M. Nack’s Blog

For the past six months, my assistant and I have been learning about foreclosures and delving into helping people that are threatened with losing their homes. She and I attended an event this morning put on by the Illinois Housing Dept Authority (IHDA) to educate people who are in trouble. Allowing your home to be taken back by the bank in an auction is ABSOLUTELY the WORST thing you can do!! The bank is not really the enemy and, surprisingly, the bank’s interests are not that different from yours: you don’t want them to take your home, and they are not interested in owning your home. They want the money you owe them. That’s the business they are in. They are in the home LENDING business, not the home OWNING business So, if you call them to try and work things out, they will almost always work with you.

Let’s say you decide to just abandon the house - thinking that the bank will just take your property and everything will then just go away. After all, they are getting the house. What more can they want from you? So, you go off to Brazil or someplace nice and warm and start all over again. WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! Doing that just makes things worse. If you end up losing your home at auction, and it is sold for less than what you owe (which is what typically happens - particularly if you’ve abandoned the property), you are still on the hook for what the bank is owed. So now, you’ve not only lost your home but now your credit rating is in the toilet (and you won’t be able to buy another home for 7 years or even rent a decent apartment!) and you STILL owe the bank its money! They can (and will!) go after you for the dough and file a judgment against you - which only screws up your credit rating that much more.

By all means, DO NOT! DO NOT! DO NOT! bury your head in the sand thinking it will all just go away. Call the number that is on your payment book and tell them you’re having problems. There are lots of legitimate counseling agencies that will assist you in the process of working out something with your lender.

Finally - BEWARE OF SCAMS! There are plenty of predators out there looking to take advantage of people that have fallen on hard times. Tomorrow, I will go into “Mortgage Rescue Fraud” - the red flags and signs to look for.

“All Things With Exuberance!”
mary!

I was at an event earlier this week where this fellow discussed how we often neglect recovering physical energy. (Along the lines of what Loehr and Schwartz said in The Power of Full Engagement.) Now, I need to put this conversation into context, because the presenter is a tri-athalete and coaches kids in the sport. So, he is a pretty serious athlete - and looked it! He clearly is carrying less than 20% body fat! As part of physical recovery, he discussed how important it is that we eat nutrient-rich foods. He asked the audience which choice should he make if he had a spare 200 calories in his eating plan for that day - the eggplant parmigiana or the asparagus? (Both items were on our lunch menu. Gasp!) My initial reaction was, “Oh, come on! Is he really monitoring his food intake that carefully? 200 calories is nothing for this guy! He probably burned off 1000 calories before breakfast this morning!” As soon as I thought it, I answered, “Yeah! I bet he is!” Because he is as serious as a heart attack about his sport. You just know that he keeps track of every sip of water and morsel of food that crosses his lips. While I sit around and whine like a spoiled brat, “It isn’t fair. Why should I have to do that? Nobody else does.” Boy! That’s coming out of my vocabulary right now!!

A light bulb came on for me: even athletes monitor their food intake! Or maybe instead of saying “even”, I should say “in particular”.  Notice the language: athletes don’t “diet”, they “monitor their food intake”. They will do whatever it takes to maximize energy and performance. And how is that any different than what we “mere mortals” need to do in order to get through OUR day - “with exuberance!”? (Particularly at THIS time of year!) We also need to “maximize energy and performance” Framed that way, doesn’t eating properly sound a whole lot better than “dieting”? (The old joke: what do the first three letters of “diet” spell?) And here’s the thing: so you EAT the cake and cookies and holiday punch, etc. - put on the requisite “Holiday 10″. Just how crappy DO you feel afterwards? Feel like taking that jog around the block now? (Talk about heart attacks!) But of course all of this is important only if you’re serious about accomplishing the things you want in life. As it says in Alice in Wonderland: if you don’t know where you’re going, then it doesn’t matter much which way you go. 

Happy Holidays!

“All Things With Exuberance!”
mary!