• Lender negotiation: If there is a reasonable expectation that you will be able to resume making regular mortgage payments within a relatively short time frame, the lender may be willing to work with you to establish a payment plan to bring the loan current. “Especially in today’s market, this is a greater possibility,” says Housser. “Many individuals are having trouble due to an unexpected job loss, medical expenses, divorce or other personal trauma. If the situation has some resolution so that the regular payments may be able to be met again, it is worth it to call the lender.”

• Refinancing: It may be possible to refinance a mortgage for a lower interest rate and/or lower monthly payment. But if you have already had late payments on a mortgage, the interest rate offered may be too high to lower your monthly payment. Housser recommends using online rate comparison sites and calculators to determine the “real costs of refinancing.”

• Forbearance agreement: For a temporary hardship, the lender might grant you a forbearance agreement to lower – or eliminate – payments for a limited time.

• Short sale: In a short sale, the lender accepts less than the mortgage debt when the property value has declined. “A short sale will prevent foreclosure,” says White. “However, if it takes place after foreclosure was initiated, the foreclosure and the related delinquency in payments will be reflected on the credit report.” The only way to protect the credit score fully is to maintain monthly payments until the house is sold.

• Chapter 13 bankruptcy: If the loan default is past the point of being resolved with the lender, you may file for chapter 13 bankruptcy protection. This protection requires you to resume making regular mortgage payments but allows the arrearage (being overdue in payment) to be repaid over the course of the chapter 13 plan.

• Loan modification: This entails a permanent change to the loan, such as lowering the payment and extending the loan’s term or incorporating any delinquencies into future payments. “Lenders are more willing to discuss this now than they were before,” adds Housser.

• Deed-in-lieu of foreclosure: In this case, the lender takes ownership of the home, but that will not eliminate the negative impact of a payment delinquency or foreclosure that has already begun. “Bankruptcy remains on a credit report for 10 years, but it can offer a way to become current in payments, which will improve the credit score,” White notes.

One thing to consider is that all of these tips require you to resume payments somewhere down the line. You can’t avoid foreclosure and not make your payments. If you don’t think you’ll be able to eventually resume payments, it may be better to just go through with the foreclosure.

All things considered, a foreclosure won’t ruin your credit rating forever. It will lower your credit score and remain on your credit report until you’re able to re-establish good credit — which takes time and careful planning.

Related posts:

1. How to Refinance your Auto Loan
2. Get Cash for Settled Payments
3. 5 Tax Season Pitfalls to Avoid

The scam takes on several forms, but here’s the basic formula:

A con artist finds a property, pretends to be the owner, lists it online, then communicates with the would-be renter and takes a cash deposit.

The renter is left with nothing or ends up squatting on someone else’s vacant property while paying “rent” to a fraudster, all unbeknownst to the property’s real owner.

Familiarizing yourself with the scam can help you avoid being one of its unwitting victims. With that in mind, here’s a quick rundown of its various forms, followed by a list of tips on how to avoid falling prey to even the cleverest trickster.

A pretend owner ‘rents’ out a vacant home

Even criminals are subject to market conditions. If thousands of abandoned homes sit empty and thousands of people are in need of cheap housing, someone is eventually going to put the two together, legal or not.

In this case, the scam artist steps in to take advantage of the situation.

He finds an abandoned property, or two or three (these days, it’s not hard), and creates an online advertisement pretending to be either the owner or someone authorized to rent on the owner’s behalf.

He then breaks in, sometimes changing the locks, and typically asks to be paid in cash. In Las Vegas, a woman arrested for just such a scam had provided a contract and written rental receipts to a mother of two, and instructed the woman to meet her each month in a public location to pay her cash “rent,” according to a story in the Las Vegas Sun.

The real owner, who lived in California, arrived one day to find a family living in the home.

Tenants in such cases did not intend to occupy a house illegally and aren’t going to be charged with a crime, police say. But the renters are going to have to move on short notice and are unlikely to see their security deposits again.

A fake agent pretends to rent a foreclosed property then splits before the renter moves in

This scam starts in much the same way, except the con artist supplies a throwaway or fake phone number and never supplies the keys to the property. He may also collect a deposit from several victims at a time.

In this case, the victim is out both the money and a place to live.

In Miami recently, a con artist went so far as to create a fake warranty deed and introduce himself to neighbors as the new owner.

As it turned out, several others had handed over deposits, too, and had shown up with moving trucks only to find they were unable to get in.

A fake property manager pretends to rent out a home that’s for sale

In this case, the con artist hijacks listings of homes that are for sale or rent by legitimate agencies. He may rewrite the ad a bit before posting it online (often on Craigslist, where posts are free), including undercutting the original price by as much as half.

When interested tenants respond, eager to secure such a good deal, the con artist may claim to need a cash deposit or application information – containing personal data that can be mined for identity theft – before arrangements can be made to view the apartment. The scammer may say he is out of state for work, or for some other reason has to rush to rent the apartment from afar.

The con artist may also use the name of an actual leasing agent and agency; when renters go online, they believe they are verifying the self-proclaimed agent’s identity.

One woman in Florida who got access to a real-estate agent’s lock-box codes, apparently by pretending to be agent, printed rental contracts and business cards, which she displayed inside the home after hiding the real agent’s cards in a drawer, police said.

She also pulled the true realty sign from the yard and hid it in the garage during home tours. When one couple spotted the sign, she told them to ignore the telephone number on it, a move that made the couple suspicious and ultimately led to a police sting.

The woman would fill out a rental agreement on the spot and take a cash deposit, making arrangements to deliver the keys later and providing a telephone number, police said. She received money for several homes before she was arrested and charged, police said.

A real owner rents his foreclosed property

At times the scam artist is a desperate homeowner. Authorities say owners approaching, or in, foreclosure have been renting the property and pocketing the cash, removing eviction signs from the property to keep tenants in the dark as long as possible.

Renters may not learn their money has been taken until eviction day, although government agencies have been working to ensure that tenants get at least three months to move after a confirmed notification.

A con artist borrows a real apartment or address and collects deposits and Social Security numbers

Instead of borrowing a listing, the scammer creates his own for an occupied apartment that he has borrowed or even temporarily rented using phony identification. He advertises a low price and creates a sense of urgency to encourage people to hand over cash and an application containing Social Security numbers to hold the unit.

In the end, the victim risks losing not just cash but his identity and banking information.

A con artist rents a real, but unavailable, apartment to tourists

Anyone can list a property as a vacation or temporary rental, and it attracts those visiting or moving from out of town. But a scammer will request that a security deposit and rent money be wired in advance, as opposed to accepting a credit card or check.

Visitors show up at the address to find no apartment and no valid contact information. Authorities say it is almost impossible to recover money that has been wired, which is almost as untraceable as cash, or even to find the perpetrators.

Related posts:

1. Tips on How to Avoid Rental Scams
2. $250 Social Security Stimulus Check
3. Recovering From Identity Theft