Meeting with housing counselors has helped at least four of every five callers to the state’s foreclosure hotline avoid losing their homes.
Since it was established five months ago, the hotline (1-877- 601-HOPE) has received more than 11,000 calls from people in jeopardy of foreclosure, said Zachary Urban, director of housing counseling for Brothers Redevelopment Inc. and the administrator of the hotline.
“The majority of people don’t even know what kind of loan they have,” Urban said. “That in itself is scary.”
Brothers conducted a survey of 1,500 hotline callers to measure the counseling success for the Colorado Foreclosure Prevention Task Force, a consortium of nonprofits, real-estate professionals and state agencies.
Among those surveyed, about 26 percent didn’t know what type of loan product they had; 18 percent had an adjustable-rate mortgage; 13 percent had an option ARM; 16 percent had an interest-only loan; 15 percent had an 80/20 loan; 7 percent had a fixed-rate loan; and 5 percent had some other type.
A big surprise was that 75 percent of those surveyed were refinancing, rather than purchasing, said Kathi Williams, director of the Colorado Division of Housing and co-chairwoman of the Foreclosure Prevention Task Force.
“It’s very obvious that people were inspired by ads to pull cash out to pay off higher-interest credit cards,” she said.
Staff writer Margaret Jackson can be reached at 303-954-1473 or mjackson@denverpost.com.
