It seems the amount of people having to foreclose on their properties has gone up 72% compared to last year’s first quarter. Is this the sign of things yet to come? The way the trend is going it seems that it could reach a level of 1.2 million people having to hand over their keys to the banks and lenders.

It seems there are a couple of bad spots in the U.S where foreclosures seem to be higher than anywhere else, Georgia and Colorado came in as no.1 and 2 respectively, in Georgia 1 in every 127 households has to foreclose, this figure takes into account a 19% drop of foreclosures in march so the figure could have been a lot, lot higher!

If you find yourself in this situation of having to foreclose, there a number of things you can do.

1. Contact your lender and explain your situation most lenders will be sympathetic to you and may change the conditions of the loan (e.g. spreading the loan over a longer period of time.), a lot of lenders want to avoid having to put you out on the street because of the effort it takes to this and also the bad publicity.

2. Has your property gone up in value since you bought, you may find that you could have some extra equity you could release by selling it. I know it’s hard to have to walk away from your home but better to have the extra cash in your pocket than someone else’s.

3. You could consider taking out another loan like a home equity loan if you have equity in you house, but only if you’re situation is temporary and you will be able to pay the loan. There’s no point in doing this and losing everything a couple of months down the road!!

And also please if you are in this situation; beware because the smell of a foreclosure does sometimes bring out the vultures and the scam artists.

Some scams have been pulled on people like promising the owner that they can rent the property back if they sell to them straight away at a lower value, the owner then sells the house over to the scam artist and then when the topic of renting the property back comes up they’re refused this and left homeless and the scam artist is left with a valuable piece of real estate.

For more information on home equity loans, how to avoid home equity loan scams and how to protect yourself. visit http://www.allabouthomeequity.com/ for details also Check out our home equity blog.