[mpimping]

before they sell your house at auction after you stop making payments.

[E36_325i]

Thats never a good question.

All I know is you can usually get away w/ not making about 3 mortgage payments before they start crying. Of course i'm sure it depends on ur lendet too. I think the process is pretty lengthy since they have to repossess ur house then put it in foreclosure status. After that the bank tries to dump it.

[darkcloud]

I serve forclosure documents as my living haha. This all varies by state obviously so my take is for Ohio. It usually takes the lender between 2-4 months before they begin filing their case in the respective courts. Then my business comes in and begins attempting service. We can get you the day we pick up the documents or never. All depends on how good the attorneys are at finding the proper address. The day your served(in Ohio for me) you have 28 days to respond. You then respond with whatever your claim(begin making payments again, filing for bankrupcy, sell the house, etc.). Theres a bunch of options here. You can even be served again several months down the road starting the process over again. It can honestly take upwards of a year for a forclosure to be completed.

The banks just want their money, by getting you out of the house they usually don't make money off the deal. The houses are typically trashed at that point and need a lot of rehab and are sold far below market value. The only times the banks move very quickly is on properties that are worth a lot, say a couple thousand dollar house in great shape. Typically a house where the buyer just bought more house then they could afford.