My name is Heather Benjamin, and I am a licensed real estate agent - in fact, I was a Top Producer for Coldwell Banker Barnes and Keller Williams in the Middle Tennessee area through 2008 until moving over to Reliant Realty where I could focus on helping homeowners avoid foreclosure.

 

My story is one of ongoing SUCCESS because I continue to survive and work through failures....and learn from them!

 

I was told that it was a crazy idea to share my story with you because people expect top agents to be immune from life's real estate and personal lows. Maybe I'm a little nuts....but I know FIRST HAND what it feels like to suffer a foreclosure despite utilizing EVERYTHING available to avoid it. Life and this economy has hit people FROM ALL INCOME LEVELS.....if it could happen to me.....it could happen to anyone! I want people suffering right now to know that I understand the shame, guilt and overpowering fear that can consume someone facing foreclosure. More importantly....I want people to know.....YOU ARE NOT ALONE.....THERE ARE OPTIONS.....YOUR LENDER WOULD PREFER TO FIND AN ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION TO FORECLOSURE, TOO! So here is my story...in all of its truth....

In December of 2005, I was hit with a crippling emotional and financial blow. My husband suddenly left me with the responsibilities of a large home, and on top of that, my 88-year-old great-aunt suffered a heart attack and needed full-time primary care. I couldn’t afford to pay my mortgage on my own, yet I could not in my heart relocate a critically ill family member whose doctors told me that she might recover well enough to live for a few more years.

When the court demanded that I pay my ex-husband his half of the current market value of the home, I obtained a second mortgage. As many of you know, home values were at their highest peak between 2005 and 2006, so it was no surprise to me that the home appraised for more than $100K above its market value - and I would know!

Regardless, I did what I had to do for my family. Sadly, I lost my beloved aunt less than two months later. Between the cost of medical bills, funeral services, living expenses, and my own investment properties - not to mention the lost income from three months I quit working to take care of her - I was deeply in debt and had to rebuild my life and career from ground zero.

With a HUGE mortgage payment now on my primary residence, I was motivated to jump-start my real estate career by the end of 2006, but my income was never enough to pay all of the bills. Against the advice of my attorney and my accountant, I refused to allow the house to foreclose. To me, debt was something that I willingly took on and I would not return the lenders' consideration by failing to pay them back. To repay it was a matter of honor and moral obligation.

I wish that I had reevaluated my obligations and listened to my Accountant and Attorney.....guess what? I was one of the Countrywide Borrowers that qualified for having had potential FRAUD committed by the mortage broker/lender!! YUP....I have a settlement coming, folks! But read what I had to go through first.....

My stress level was going through the roof. I became a Top Producing REALTOR®, but making only the minimum payments caused my debt to increase faster than my income. It was 2007, and as my financial life was crashing down around me, I began to suffer serious medical problems as a direct result of the stress of trying to keep my home.

I had been trying to work with my lender to reduce my payments or get a forebearance. By this time, home values had plummeted and refinancing was out of the question. My lender refused to help - as long as they were squeezing payments out of me, they had no reason to negotiate. Guess what? I finally gave up making payments.

That first “30-days-late” payment was the hardest pill to swallow. I felt like a failure. I was terrified of anyone finding out that this successful real estate agent was actually losing her home. I felt like a loser. I felt like a fraud.

Thank God for my partner, Frank, who NEVER gave up trying to find a way to help me avoid foreclosure. He started investigating an option called a short sale.

Meanwhile, by the fall of 2007, my lender was now calling me constantly to try and work something out. I’ll bet they wanted to negotiate - they hadn’t received a payment in four months! That was one of the first things we learned about short sales back then. Lenders wouldn’t negotiate until you were at least 90 days behind in payments.

Other people came out of the woodwork wanting to “help”, too. My mailbox was FLOODED with useless offers from mortgage companies offering me the chance to refinance. I received TONS of “WE BUY HOUSES” form letters from investors. I even called a few, just to see what they were about, but none of them were interested. As soon as they found out that I had negative equity, they sprained their hands hanging up the phone!

Both lenders (one from each mortgage) had been sending out agents to do “drive-by” appraisals on my home, which by this time was worth about $200K less than what I owed on it. With his new knowledge of short sales, my partner listed my house at slightly below what I owed in hopes of finding a buyer. Unfortunately, we - like many real estate agents - didn’t understand how major lenders value properties and what they will accept for a short sale payoff.

My home sat on the market for months at a price that was constantly being reduced to attract buyers. By 2008, the market had tanked to the point where buyers were TERRIFIED of buying a property that could be worth half its value by the following year.

We never did receive an offer to present to the lender for negotiation. My home foreclosed in January of 2008, and I thought I had no choice but to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in February.

A funny thing happened, though. When I finally let go, we began to hear from investors and loss mitigation experts who had heard and understood what I had gone through. They believed in our passion and desire to help other homeowners avoid Foreclosure Hell. They showed us a way that we could help them by giving their lenders a better deal on our purchase of a property than the lenders would ever get if they foreclosed and sold the property at auction.

Frank never did stop learning about short sales. Now considered by many to be one of the most knowledgeable resources on short sales, he coaches our real estate agents, trains our loss mitigator negotiators, and educates our investors on how to successfully negotiate with lenders and find alternative solutions to foreclosure.

Short sales are the new frontier in the real estate business, and will play a big part in our future over the next three to five years. With over 8 million loans in default position, the health of our economy is dependent on how quickly we can dispose of properties which their owners can no longer afford and modify loans for those who want to stay in their homes.

We are constantly learning about options for all kinds of situations. We have retained loss mitigators who formerly worked for the “big lenders” to negotiate and fight on your behalf to accept our proposal and help you avoid foreclosure. We have a team of dedicated real estate agents who believe in our mission. They are happy to make what they can, if it means that they can truly help others avoid the pain and embarrassment and HELL of the foreclosure process.

 

Today, our short sale mission is “Helping Homeowners - One Loan at a Time”.