Last year, I had a little money to invest so I made an investment to educate myself in the mortgage industry in order to become a loan officer. First of all, this was a new field for me, because, my training is in medicine and astrology.

However, I made contact with one gentleman, Howard Cadaret who had been in the business for 30 years. He even had his own brokerage at one time; really knowledgeable. I started with a bank that allowed loan officers to work from home. Now, in this business, there are the usual ways of obtaining leads. You can buy the leads, which are obtained from online sources. These can cost anywhere from $5-$35/lead,and you must obtain a certain quantitiy of them. I didn't have that kind of money

Now there is another way of finding homeowners who may want to refinance their homes. And that is through online advertisements of Notice of Default.. You can check My Public Notices. The crucial thing about these leads is the time factor. If it is too close to foreclosure, the Notice of foreclosure in the online newspaper may not give the homeowner time to stop the process. There are some states, however, that do publish the impending foreclosure well in advance, like Idaho, Washington and Alaska. Now another source of leads is craigslist.org or backpages.com. I was able to contact several homeowners who were looking to "cash out", refinance and to obtain a favorable rate.

There are many details and,of course, homeowners may not wish to disclose information to a "stranger." Also loan officer forums may be a good source of leads, but generally, these are loan officers looking for an "account executive." This is a person who does not work on commissions, but is salaried and can initiate the loan process within the bank. Since co-brokering is "outlawed", the forums are generally not good places to find "deals." However, the unusual does happen.

Now, if you happen to contact the homeowner and it is too late in the foreclosure process, then you should simply advise the homeowner to negotiate a short-sale with the mortgage company or bank, which are not really in the business of maintaining homes, but in the business of collecting money. They may allow this short sale which allows the sale of the property at a lower cost, even though it is less than what is owed. This is the best alternative for the homeowner, because he/she will not get the cursed credit damage. This is the best alternative.

However, where will you find a credit-worthy buyer? There are several sites on line. One of my favorite is My House Deals. This is a site that investors frequent, looking for bargains. The site foreclosure.com is not a good source, as the homeowner is usually too close to foreclosure. Now, as far as the current value of the home is concerned, you can consult zillow.com and trulia.com, since the current value of the home is very important in deciding whether the home can,in fact, be refinanced. In other words, there must be a certain amount of equity in the home in order for the mortgage company or bank to consider a refinance. This is what happened over the past 5 years when homes were inflated and now the market has reversed, so the homeowner can not refinance becsue the home has devalued in many cases.

Update (78/3/08) There has been a major bailout by the Federal government, of course. apparently the democratic Presumptive candidate has adopted Hillary's earlier position to help the homeowner. However, what he is not telling you is that his chief national finance chairwoman is Penny Pritzker, the architect of the concept of subprime mortgages.

We should be asking her to bail out the foreclosed homeowners. she can afford it. she is the 89th wealthiest woman. Shouldn't we hold her accountable?