When Emilio Gutierrez missed a third mortgage payment on his Thornton-area home late last year, he knew he was headed for serious financial trouble.
But after calling the Colorado Foreclosure Prevention Hotline and meeting with an Adams County housing counselor, Gutierrez worked out a repayment plan with Countrywide Home Loans, his mortgage provider.
"If you have the desire to save your home, call that hotline," Gutierrez said. "You have to be willing to make the sacrifices."
About 16,000 people have called the hotline since it started last October, according to the Colorado Division of Housing.
About half of callers take the next step of meeting with a housing counselor, said Ryan McMaken, a spokesman for the division.
Of that group, about four out of five are able to avoid foreclosure, McMaken said, although that doesn't mean they necessarily keep their homes.
About a third of those who meet with a housing counselor still lose their homes in short sales, in which the lender agrees to accept a sales price below what is owed on the mortgage.
Several factors help borrowers who go through the hotline to work out better terms with lenders.
Counselors screen out troubled borrowers who are too far behind to help or who aren't honest about their financial situation.
That helps loss-mitigation agents at the mortgage companies who are typically loaded down with 200 to 300 files each and are eager to prioritize, McMaken said.
"It shows the borrower is really engaged. That makes them move up the list," McMaken said.
Financial mismanagement, an unsuitable mortgage loan and unsteady work in the circuit-board manufacturing industry combined to put Gutierrez behind, said Mary Ellen De Los Santos, housing counseling coordinator with the Adams County Housing Authority.
Last October, Gutierrez got a better-paying job as a service technician for microfilm equipment. He was also motivated to make the necessary sacrifices to catch up, she said.
Gutierrez and his wife, Cecilia, share the mortgage on a duplex with their daughter. Their failure would have brought her down as well.
Gutierrez, 55, adds that he doesn't want to face the prospect of retirement as a renter, something he has been most of his life.
"We had too much of our lives and heart in that place," he said.
The couple bring home about $3,000 a month. They are meeting their share of monthly mortgage payments of $1,000 a month and paying another $700 a month to catch up on the missed payments.
They should be current by the end of August.
The Gutierrez family, however, won't be out of the woods even then. Their adjustable-rate mortgage resets sharply higher next March, from a 7.13 percent interest rate to above 10 percent, De Los Santos estimates.
Gutierrez hopes De Los Santos can help him refinance out of that situation as well, once a $10,000 prepayment penalty on his current loan expires.
"I still get up at night," Gutierrez said. "It is hard for me to sleep. I am dealing with it one day at a time."
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