One of the first concepts of responding to an emergency that first responders, first aid workers, and the military learns is triage -- differentiating between the dead or the merely wounded and deciding which survivors of a disaster should be given assistance first. But in an emergency where no medical care is available and the ambulances have run out of supplies, this process may be reversed.

In most situations where it is only a matter of time before a wounded person can get to a hospital via car, ambulance, or helicopter, the first responders in an emergency will attempt to stabilize the most seriously injured. All efforts are made to help those most in need, while the walking wounded and those not likely to die right away are left alone, to be assisted later on.

But the assumption underlying such regular triage efforts is that it is best to help the most seriously hurt and keep them alive until specialized care is available again. It is only a matter of stabilizing the dying or gravely wounded; once the ambulance arrives at the scene, the paramedics will take them to the emergency room where a team of professionals will stick them full of painkillers and fix the problem.

In the class I took recently about medical emergencies in the absence of specialized care, though, this system of triage is reversed. The people with the worst injuries may not be able to be cared for because it is far less likely they will survive. Without a virtually unlimited amount of medical supplies, bandages, anesthetics, and equipment, it becomes an issue of providing care to the people most likely to survive -- not least likely.

This is due to the simple reason that, if there is expected to be a shortage of medical care for a long period of time (over 72 hours), supplies will need to be rationed in order to provide the greatest number of people the best chance to survive over the long term. Medications and bandages can not be used up completely on one seriously wounded person if there are more people that can be saved with less grave injuries.

In fact, the class taught me that it is better to treat the people least injured because they will have the greatest chance of surviving for the long term. Someone already dying may be given a few extra days to live, but if the resources expended to do so preclude helping others, tough choices will have to be made by those with any medical training at all. And the shock of an emergency will make these choices even more difficult.

Of course, this makes for some obviously very tough decisions about friends, family members, and neighbors. When you can not save everyone, who gets medical treatment first? It may not be plausible to use the time and supplies necessary if there is only a small chance of saving a life. Those are supplies that may be in short order in the future and can be used on people in less dire circumstances.

Unfortunately, these issues are ones that people will need to begin thinking about more often, as the government has proved that it is incapable of providing people after emergencies with necessary assistance. Too many homeowners saw their properties destroyed or robbed during recent hurricanes, and that was only if they were lucky enough to survive the disaster without dying of drowning, trauma, or dysentery.

Related
In an Emergency, Be Prepared for a Collapse of Medical Care

Most financial hardships are especially troublesome from the perspective of the homeowners' psychological stability. Couple the initial event like a job loss or medical disability with all of the potential effects like foreclosure or repossession, and it is no surprise that money troubles are at the top of the list of stress-inducing thoughts. With rising foreclosure rates and the stealing away of the American Dream by subprime mortgage companies and psychopathic financial institutions, the housing crisis has been creating various instances of self-destructive behavior in former homeowners.

First there were reports of "jingle mail," homeowners who fell behind on their homes and, instead of attempting to work out the problem, simply mailed the keys to their properties back to the lenders. Worse than that were reports of foreclosure victims who set fire to their homes in a desperate effort to collect the insurance money and pay off their mortgages. The most disturbing possibility, however, is that homeowners will lose all hope and take their own lives to avoid the humiliation of being publicly evicted with no other place to live.

Rising foreclosure rates and rising incidences of exhibited mental health disorders will go hand in hand, to a certain extent. The financial hardships that often lead to foreclosure, and the realization by homeowners that they have no other options than to give up their homes, generate enormous amounts of stress. To be sure, many of these problems are little more than irrational fears, and the loss of a home is certainly not the end of the world for people. Unfortunately, the problems feel all to real and the threats of lawsuits and being homeless can seem very real to homeowners who know they have missed several mortgage payments.

The worst possibility is when these fears cause a sense of complete paralysis on the part of foreclosure victims, who retreat into their own heads to avoid dealing with the problem, hoping that a solution will magically present itself. In this case, the owners simply refuse to pick up their phone when the mortgage company calls, do not call the lender to see if they can qualify for a repayment plan or other option, and are even too frightened to request assistance from a third party foreclosure help company. This is obviously the wrong response to a financial crisis, but it is a common and understandable response.

It is, however, up to the owners of the property themselves to break out of this sense of despair; no one can help them until they take the first step and request assistance. The great thing about requesting help, though, is that the homeowners have now stated the problem and have taken the first step in solving the foreclosure -- they have accepted they can not fix things by hiding from themselves. Many homeowners who have shaken off the chains of their own fears realize that change and doing something about the situation are far less stressful than wallowing in a state of depression and fear of the unknown.

Of course, the problem is how long the owners wait to begin solving their problems. The further behind in the mortgage they fall, and the longer they wait to ask for help, the more difficult it will be to stop foreclosure. This is for two reasons. First of all, the more payments they miss, the more it will cost to refinance, qualify for a mortgage modification, or sell the house. The lender has no trouble adding late fees, court costs, legal fees, and other penalties to the mortgage balance, and interest accrues on these extra charges every month, pushing the homeowners further and further behind.

But more importantly, the second reason that waiting is a mistake is that the very act of avoiding the problem becomes self-reinforcing. The homeowners procrastinate waiting for help to avoid facing the fear of being turned down for a workout or being threatened with eviction. In turn, this procrastination reinforces the irrational fears, which reinforce the act of waiting until nothing but a true psychological shock will convince the owners to wake up and ask for help. This moment of realization may come too late, possibly in the form of a three-day eviction notice.

Unfortunately, few mainstream articles or books are available that discuss the psychology of homeowners facing the possibility of losing a home to foreclosure and what they can do to overcome irrational fears and get to work saving their homes. Our own psychology of foreclosure section is a modest contribution, and more articles are appearing in the mainstream media about how to cope with financial stress, but much more can be done. Ultimately, though, it is usually the homeowners who have not even taken the step of reading about foreclosure that are in the worst danger of causing themselves or others damage because of high anxiety caused by money problems.

"The banks deserve to fail for all the bad loans they made." "The government needs to step in and protect homeowners from fraudulent loans and greedy mortgage companies." "Homeowners should not get a bailout from the government because they were just gambling on rising property values."

In all of the debate over what should or should not be done to alleviate the rising foreclosure rate, and who deserves a bailout or deserves to fail, it seems as if one aspect of the housing crisis has been forgotten. There are people behind this.

It is not "the mortgage company" that begins the foreclosure proceedings on a house, but people who work for that bank. They have been told by other people that their bank owns the mortgage, and so they get to work attempting to get the home. These people hire other people working for local law firms who spent tens of thousands of dollars at laws school and can hide behind legal language in order to justify stealing homes and kicking homeowners out of their properties. Other people represent these same banks when houses are auctioned off, placing bids on properties on behalf of other people on behalf of "the bank."

"The government" does facilitate the entire foreclosure process, but people who call themselves "government employees" participate every step of the way. People in the clerk's office stamp the lawsuit that people calling themselves attorneys bring in. These people then send up the lawsuit to another person called the judge who issues an opinion on the case which is backed by force because he is able to hide behind the name "government."

Then more people calling themselves "law enforcement," even though they do not understand the laws, follow the orders of the person calling himself a judge. These people auction off homes to people from the bank, homes they may never have seen and have no interest in besides the fact that they will not be able to pick up their paycheck if they do not auction off these properties. The same people, after the people from the bank have bought the home and asked the person calling himself a judge for an eviction order, then follow the orders in the eviction notice and put homeowners out of their homes by force, if necessary.

This system would be tragic if it were not completely devoid of morals and conscience, using aggression and banality to carry out the removal of people from their homes because they have been caught in a trap. This psychopathic aspect of the entire foreclosure process is also conveniently glossed over, as the people from "the bank" and "the government" "only follow orders" to steal homes.

A monetary system such as the one that creates principal out of thin air as debt, but does not create enough money for interest to be paid back on the loan is easily seen as fraudulent. Only the psychopathic personality could come up with such a system, knowing that people who borrowed money would never be able to pay back all of their debts and that they would end up with the productive assets of homeowners, consumers, and businesses who fell too far into the scam.

But such a psychopathic ideology needs more than just an idea designed to impoverish people; without a system to implement the plan and remove any dissent, the idea will be little more than a laughable attempt at outright theft. Thus, a vast number of people simply carrying out their compartmentalized portion of the system is required. These people do their assigned task in the psychopathic system without ever being given the opportunity to take a step back and view their part in a fraudulent transfer of wealth from poor to rich. Psychopaths at the top rely on the banality of evil carried out by people against each other to perpetuate the fraud.

All of the names and fancy titles given to people when bilking homeowners out of their properties is merely an attempt to dress up a system of money creation and debt slavery which has no conscience. The idea of calling outright thefts "laws" and "regulations" carried out by "sheriffs," "judges," or "bank client service representatives" is nothing but propaganda designed to make people feel better (or feel nothing) about their complicity. It is important for homeowners to realize that the people carrying out the attempt to steal their homes are just people following orders from psychopaths.

Homeowners who have fallen behind on their bills are often in a state of stress and high anxiety, with worries of foreclosure, bankruptcy, and repossession creating a sense of paralysis. This can often lead them to postpone taking any useful step towards saving their homes until it is too late and the possibility of recovering financially is almost nonexistent. The inability to move towards a goal of stopping foreclosure, though, is often caused by any number of irrational fears, all of which may be overcome.

One of the most common fears affecting everyone, but heightened in foreclosure victims, is the fear of rejection. This fear has to do with humans' affiliation needs, such as the need to feel appreciated, loved, or accepted. Homeowners may often be afraid to pick up the phone and contact their mortgage company because they worry about the possibility of being told there is no help for them. Instead of calling the mortgage company, people suffering from this fear often accept the foreclosure as inevitable and resign themselves to the possibility that they will have to lower their standard of living after losing their home.

Closely connected to the fear of rejection is the fear of looking foolish or making a mistake. In this case, homeowners may fear calling their bank to discuss plans to avoid foreclosure because they feel they do not know enough about how foreclosure works in order to speak intelligently about options to stop the process. They may feel their negotiating skills are not strong enough and that the bank's representatives will take advantage of them and laugh at their misunderstanding of foreclosure, or that they will mistakenly agree to a program that is not in their best financial interests.

Another very common fear is that of people; it is actually very possible for homeowners working in large cities and living in modern suburbs to feel very anxious when speaking with people they do not know. Combined with a fear of looking foolish or being rejected, being irrationally afraid of people can cause homeowners in foreclosure just to avoid dealing with their financial troubles at all. Even in such specialized situations as calling a mortgage company for help to stop foreclosure, many homeowners may feel uncontrollably anxious and have a problem initiating contact.

Several other fears, including those of failure and success, can have lasting impacts on homeowners attempting to save their homes. The end result of any of these fears, or a combination of them, is often that foreclosure victims procrastinate until the justified, rational fear of losing their home and being evicted is so immediate that it overcomes any of the irrational fears. Irrational fears, though, create psychological problems because there is no actual danger present. After all, the possibility of the bank turning down a repayment plan is nothing compared to the eventual pain of being evicted from a home.

Unfortunately, irrational fears often feel very real, even though they are not grounded in any concrete danger, and most often lead to avoidance behaviors instead of positive change. For example, homeowners who wait until the last minute to seek help can avoid the possibility of being rejected or failing, while homeowners who project blame for their financial hardship into a spouse, boss, or other person do not have to take responsibility for fixing the mortgage and become victims of the outside world.

The more homeowners engage in avoidance behaviors to hide from their irrational fears, the more adept at avoiding pain they will become. And the higher their sense of fear and the more fears they have, the more they will justify their avoidance behaviors as actually being productive. In effect, people create problems for themselves which are only symptoms of the real anxiety-producing fears, but they work on solving these symptoms instead of getting over their fears. This helps create neurotic spirals and reinforces the irrational fears and avoidance behaviors while giving homeowners an excuse to avoid taking any meaningful step to stop foreclosure on their properties.

Confronting and getting over these irrational fears as quickly as possible is one of the most important actions homeowners can take to ensure they have the best chance to save their homes. While a fear of losing a home is entirely justified if the owners have not paid their mortgage for a few months, fearing just picking up the phone and talking to the lender to discuss possible mortgage modification options is irrational. Controlling anxiety is such situations is most vital and the first step is simply recognizing these fears when they begin to manifest themselves in avoidance behaviors and high anxiety symptoms.

It is no secret that many homeowners in foreclosure seem to wait until the last minute before taking action to save their homes. Why they do this, though, can be dependent on many factors, not the least of which is simple ignorance of what happens during the foreclosure process and what may be done to stop it. When attempting to help homeowners stop foreclosure, the more time available in which to work out a solution, the better the chances of the method ending in success. This is one tragic reason why waiting until the last minute to begin working on a plan will often not result in foreclosure victims being able to keep their homes.

Most homeowners facing the loss of their homes just do not know the basics of the foreclosure process: what to do and when, how foreclosure works, or what options they have to resolve the situation. It is not really so much that these families are waiting until the final seconds before losing their homes to start any kind of plan; in fact, many of them will try one hair-brained scheme after another to save their homes. Unfortunately, all of these plots inevitably fail and leave the homeowners more and more desperate, as they keep wasting time and money that they do not have.

One reason homeowners rely on unrealistic methods of saving a home is that a lot of them believe that refinancing is their only way out of foreclosure, so they apply with broker after broker who promises to help them. Not surprisingly, few of them ever get a new loan, as foreclosure bailout loans are very difficult to qualify for when the loan applicants have no equity and have missed numerous payments. Brokers will attempt to work on these loans, though, on the off-chance that the homeowners' properties are worth far more than expected, turning a bad loan into a good loan and guaranteeing the mortgage broker's commission. While homeowners are encouraged to apply for a foreclosure loan, it is simply a mistake to rely on this as the only plan, as the chances for success are very low.

Other homeowners will apply for some sort of workout solution with their mortgage company, another method of ending foreclosure that is encouraged but should not be the only solution relied upon. The homeowners that work with their bank to put together a forbearance agreement are often told that a decision will be made on whether their file is accepted in 1-2 months. Obviously, it is amazing banks wait this long to approve or reject a repayment plan, but when they reject the homeowners that are unqualified, this has just wasted over a month of the homeowners' available time to save their homes. In fact, many lenders will not inform their clients of their rejection until a few days before the county sheriff sale of the property, almost guaranteeing their inability to keep the home. This is not a situation any family will want to find itself in.

Also, such last-ditch efforts as selling the house and filing bankruptcy to stop foreclosure are pretty low on the average homeowner's list of preferred options to avoid losing their homes. Most of them are looking for the magical solution that will allow them to keep their homes, avoid bankruptcy, and get a lower payment; and as long as scam artists keep promising these programs that seem to guarantee such outlandish outcomes, the foreclosure victims will not consider the fact that they have to make some hard decisions about their home. If someone will show them a fantasy scenario where everything is all better, they will not be forced to make financial sacrifices, like selling a car or selling their home. Unfortunately, when these delusions do not work out, homeowners often come crashing back down to reality, finding out that they have very little time to put together a realistic solution.

Unfortunately, though, most homeowners just do not know what options they have at all, and they are not going to take advice from someone who knocks on their door, sends them a postcard, or cold calls them out of the blue, no matter how professional the person may be. These homeowners have already had the bank drive past their home checking to see if they have abandoned the property, foreclosure notices posted on their house, and have had the foreclosure listed in the newspaper for all of their neighbors to read about. By that point, they are terrified of even more attention being drawn to the fact that they are in foreclosure, so it is easier to hide inside the home and turn off the phone and refuse to open the mail, rather than confront the problem and seek a solution to the foreclosure.

People have a lot of motivations for doing nothing, especially when they are facing as stressful a situation as foreclosure. It is really no surprise that homeowners will refuse any help until the last minute, at which point any help given will have minimal chances of success. Who knows why some people wait so long and see their homes sold at sheriff sale, while others take charge and end up saving their homes? Unfortunately, it is the homeowners who much ask the tough questions of themselves and then work out reasonable solutions to stop foreclosure. While they are waiting for a magic plan that saves their homes, the world and the foreclosure process keep moving on. Hopefully, fewer foreclosure victims will find that they have been left behind with no one to help them.

Saving a home from foreclosure is not easy in any situation. It never has been. It is work, plain and simple, and usually very hard work. Too many homeowners are just not aware of how much work it will take to prevent from losing their homes, and they make common mistakes like trusting that someone else will take care of their problems, or waiting until the last minute in order to get anything done.

Part of the problem may lie in the fact that the process to purchase a home and apply for a mortgage require very little work by the homeowners, who simply fill out some paperwork, sign their names a few times, and wait on the real estate agent and mortgage broker for the approval. In contrast, foreclosure situations are dealt with solely between the mortgage company and the foreclosure victims, with no one to represent the homeowners. The relative ease of buying a home quickly turns into a situation where the homeowners are left completely on their own to deal with a problem of which they have little knowledge.

Why do so few homeowners appreciate the large task that is put in front of them when facing foreclosure? Most likely, it is due to the widely-held perception that everything in life should be easy, and work is something to be avoided, rather than viewed as a tool of personal and intellectual growth. Homeowners who have grown accustomed to having all of their thinking done for them by their boss or the television may find it very difficult to put enough thought into coming up with a solution to foreclosure. They either procrastinate looking for options, or blindly trust in another company to help them stop foreclosure on their homes.

Ironically, committing either of these mistakes will only create more work for the foreclosure victims in the end, as they will be scrambling around to find some way to save the house, or become the victim of a foreclosure scam company. There really is no reasonable way that homeowners can avoid the work that it takes to work with their bank to get out of the foreclosure process. Putting off the effort will only require that even more effort be expended later on, and the chances of success will fall dramatically as time goes on.

The work required to stop foreclosure on a home is often challenging, but homeowners can not expect anyone else to do the work for them. Waiting too long to begin a plan is just as bad of an idea, as foreclosure costs, interest, and late fees continue to rise with each day that the homeowners are unable to pay their mortgage. The rewards may only be getting back on top of their financial situation and back on track, but the experience of facing foreclosure can help homeowners deal with other hardships they face, as well as help neighbors and family members in similar situations. Learning from foreclosure may be difficult, but it is not as difficult as losing a home to foreclosure.

One of our very first posts on this blog ever examined the issue of homeowners in foreclosure putting all of their eggs in one basket. In that post, we briefly mentioned the fact that there are usually more than option to stop foreclosure that a family will qualify for, and they should find out as much about each option as they can. Trusting in just one method to save a home is a dangerous activity to be engaged in, especially due to the uncertain nature of foreclosure situations.

Foreclosure victims should make sure that they have looked into various ways to avoid foreclosure, such as a forbearance agreement, loan modification, foreclosure refinance, or a bankruptcy to stop foreclosure. It is quite certain that many homeowners will not qualify for every one of these options, but they may find two or three that could help them save their homes from foreclosure. Having one option is better than no options, but having two or three can make a big difference between a homeowner being able to keep their home and having to move out.

The most important reason for homeowners not to put all their eggs in one basket is simply due to the fact that there are too many unknown factors in foreclosure. The biggest unknown factor is how the lender will react to each option presented to them by the foreclosure victims, whether it is a repayment plan, deed in lieu of foreclosure, or just a request to postpone the sheriff sale or eviction. There are many hard-working foreclosure help companies who attempt to provide homeowners with quality foreclosure assistance, but whose efforts are railroaded by the mortgage company. This is not to say that the lender will not accept any plan to stop foreclosure, but they are rejecting the proposed plan of that particular foreclosure help company. Obviously, this is another reason that foreclosure victims should have more than one option, in case this event occurs (and it will! ).

There are also many foreclosure scam companies that do very little work for the homeowners in foreclosure, and having a backup plan to protect against this issue is vital for foreclosure victims. There are far, far too many homeowners who simply put all of their trust in a company, send all of their money off, or sign over their homes, only to find out at the last minute that they are being taken advantage of and being provided with no other solution at the last minute. This is probably the most important reason why homeowners facing foreclosure should have several different plans to stop foreclosure that they have put together. Not every company is bad, but certainly not every company is bad.

Homeowners who do put all of their eggs in one basket and trust in only one method to stop foreclosure often find themselves without a house and wondering why their one-legged stool failed to stand up. It is unfortunate seeing how many foreclosure victims end up as their own worst enemy, in many cases, because they placed all of their faith in someone else, rather than in themselves and their own ability to handle the problem of foreclosure that they were facing.

The message of the day is don't wait to save your home from foreclosure. For every minute that you are not doing something to stop foreclosure, or are waiting on an event that has little or no possibility of paying off, the lender will be using that same time to take your house away from you. And every day that goes by without you doing something, you lose more and more of your equity; sometimes hundreds of dollars a day can be added to your payoff by the bank's acceleration. This is why you must have some plan to keep your home or sell it fast.

Lenders are often willing to postpone the foreclosure process if you are able to offer them a reasonable solution to the problem. If they can get the loan reinstated of paid off, there is no reason for them to continue pursuing a lengthy, expensive foreclosure. But the key is to have a solution to offer them, or a plan to come up with a solution to foreclosure in a set period of time. The bank will not simply postpone the foreclosure auction just because they have a request -- they will be looking for the plan that leads to the result of the loan being repaid.

While you are working on some sort of plan to stop foreclosure, the bank will be pursuing the foreclosure. You can think of it as a race, with the winner ending up with the house that you own right now. If you aren't moving towards the finish line, you can bet on the fact that your lender will be moving further and further ahead of you. And the further behind you get, the harder it will be to save your home from foreclosure, because it gets prohibitively expensive once the bank begins accelerating the interest, adding late fees, and hiring expensive attorneys to take you to court. Waiting will only cost you more money and cause you more pain in the end.

If you are going to try to stop foreclosure and save your home, you must have more than one plan, as well. You may not want to work on more than one at a time, but too often one plan will fall through right at the last minute. In that instance, you'll have no choice but to call your lender and ask them to put the foreclosure on hold, even though you were just turned down in one solution and have lined up no other reasonable way to save your home. In essence, you'll be asking your bank to take your word for it that you will be able to avoid losing the home, even though you have already broken your contract with them to pay the loan on time, and have no other option at that time. This is a very difficult call for most homeowners to make, and is one more reason you should get as much foreclosure advice as possible to learn what options you have open to stop foreclosure.

Waiting is possibly the worst thing that anyone in foreclosure can do. It causes you to fall further and further behind and precludes many possibilities that would otherwise have been able to save your home from foreclosure. Researching options and searching out foreclosure advice are some of the first steps in a plan to stop foreclosure, but actually moving ahead with the plan and putting away numerous backups will mean the real difference between saving your home from foreclosure and losing the race to your lender and having to find a new apartment to move into.

Although we all have our own psychological blocks and play games with each other and ourselves, people in foreclosure have a very real danger of becoming a victim to their own deficiencies, if someone does not pull them out of the game. The emotional payoff of some of these games may give the foreclosure victims a momentary sense of triumph, but the end result of losing the home only leaves the former owners with feelings of loss and regret. Two of the most common games that homeowners in foreclosure play are "Why Does This Always Happen To Me," and "Why Don't You -- Yes But."

In the game "Why Does This Always Happen To Me," the victims put themselves into a position where failure is probable, and then they take pride in the fact that their lives are more difficult than others, filled with more misfortune than they deserve. They may be unaware of this game that they play with themselves and others. But in practice, it may play out with the homeowners lying on their loan applicaion in order to get a larger house, even though they know they will not be able to afford the home for longer than a few months. They get a low Adjustable Rate Mortgage, and commit 80% of their monthly income to this introductory rate, knowing in advance that, once the payment resets, the house will go into foreclosure.

When the crisis finally happens, the homeowners feel victimized and cry out "Why Does This Always Happen To Me?" These foreclosure victims are usually the ones reading off a shopping list of misfortunes that they have experienced that finally led up to them facing foreclosure. The payoff for this game, of course, is the sympathy they will try to elicit from everyone, whether or not they are involved in the foreclosure: the lender, foreclosure help companies, friends, family, neighbors, etc.

The second game, "Why Don't You -- Yes But," is often heard by foreclosure help companies who propose one solution after another to help the homeowners stop foreclosure. The foreclosure victims come to the specialist with a problem (foreclosure), and the foreclosure help company offers a solution. Then, immediately, the homeowners will say something to the effect of "Yes, but I already tried that and it didn't work." The foreclosure help company will then provide another way for the homeowenrs to get the mortgage help they need, and be met with the same exact response in slightly different wording: "Yes, but I (don't have time to go to the courthouse) (I don't have any money)."

Eventually, the foreclosure help company will have no other real option than to tell the homeowners that they probably can not help them, which is exactly what the homeowners assumed they would be told. The foreclosure victims assumed that they would get no help, then discounted every solution offered, until the foreclosure expert said that they could not help them, validating the homeowners belief that there were no other options to stop foreclosure open to them.

The payoff in these situations is that the homeowners have validated their own beliefs that their problems are worse than anyone else's, or that there are no other ways to stop foreclosure on their homes. The foreclosure help company may be unable to understand even how to respond to homeowners who play these social games, because the companies do not even know they are participants in the homeowners' games to defeat themselves. But it's the job of the foreclosure specialists to find some way to get the homeowners to quit looking for validation for their assumptions, or move on to another client if the game-playing ones will not "grow up" a little bit and face the immediate problem of foreclosure.

These are just two of the games that everyone plays, but when they are played by homeowners in foreclosure, and they can not be persuaded to give up the game, the result is often renting an apartment or living with friends/family. Then, other games will begin, such as "Ain't It Awful," most often played with friends and associates, and "Now I've Got You, You Son Of A Bitch," most often played against the foreclosure help company who attempted to help the homeowners stop foreclosure, but were unsuccessful. It is at this point that the homeowners will violently request refunds, file complaints, and attempt to validate further their position in "Ain't It Awful."

Are you looking for the "best way" to stop foreclosure? If so, you may be wasting valuable time and resources examining so many different options, and contacting so many various foreclosure help companies. In situations like foreclosure, the best way may lead to the worst result -- waiting too long and ending up losing your home.

Because of the time-sensitive issue of foreclosure, it is vitally important for foreclosure victims to do as much research as they possibly can. This is necessary for a number of reasons. By knowing what is happening to them, the homeowners can better prepare and plan different solutions to receive mortgage help to prevent foreclosure. Also, knowledge is the best defense against finding yourself taken advantage of by a foreclosure scam operator. However, it is just as important that homeowners understand that searching for an elusive "best way" to stop foreclosure is misguided and, potentially, self-destructive.

A better approach is to look at the foreclosure situation as an issue of being sick. When feeling under the weather, you may do extensive research to find out more about what is wrong with you, and to decide what type of doctor to visit. Usually, though, you do not interview physician after physician in the hopes of getting "the best" doctor to fix you up. You simply find a doctor that you trust, and you follow the treatment until you are feeling better again.

The same can be said about foreclosure: you are in need of assistance to cure the mortgage problem, and, if you waste too much time, you'll just find yourself feeling worse and worse, until a major financial crisis occurs, such as losing your home. The time you spent looking for the best way to stop foreclosure could have been much better spent simply taking a treatment that would have eventually saved your home.

So, it will always be better for you to find a foreclosure doctor that you trust to heal you and make your financial situation better again. There may be no "best way" to save your home from foreclosure, but there are numerous ways that will help you repair your situation and get you the mortgage help you need.

It may be argued that the fear of success in saving a home from foreclosure does not result in the apparent failures that other fears may generate. A fear of public speaking, as just one example, may cause anxiety and physical manifestations in the person who is making the speech. They may begin sweating, blushing, or stammering during the speech, and their fear may become progressively worse as they make mistakes or realize that everyone can see their signs of anxiety. The person with a fear of public speaking is conscious of their fear, and the fear can feed on itself to become nearly paralyzing. This may be why a more people have this fear than the fear of death.

A fear of success, though, especially when attempting to stop foreclosure, is entirely unconscious, and, as a result, much more dangerous than any other type of fear in this situation. How is someone supposed to break through a fear of success and save their home from foreclosure when they do not even know they have the fear to begin with?

Furthermore, only homeowners motivated to stop foreclosure any way possible even experience a fear of being successful. Low-achieving failures have no experience starting project after project to save their homes, only to abandon each one as it requires more of a committment of energy and resources. Fear of success is only present in people who really desire to stop the foreclosure process.

As cliched as it is, the first step in breaking through the fear is to admit that it exists in the first place. Due to the unconscious aspect of the fear of success, it can not be conquered without acknowleding its existence. This is an vital step, but it is not a solution to save the home from foreclosure -- admitting a fear exists does not automatically make it go away.

In fact, there may really be no magical cure to this fear, or any other kind of fear. There are only methods to deal with it and objectively measure the homeowner's success in breaking through. And all of the methods that we will discuss involve targets and rewards.

The fear of success personality has a problem with looking too far into the future at a given time. They jump from the present, with a completed plan, to a distant future, with their home completely saved and everything back to "normal," and then unconsciously flee from that potential outcome. This is why small steps are necessary, with corresponding rewards at each step, and a re-evaluation of goals versus targets.

Goals are typically based on results, which are uncontrollable, such as foreclosure refinancing, for instance. A detailed loan application with supporting documents is unable to predict the future, yet the fear of success personality will mentally jump from the plan to the successful new loan, with no logical or coherent steps in between, and no idea of how to get from Point A to Point B.

Targets, on the other hand, are much more important, as they are based on actions and are, therefore, controllable. Someone experiencing the fear of success needs to set daily targets as soon as their program to save the home from foreclosure has been decided upon. This will help rein in the jump from the present hardship situation to the final goal, and will give the foreclosure victim a reasonable, daily target to shoot for.

It should also be noted that no target is too small to start with. Especially if there is a consistent baseline of zero activity, then any small increase should produce a jump in production. As an example, for someone who is in foreclosure, this may mean interviewing two new foreclosure help companies three days per week. This target is defined in terms of quantity (two companies), quality (foreclosure help, as opposed to mortgage brokers, real estate agents, etc.), and in time (three days per week). If the target is met, then next week the person would slightly increase the activity (two foreclosure help companies two days, three of them one day, etc.), for a period of 8-12 weeks, or until there is a viable solution to stop foreclosure.

Rewards are also a major part of meeting targets. Again, rewards can never be too small, and should avoid being large. Anyone will meet their weekly target for a Mercedes, but is that really meeting the target to improve, or is it to get a new car? This is why the rewards should be more mentally satisfying than anything else. Putting aside a quarter for every action and counting quarters at the end of the day is one example. This also reinforces the fact that the person is performing their activity because their plan to save the home from foreclosure is designed to help them build their assets through the ownership of a property.

Targets should also be limited to two per 8-12 week period. This allows the fear of success personality to focus on two main areas to improve, and is more conducive to building a habit of performing a certain action. Having twelve or fifteen targets becomes confusing and difficult to track, especially with a pending foreclosure.

This idea of daily targets can be used in many other areas of life as well, and it is encouraged that people use it in their personal, professional, and spiritual lives. From waking up earlier (one minute per day for eight weeks is an extra hour), to finally quitting smoking (go from ten cigarettes per day to nine-and-a-half), to writing that great novel (one page of writing every night), targeting and corresponding rewards are the main key to success in conquering a fear of success, even against such dangerous problems as addiction, depression, or, even, public speaking and stopping foreclosure.

As the activity improves in both quantity and quality, in a logical series of steps, the fear of success personality will remain focused on the activities that do not generate the symptoms of the fear and lead to early abandonment of their goals. Instead, for the first time, they will experience vast increases in production and success in saving their homes that they can measure every single day until they have been able to find the best solution to stop foreclosure.

For homeowners in foreclosure, there is a very real possibility that they will waste vast amounts of time working on one solution to stop foreclosure, only to jump to another potential option right when they have nearly saved their homes. This fear of success is caused by a habit of failing, and the fear that the success may, in fact, bring about a future that is even worse than the present foreclosure situation.

There are innumerable articles, blogs, and opinions on how to put together any number of different options to stop foreclosure. Some of these programs contain working plans with sound concepts, and some are purely foreclosure scams designed to prey on the ignorance of the potential victim. However, the vast majority of homeowners who start various "Save Your Home Today" schemes fail for the simple fact that they do not adhere to the program in any dedicated manner. Consistency is possibly the most important ingredient in any plan for successfully saving a home from foreclosure, and it is also possibly the most overlooked one.

While all homeowners who successfully stop foreclosure start with great ideas and new products or services from various companies, or new ways to improve on existing products and services, the most successful homeowners put together plans and stick to those plans. They may continue to refine and build on the existing program, but the essentials of the plan to save the home remain the same.

Also, the reverse is true: concepts that fail are often aborted before they are given a chance to reach full maturity and start showing the signs of any success. Many homeowners in hardship situations have this characteristic, as well; they bounce from one idea to the next, putting together extremely detailed "Plans for Success" with step-by-step instructions on how to save their homes in a matter of very little time with very little expense. And many of these programs are well thought out and would work.

But they invariably fail to stop foreclosure. They fail due to the person's inherent fear of success. Instead of putting the plan into action and actually saving their homes, the fear of success drives them to abandon the plan as soon as it is ready to be implemented. They design a working system that can generate real results and, instead of taking the next step, immediately start working on a different plan to save the home "easier." The fear of success personality will jump from idea to idea every few days or weeks or months, although it may not seem like there is any problem.

In fact, most people will mistake the problem as a sign of ambition, rather than of weakness. The fear of success personality may continue to operate in a given industry, for example, real estate investment to stop foreclosure, and just bounce from one concept to the next, such as investment trusts, lease-options, option contracts, or land contracts. To the outsider, this may seem like an extremely ambitious person who is interested in numerous topics and becoming an expert in the foreclosure industry. It is unfortunate that the opposite is the truth: by losing focus so soon, the fear of success personality only scratches the surface of any of their new greatest ideas.

Compounding the problem is the fact that the fear of success personality will often appear as an expert even compared to their peers. They will have a wider range of experience and knowledge of certain fields, due to the research that goes into planning each new grand project. The main issue, though, is that their inconsistency often has a direct effect on their ability to save their homes. As they create plan after plan based on hours of research, they have precious little resources left in which to become successful at stopping the foreclosure process.

Unfortunately, plans are worth little more than the paper they are printed on. And dozens of aborted plans never put into effect are worth even less. It is one thing to stop foreclosure, and it is another to plan to stop the foreclosure process in the most efficient manner possible. The difference will be the end result of remaining a homeowner, compared to the result of becoming very good at hiding from any actual work.

If there is no other reason to motivate you to do whatever you can to save your home, then consider this. When you lose the home to foreclosure, you will have to move. Furniture, books, appliances, clothes, pots and pans, and everything else inside your home will have to be moved.

Whether you have a place to go or not, this will not change the fact that you will have to transport large, heavy pieces of furniture down stairs, up stairs, and across town. This should be avoided at all costs.

In fact, you can look at your situation as a fork in the road. One path leads to hard work, and the other also leads to hard work. One path leads to a destination where you have stopped foreclosure, the other path to a new apartment that is much too small for your family. And no matter what path you eventually find yourself at the end of, you will have worked long and hard to get there.

The question you have is whether you would rather do the work now to stop foreclosure, or put off the work and move in a matter of weeks or months.

If you choose to stop foreclosure, you will have to put together a repayment plan with your lender, find a new mortgage company to refinance you, work with a local private investor, or seek government assistance so you can stay in your home. This path will be long, with many roadbumps, and will be intersected by wrong ways and dead ends (also known as foreclosure scams ). But at the end of the road, you will be caught up on your mortgage and will not have to worry about your present foreclosure situation ever again.

The second path, though, will allow you to sit back, relax, and do nothing for now. You don't have to lift a finger to stop foreclosure; you just let it go, take advantage of the time the law gives you to stay in the house mortgage-free, and then move a few days before the sheriff evicts you. However, once you realize you need to find somewhere to go after losing the home, the same amount of work will need to be done. You have to find a house or apartment to rent, then rent a truck to load up with your personal items, and transport it all to the new rental.

And all this will take just as much work as the path that leads to keeping your home. Just as an example, your couch will have to be taken apart, cushions removed and stacked up, and all of it will have to be carried downstairs, outside in the rain or snow, lifted into your SUV, and driven to your new apartment. Then, this process happens in reverse: get the couch out of the SUV, carry it through the rain, up the stairs, and into your new apartment, to be put together with the cushions and arranged in any way you want.

As anyone who has carried an enormous couch knows, this can be a long, exhausting exercise in dropped couches and broken watches. The work to move just this couch to your new apartment will have to be multiplied by a factor of several dozen times in terms of time and intensity, depending on how many personal belongings you have.

Is this whole couch-moving example any less work than just saving the home to begin with? Of course not. Moving a couch is a lot of work. Comparatively, moving the couch is more work than what it takes to stop foreclosure. You can stop foreclosure with a few phone calls, to be honest. Add in a few processing forms for whatver lender or investor you're working with, drive to a closing, and get the deal taken care of.

I'd much rather drive to a closing to stop foreclosure, than drive across town with a couch tied to the top of my car. Wouldn't you?

For homeowners facing foreclosure, one of the most difficult steps towards fixing their situation is simply taking responsibility. Not taking responsibility for what has happened to them or is happening, but taking responsibility for beginning action to fix the situation.

The majority of foreclosure victims place the responsibility for their current situation on any number of outside influences. These may include loss of job, medical problems, family issues, divorce and other reasons. While not discounting the impact of these occurrences, there is no one - no one - who will help the homeowner save their home if they are not willing to become an active member in resolving the situation.

The past, including all of the events leading up to foreclosure, while traumatizing and potentially depressing, will not serve to save even one single home from foreclosure. The first requirement in any plan to stop foreclosure is for the victim of foreclosure to take a stand and decide to examine options to save the home. Without this decision being made, nothing will happen to stop foreclosure.

Furthermore, the responsibility to save the home will never, under no circumstances, be transferred from any homeowner to any third party. The main responsibility will always remain with the owner of the property.

While this may not sound entirely optimistic, by accepting responsibility, the homeowner regains all of their power to prevent the lender from taking the property. The homeowner is free to do as much research as time allows and to examine every option to stop the foreclosure process.

No company or individual who offers any type of foreclosure help to the homeowner should ever be trusted to save the home, and should not be considered the point of contact and mediation between the homeowner and the lender. Trusting a third party, who has no ownership interest in the property, is singularly the most effective way to lose the home.

Make the right decision. Take responsibility for fixing the problem, do the necessary research, and effectively stop foreclosure.

Even though this is a short post today, the message is more important than any other one on our website.

Don't Wait!

Don't wait to stop foreclosure. Don't wait to contact someone for help. Don't wait to call your lender.

Every day after you've missed your first payment, your lender keeps moving along on their process to take your home. They may delay a few things here and there along the way, give you a second, third, or fourth chance to get caught up or stop foreclosure, but every day they will be moving slowly towards evicting you from your home.

It's not that they want to evict you, necessarily, but they know that many people who miss payments end up losing their homes. Just because you are waiting, does not mean they will. The lender will not wait to try to take your home back. Every single day counts.

Can you say the same for yourself? Have you planned to get back on your feet and taken a step on that plan, no matter how small, each and every day? If not, your lender is moving further and further ahead of you towards taking your home. And once they get so far that they can sell your property out from under you, take the proceeds to pay off their outrageous fees, and kick you out of your house, then it will be nearly impossible to stop foreclosure.

So, don't wait to get help. Don't think that things will "get better." We're not saying things won't get better, because things will get better eventually, but Do Not rely on an uncertain future to help you stop foreclosure. It's more important to contact someone for help or work with your lender, than to wait and hope. Planning your way out of foreclosure can help things get better much quicker, as well.

Take the time to find out your options and plan your next steps. The longer you wait, the more difficult it will be for anyone, even yourselves, to help stop foreclosure.

Don't wait: save your home as soon as you can.