of what we were seeing and sure enough though the servicer found a program for them to be at so one of the things that i always advise people because we always get this question right everybody wants that direct answer do i qualify how do i know if i qualify right and unfortunately you know it's very hard to give someone a black and white answer yes you do no you don't and because of what's at risk meaning your home right we always recommend to people go seek the right advice go get the right counsel and make an application for a modification because i have seen borrowers that i thought had very very limited opportunities to get a modification get them because you just don't know what's happening behind the scenes there could have been your loan could have been sold to someone else there they have more flexibility you just don't know until you try so given what's at risk i always recommend that people take the shot because you have absolutely nothing to lose the worst thing that's going to happen is that you're going to be right back where you're started from and you know but the best thing that's going to happen is you're going to get a modification you're going to get a lower payment you're going to keep your home yeah absolutely and especially if you have a family you know that's the roof over their head so to give it a shot because a lot of times i think it's people get um there's a sense of you know emotion besides the fact that behind the fact that you can't pay your mortgage or you lost your job or you're asking for a modification but uh it's actually very common i think right igor i've seen a lot of people actually do this when i when i do their real estate work i've seen loan of modifications actually i'd say more often than not and it's not a thing that you know you have to announce to the world but it's certainly something that can help you keep that home that you would want um to keep instead of just you know again just kind of thinking there's no out there always is at least an option to determine whether or not you would qualify for something like that um absolutely stuff and what i'd also add and this even when you don't get a modification right which happens sometimes right if you're not getting modification it once you engage with your lender and or mortgage servicer there may be opportunities that you know they are required to explain to you why you don't qualify right so the best part of this is you will either get a modification will understand why you don't qualify which sometimes helps you know deal with the issues as opposed to feeling like somebody's foreclosing and nobody's listening to you and then sometimes they have programs to help you know gracefully move out of the house give you the time that you need right cash for keys deeds in lieu right and in many cases they'll pay you money right to give them the deed to the title because it helps them and then that can help you know find an apartment or find you know somewhere else to live and have a a smoother transition sometimes there is not you know you're choosing between a bad answer and a worse answer right and there just isn't a great solution but hopefully through this process you can find the best solution available to you at that time and so again really just encourage people don't you know don't despair don't become despondent take matters into your own hands find people that can help you because it is a complicated process and seek the help that you need and find out what your options are and you may be surprised what you'll find yeah and i query just to kind of go back on that one of the things i always talk about you heard me say at the beginning is a lot of people may not want to hire an attorney to do this for them um what is your advice advice regarding that especially those that are thinking well i can just do it myself so i would say i would basically i how do you how do you answer that without sounding like completely silly because i do you know a lot of people do say well i'll just go online because i can like you know or i go on a website that will tell me what to do or something right and the reality is the best way i describe this stuff stephanie is like this i can go file my own taxes myself right i don't dare do that because i don't want to mess it up and i don't want to have the irs come knocking on my door in three years and tell me that i screwed up my taxes right some people may get lucky some people are incredibly diligent and understand uh all of this stuff um and we'll be able to do it and there's certainly a subset of people that that you know that can and are equipped to do that what i will tell you though is that you know just like with filing your taxes if you retain an expert like an attorney who's done this multiple times who understands the process a lot better than you do because they've done it hundreds of thousands they understand where the bodies are buried right they understand how to present a package they understand how to do the things how to resolve things um and again you know keep in mind that mortgage modifications very similar to getting your mortgage in the first instance so for so obviously if you're looking for a mortgage modification you've gone through the process of getting that mortgage in the first place so think back to all those you know hundreds of pages of documents that you had to sign and some closer was putting in front of you and you're like what the heck is that right it's a very similar thing except now you don't have anybody helping you figure out which documents now you have a default so now not only are you dealing with that original mortgage you're dealing with all those other things surrounding it right so there's no shame in asking for help and i think you know uh you know there's the old saying a wise man knows what he does not know um and it's i think very important for people to sometimes recognize that yeah you know you there's a bevy of websites and some unscrupulous companies out there that will tell you hey i saw all your mortgage modifications right you have to you know find someone that you can rely on um i think the chances of success are significantly higher uh through uh these programs and having an expert by your side than trying to do it on your own it just it just is right it's like if you were going to like i could probably figure out how to fix you know my kitchen sink right i'd probably flood my kitchen floor a couple of times before i figured it out right which is why i would hire a licensed plumber instead right yeah so again you can figure this stuff out maybe but you're probably better off particularly given what's at stake finding someone that can help you through it yeah absolutely and that's to mention i mean it's not um it's not an easy process right so if you even attempted to do it yourself and you know kind of like the tax situation if you would have just hired someone else and had a more favorable outcome you don't want to kick yourself later and say oh i should have just hired someone because because later it's it's too late right if you come back later and you've you know already messed the application up well that's very difficult to undo because it was already submitted so just keeping that in mind i mean i really do like people thinking about these things because there is value in having an attorney at least help you with a loan modification and i have a feeling i grow i know if you agree with me on this or not but it's going to become more frequent and popular as things continue to unravel now that um everything's opening back up people are working again some people are still not working this is going to become more of an attractive um option i think for a lot of homeowners don't you uh absolutely i mean keep in mind once these forbearances end once the foreclosure moratoria end across the country right there's you're going to have to deal with this situation and the statistics say that i think there's only two and a half or three million people who are still on forbearances let alone the people that have these forbearances have ended and now they're trying to figure out how to deal with those forbearances so we're talking about millions and millions of people that one way or another they're going to have to deal with forget about sort of what's happening from here on forward because there's always been foreclosures there's always been instances where people have life events that cause them to address these things so it is absolutely critical that people try and get in front of this and try and deal you know with an attorney and i'll give you just a quick statistic that may be helpful for your audience and it's it just to give you a sense right so when the mortgage prices hit and they had these um you know uh foreclosure mediation programs on the state level which were by and large dealt with sort of like borrower to lender right without any outside help it was just sort of the person coming in sitting down trying to figure it out themselves versus our court programs right so in the state for foreclosure mediation programs i believe nationally the success rate was less than three percent which you know had our systems were you know dealing with attorneys it was about 70 percent wow right so we're not talking about three percent versus six percent right we're talking about orders of magnitude and again people need to keep in mind that this is about a process this is about documenting your income and every household is different right your neighbor may have two wage earners and that's it you may be self-employed and have your brother-in-law living in your basement contributing to that to the household right the entire documentation of that package is going to be night and day and if you don't document that information correctly the servicer and the lender cannot review that information and therefore cannot make an accurate assessment and a lot of times you know some people may be listening to us here and if they're borrowers themselves they may be a little even confused by the whole notion that's where the attorney comes in that's where the experts come in that they can walk you through and explain to you well this is why we need this here as opposed to that there and you know that's you know again to me that's that's the benefit of having an expert work with you to get this and again a lot is at stake here so i i you know you know i you know i wouldn't risk doing that brain surgery on myself right i'd go find somebody that i thought was confident well i love you i appreciate you keep harping on that um i work because if you think about it you know some people do uh maybe not fully um we'll say appreciate or have had an experience even with an attorney i know i've had a lot of clients say i've never retained an attorney before i don't really know what value that brings so you heard it here first igor is explaining to you why you don't want to do this yourself this is not a diy project this is very much at stake you know it's sticks are i think higher especially when you're talking about bone modifications because there's so many parties involved so this is pretty serious stuff and interesting at the same time um one of the questions that came in which is kind of interesting question is do you think that president biden's gonna pass another stimulus package or some sort of rent slash mortgage payment forgiveness program that's an interesting question i mean i'll give you my thoughts but why don't you start honestly you you can go ahead because i won't even venture to guess uh i think i think if i had the answers to those kinds of questions i'd be probably getting paid big bucks to lobby in washington um so i don't know i mean i think the reality is there have been a couple of programs have been a couple of extensions i think when you look at the fact that you know there are some signs of you know unemployment coming down uh the economy's you know uh rebounding to some level although you know it's hard to say whether you know how equal that is across different you know economic brackets right um because the entire service industry has been disrupted retail has been right i mean who knows how many millions of jobs that affects right and who knows whether or not if you know you know last year i had a you know job at a restaurant as and i was making x dollars that i can find that job this year when there's you know you know fewer you know restaurants and again i i don't know where people are going to go and to me that's the great unknown but from you know a legislative perspective i think at some point you know biden and congress and everybody else has got to be like we the system's got to flush itself out we can only kick the can down the road for so long and my sense is there's probably not a great appetite to keep doing this because i think at some point everybody recognizes we have to start making these payments start have to start being made somehow you can't keep you can't just keep kicking the can down the road yeah i i was going to say the same thing i mean it's like to be determined it's really hard to say i mean i also was a little surprised that the moratorium actually went through the moratorium i was supposed to be finished i don't know like six months ago and here we are in june i'm gonna have plenty of clients that are landlords that are super frustrated by this so if it's anything like the moratorium getting pushed down you know a little bit longer i could see a little bit more but you're right i mean to some to some degree this all has to be reset and i don't think everyone fully understands the um or even do we know if we'd have curse of all we would tell you everybody but but the the long-lasting effects of this covet 19 pandemic because i think we're yes things are opening back up but did you notice that a lot of people are still looking for help for their businesses i mean the people are trying to hire other people to work under them but there's this unemployment that's out there that people are still on so it's a catch-22 because it's going to take time i think to really reset um so do we think it's going to get passed i don't know but they certainly are going to have to like regroup in the fall i think because you know with fall there'll be a different time of maybe more people getting vaccinated maybe things are opening again but i don't necessarily think it's going to reset that quickly i think it's gonna take time um because we've been hit so hard i don't think anybody was ready for something like this including congress no no uh for i would almost say especially congress right i mean you know the u.s economy and the world economy is a massive you know ocean you know you know ship where you know that's it doesn't turn on a dime right it's going to take a little bit of time it's going to take a little bit of time to see where we shake out and you know i get asked that question all the time it's very i think it's near you know nearly impossible to predict uh what will happen um but i don't envision a whole lot more federal aid coming out because at some point i mean you just you can't keep doing it because at your point you have landlords people who own these properties you know they're suffering at some point like you know i know we're our focus is on the borrower side of things but at some point when they can't make their payments because people aren't paying their rent or paying you know it all sorts starts to filter down so i think i think we're getting to that point so i think i would be surprised if there were more um you know moratoria or more um forbearances i think you know we're getting to the point where uh folks need to expect to start you know getting trying to get this back on track yeah yeah absolutely and i think more and more people are um you know i know more people are getting employed but still i mean i think there's going to be a push for um helping and trying to maybe even pivoting to try to help people get back on their feet i'm not sure about kicking it down the road either because that's a great point because i think that's what people um some people are banking on unfortunately there's only so much you can do because if you think about it like this cannot be forever i mean we've already it's been over a year it's open over a year that the pandemic has been happening so that's a great question it's like such a can of worms to talk about something like that because it's so it's so hard to predict i think for sure stuff and one of the things that i point out to your viewers right if you're you know in a position where you know you are still in a more in a state that has a moratorium or you're in a position where you still have forbearance right if you have employment and you think you can try and get back on your feet now is the time right to try and address those issues because you don't want to wait until there are millions of people applying for mortgage modifications at the same time if you have an opportunity get a hold of your finances try and resolve it i know the urge is there to say hey you know what well i can take another couple months right it's your your in my opinion you're doing yourself a disservice because now you have an opportunity where you know and i'm not suggesting that the services aren't going to be able to handle it right but the reality of it is if you have 10 000 pieces of paper versus a million pieces of paper and you have the same number of people processing it you're gonna have more luck with when there's ten thousand and you can get you know a better look than when there's a million um and you know again hopefully regardless there'll be opportunities to help people but it is important that if you know don't put your head in the sand and that's one of the things that i see way too many times people like oh you know nobody's giving me an eviction notice nobody's coming to foreclose on me right that may be today if you have the ability to you know pay try and find a program that works for you and get try and get on your feet before it gets to a point where it's irreparable yeah absolutely great point agree and i think in general um i always tell clients later never comes people say i'll do it later but later never comes literally like something had happened to you something could happen in your circumstances um maybe it gets worse and later never comes and you never ever can you know plan for later because sometimes you just don't ever do it so i always tell people there's no better time in the presence so thank you so much for sharing that igor if everybody wants to anybody wants to contact you regarding um the website or even just about some of the things you mentioned today where can they contact you uh they can give me a call my phone number is 859-663-2928 859-663-2928 they can go to our website at stretto.com and look me up under our uh experts uh and send me an email there as well um happy to help any way uh any way we can and provide whatever information we can to help folks uh deal with this stuff like i said we've helped oh gosh i don't know how many tens of thousands of people if not hundreds of thousands of people navigate this process and that's really what it is it's really i mean we got into this stephanie because we the challenge we saw was not that the borrowing lender didn't want to do this together it was that you know one was speaking greek and another one was speaking french right right there just was this you know lack of communication and you know missing documents and people sometimes forget the logistics that that are involved um and you know our systems and our products what we do is we help people navigate those logistics and try and get um you an answer as quickly as possible um and so happy to help any way we can yeah absolutely thank you so much and for everything that you've you're doing and done for a lot of people agree i think that's it's phenomenal i mean even just to think that you basically created a gap between this loss and translation that was happening i mean i don't even think i really knew that was happening until we started talking about it the fact that there is such a disconnect between the borrower and the lender which really then impacts the final results so that's kind of you know that that's the method to what you've been doing so that's awesome um well thank you for joining us today it was always a pleasure um speaking with you and educating our viewers really i feel like you really educated me too in the process i thank you so much for that um thank you to the viewers for their questions we always appreciate your comments and feedback they always have good things to add and people are really curious about some of the topics we cover so we encourage you to come back next week we're going to be talking to someone else but you'll have to check out who that is when i announce it but it is going to be at one o'clock on tuesday um and we always cherish the opportunity to work with you and help you with your needs especially i always say if i can't help you i know someone who can so just want to say thank you to everyone who's watching and i invite you here for the same time same place for pink mike legal confessions and feel free to share these videos amongst your your fellow friends colleagues parents etc anyone especially in this case who may be in need of igor's help or loan modifications please have them contact us because we can certainly put you in the right direction so um igor again thanks for your time and i will hope to uh hopefully connect with you and send you some clients shortly awesome thank you stephanie thank you for having me i appreciate it you're welcome everyone have a great day thanks for your time