The boom years of the early 2000s extended right up to 2008 where real estate prices got propped up significantly. This led to a situation where many real estate owners went quite overboard, buoyed by the tide of the ever increasing prices. Then suddenly, like a thief in the night crept up the shocking reality of the sub-prime crisis and the whole set of dreams of so many home-owners just came crashing down like a pack of cards. The mortgage crisis that subsequently unfolded led to cries for help and many requests and pleadings for mortgage modification by lenders. 

Any loan, including mortgage can be modified where the terms and conditions of the original real estate contract are re-negotiated so as to prevent the specter of foreclosure that can loom large over those who are desperate and hapless. Mortgage modification is indeed the means by which the borrower can request the lender formally to alter the terms of the loan in order to allow the borrower the ability to make the monthly mortgage payments, also altering the tenure (extension) of the loan so that the borrower also has enough to make a living too. It is not in the interest of the lender to push for foreclosure or short sale because more often than not, the lender would tend also to lose out in substantial terms in such cases. 

There are many companies, attorneys and agencies that specialize in providing mortgage modification services. These agencies help the home-owner to make a formal loan alteration proposal or a hardship letter, which lays out various aspects of the person’s month income and expenditure. This helps the person to make a case for an appeal for modification for preventing foreclosure or short sale. The lender would not necessarily like a foreclosure because this would imply that the property could be sold out at a price than its value as it is a distress sale which fetches a sub-optimal price at the auction block. What matters here is the sincerity and the transparency in which the borrower makes out his/her case and presents it to the mortgage modification agency of the bank or financial institution that has lent the money.