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what options they might have for modification. Because of the recent financial climate, lenders are more motivated than ever to make adjustments to the terms of loans. They see, as the government does, that some of the loans they are holding are toxic and are only doing them harm. Thus, they see that they need to start turning a substantive profit.

Hence, lenders are in general more ready to consider modifying loans. Some lenders are even creating plans and packages to simplify the loan modification process and make it more accessible for their borrowers.

So to do this process yourself, you just need to ask. There are a few things your lender is going to look for before they decide to start the loan modification process:
* They will expect you to be behind on payments.
* They will expect to see that you don't make enough income to cover your mortgage payment and your other monthly expenses.
* Adjustable rate mortgages that are about to adjust, or have recently adjusted, in a way that will make your payment go up are good candidates for loan modifications.
* Negative amortization (Neg-Am) loans are good candidates for loan modifications as well. Amortization is the word used to describe the death, or pay-off, period of the loan. A loan amortizes over the length of time you are paying it off. So a Neg-Am is actually an interest-only loan, which means your monthly payments don't go toward the principal of the loan. They only pay the interest that the loan is accruing.

The last two cases are the type of loan that most lenders are going to be most interested in negotiating. However, even if you have a conventional loan that you simply can't make payments on due to financial distress, it's worth looking into the loan modification process. Some of the financial distress that you need to show your bank:
* A reduction in income
* Loss of employment
* Sudden increase in expenses, without an increase in income

If you are in a situation described in the above bullet points, it's definitely worth talking to your lender about loan modification. Now, if you do this on your own, you need to expect to spend large chunks of time on moving the process forward. You also need to know how much you can expect to reduce your payment, so you will want to know which terms of the loan you are hoping to negotiate.

The truth is, doing the loan modification on your own is possible, but is a massive hassle and can be very difficult. You have to remember that banks don't have your best interests at

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