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Recovering From Foreclosure – How to Pick Up the Pieces After Losing a Home

By Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen | Reply More

Selling your house can be painful; losing your home because of foreclosure is heartbreaking. If you’re recovering from foreclosure, you may find these tips on picking up the pieces after losing your home helpful.

“We’re meeting with lots of couples in this situation and seeing the stress this huge upheaval can cause in a relationship,” say “The Money Couple” Scott and Bethany Palmer, authors of First Comes Love, Then Comes Money: A Couple’s Guide to Financial Communication. “If you’re losing your home, here’s how to pick up the pieces and move forward.”

For more information on life after foreclosure, read The Foreclosure Survival Guide: Keep Your House or Walk Away With Money in Your Pocket. And, here are four ways to pick up the pieces after a home foreclosure, from the Money Couple themselves…

Recovering From Foreclosure – How to Pick Up the Pieces After Losing a Home

1. Grieve the loss of your home. Foreclosure is a real, painful change – similar to surviving financial bankruptcy. Houses are not just shelters. They are homes, places we raise families and make memories. One of you might take this loss harder than the other, so be sensitive to the emotional consequences of home foreclosure.

2. Avoid the blaming your spouse for the foreclosure. We see couples move straight from sadness to anger and blame. They accuse each other of buying for a house they couldn’t afford, for not working hard enough to keep it, for never taking the other’s concerns seriously. Even if those things are true, harping on them now won’t help. Instead, decide right now that you are going to start over, together.

3. Decide how public you want to make the foreclosure. Talk about who needs to know and what you’re going to tell them about losing your home. Decide what you want to say to your kids, your parents, your best friends. Make these decisions as a couple, and stick with them. Respect your partner enough to protect his or her privacy and feelings.

4. Take some time off from home ownership. It’s tempting to want to jump right back in to home ownership or to rework your financial goals. But we tell couples to give themselves some time – six months or even a year – to recover from the loss and regroup. If that means you rent for a year, then rent for a year. Don’t worry about what other people think. Work as a team and do what is best for you and your family.

Foreclosure can be a huge setback, but it’s not the end of your financial dreams and goals! You can have a solid future – and attract financial abundance – and even when you’ve had a bumpy past.

If you have any thoughts or questions on recovering from foreclosure, please comment below…

For more info about the Palmers, visit The Money Couple.