If you owe more than your house is worth, you have two choices. Let's explore those two choices and see what might work out best for you.

You can stay and hope that home prices eventually rise. If you have a lot of years, even in the hardest hit areas, inflation will continue and at some point house prices will rise. Of that I have no doubt.

We can't know the future. And one thing we can't know is whether we will be able to stay in a house for many years or not. We may have to move for a job. Or for something unexpected. So the "stay and wait for things to turn around" strategy may be our intention, but it may not in fact work out for us. What if we have to sell in two years and we still owe more than the house is worth?

The second choice is to take an active stance with regard to your house. That means you lower the payments by negotiating a workout with the lender. Or you do a short sale if that is possible, and get out of the house completely. Or you do a deed in lieu of foreclosure.

A voluntary sale of your house puts you in a better position to negotiate. You can negotiate how your lender reports to the credit bureaus and whether the lender will pursue you for their financial lossses.

If you lose the house in a forced sale, meaning a foreclosure situation, you have no bargaining room at all. That is usually not a good choice although sometimes it is.

In many cases, it is quite possible to negotiate with your lender and get them to lower your payments. This means you don't do a short sale, so the lender does not have to take a big financial loss. And you stay in your house and await better times.

Regardless of what you do, some things are clear. Unless you just ignore everything and let things take their course…

You will have to do a lot of this yourself

Some people hire workout specialists. I have no problem with that. I think it can be a great idea.

But remember: even if you work with a paid workout specialist, you will end up doing a lot of work yourself.

You will have to gather up documents:

• hardship letter
• tax returns
• pay stubs
• bank statements
• loan paperwork
• take pictures of your house

And you will have to put these together into a package that you send to your lender or to the workout specialist. There may be other papers too!

The only way you can get out of this photocopying chore is to just let your house go and be done with it.

Tempting as that is, it is often not the right thing to do for your credit and your financial future. And this document photocopying process is no big deal!

Also, another thing is clear. And that is that if you have information, if you know what is working and not working, you can increase the chances of getting a favorable result from your lender. Because…

Knowledge really is power

For instance, What is a BPO and why is it possibly the most important factor your lender considers in approving your short sale?

And, How can you get the credit card company's attention and get them to agree to lower your rates even after they've said no? So that your credit is better 12 months from today, and you have gotten rid of a good deal of this crushing debt?

And, What is the method of getting 40 - 100 possible buyers to look at your house this next weekend so that you get some serious offers?

That's why…

I urge you to purchase your home trial of the Mortgage Relief Formula. It is available for only $17.97 shipping and handling. And you get instant access to an online place for you to privately post your issues and get immediate help.

You'll learn what paperwork you need and how to work out your credit card debt, how to work out your mortgage debt, and what to do in order to get out from under.

Click here to order your Mortgage Relief Formula home trial - first 300 only or until Saturday 9:00PM