Here are some options your lender may offer you if you miss a payment and want to avoid foreclosure:

• Repayment plan: If you suffer a short-term financial setback (expensive car repairs, a medical emergency), your lender may provide some breathing room by agreeing to let you pay off your missed payment in two installments over the next two months.
• Loan modification: Mortgage servicers can adjust the terms of your loan -- most often by lengthening the amortization schedule, lowering the interest rate or rolling the delinquent amount into the loan and reamortizing the new balance -- to help you bring the loan current.
• Short sale: The lender allows you to sell the house for less than the outstanding loan amount, takes the proceeds and forgives any remaining debt.
• Short refinance: The lender forgives some of your debt and refinances the rest into a new loan.
• Refinance with a "hard money" loan: You won't like the high rates and fees of a hard money loan -- one from a private lender -- but it may buy you time to sell your home and avoid foreclosure.

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