Florida Home Loan Lenders Seek to Boost Foreclosure Awareness

A family sits around the kitchen table making dinner conversation, when the phone rings. It rings and rings in the background, and the family chatter turns to silence.

The parents don’t want to answer the phone because they suspect it’s somebody calling to remind them they’re behind on Florida mortgage payments.

This awkward moment - along with similar others - may be coming to your TV.

They are public service announcements from the industry, reminding people in trouble with their Florida mortgages that there are ways out - if they don’t wait too long to ask for help.

They are genuine signs of the times.

The chilling 30-second PSAs are the product of a newfound partnership between the giants in the Florida mortgage industry and the Ad Council.

So now, along with pleadings to stay in school and prevent forest fires, American TV viewers will be reminded that home ownership is a terrible thing to waste.

“Every year, 1 million families face losing their homes to foreclosure,” the voiceover says. “If you’re ignoring your mortgage issues, things will only get worse.”

The ads direct viewers who are in a fix to call 888-995-HOPE (4673), “because nothing is worse than doing nothing.”

The toll-free number leads callers to a foreclosure-counseling hotline run by the Homeownership Preservation Foundation, a non-profit that connects consumers to free mortgage counseling.

The ads, which also will be available in radio, print and Internet formats and are part of a three-year campaign, cost about $1 million to produce, according to NeighborWorks, a foreclosure-prevention group funded by the nation’s largest mortgage lenders and the Ad Council.

One of the groups funding those ads is the Mortgage Bankers Association, which separately is debuting PSAs of its own.

The Washington-based trade association’s ads are less heart-tugging and more to the point: An array of homeowners look into the camera and each explains, tersely, that they can’t make their mortgage payments now.

The message: Pick up the phone and call your lender at the first sign of fiscal distress because maybe something can be worked out. It directs consumers to its own Web site, HomeLoanLearningCenter.com.

Besides the obvious goal of preventing the familial and societal agony of foreclosures, the mortgage-industry-backed campaigns have a bottom-line motivation:

A Florida mortgage lender finds foreclosure to be very expensive.

They don’t want to be stuck holding a foreclosed home they can’t sell at a decent price in a slow market. The producers of the spots estimate that each foreclosure costs a Florida mortgage lender $30,000 or more.

Meanwhile, a real estate company in Destin, Fla., a local politician and a church got together recently to hold a Real Estate Prayer Luncheon.

Destin, like many other communities in the region, has seen its soaring real estate and North Florida mortgage markets plummet: Sales in surrounding Okaloosa County were down 44 percent in May from a year earlier.

At the luncheon, former city councilman Mel Ponder told 300 in attendance that since Florida real estate is the heart of the economic community, they should gather regularly to pray for the industry’s recovery.

Several speakers reassured the crowd that better times were ahead and that they should remain positive. Attendees read Scripture and offered testimonials.

At one point, real estate agents were invited to come to the front of the church auditorium where the luncheon was held, for a special prayer directed at them.

It would be an understatement to say that the story ignited quite a debate on the newspaper’s Web site. Most of the comments expressed indignation over greed by the real estate community.

“What will they try next, animal sacrifice?” asked one reader. Another asked whether the story had originated in The Onion satire publication.

But others defended the concept of the luncheon, offering their own testimonials to the power of prayer - prayer for any purpose at all, including for better times in the Florida housing market.

SOURCE: Chicago Tribune / Northwest Florida Daily News