Nine months after its first sweep through California offering alternatives to foreclosure, the national lender coalition Hope Now is back with a foreclosure-prevention workshop in Sacramento on Thursday.
The free event will run from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Sacramento Convention Center, 1400 J St., organizers said Monday.
More than 14,000 Sacramento-area borrowers received mailed invitations in recent days, said Larry Gilmore, deputy director of the Hope Now Alliance. Ads are also running on area radio stations, he said.
"This is a very targeted effort," Gilmore said. "We are directly marketing to borrowers who are delinquent or at risk of becoming delinquent."
But anyone can attend.
The event, also sponsored by NeighborWorks America and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 90 Days of Hope task force, offers struggling borrowers a chance to meet face to face with representatives of 19 lending firms, or with nonprofit loan counselors, Gilmore said. The aim is to provide options that reduce the size of monthly payments enough to help keep borrowers in their homes.
Gilmore said he expects at least 500 borrowers to attend the six-hour event. It is the coalition's 28th workshop since early this year. Another is scheduled in Los Angeles on Saturday. In March, a total of about 1,000 borrowers attended workshops in Stockton, Anaheim and Riverside. Up to 65 percent received some sort of loan workout, Gilmore said.
Hope Now is a national alliance of lenders, loan servicers and nonprofit loan counselors formed a year ago to work out alternatives to foreclosures.
"In some cases borrowers can walk out with a solution. In others, borrowers can walk out with very specific steps over a short term that can lead them to expect a solution within a few weeks," he said.
Solutions commonly include frozen or lower interest rates and repayment plans.
Borrowers should bring evidence of their income, bills and expenses and a copy of their mortgage statement.
The event comes as big banks and the federal government increasingly turn to so-called loan modifications to bring borrowers' payments down to no more than 38 percent of their monthly income.
The event also provides a personal alternative to the frequent complaints of borrowers that lenders are hard to deal with by phone. Many seeking help still say they are subject to long waits, transfers and dropped calls.
"This is an effort to meet borrowers face to face. Borrowers can be more comfortable looking them in the eye," he said.
Nearly 30,000 borrowers have lost homes to foreclosure in the capital region since early 2007, according to MDA DataQuick. The statewide tally is nearly 275,000 in 23 months.
For more details: www.hopenow.com.
Call The Bee's Jim Wasserman, (916) 321-1102. Read his blog on real estate, Home Front, at www.sacbee.com/blogs.
