While Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream is all about reclaiming the American Dream, Foreclosure Self-Defense For Dummies shows homeowners facing foreclosure how to reclaim their American Dream of Homeownership.

The American Dream of Homeownership has been under assault for the past several years by numerous threats, including the following:

• Outsourcing of good-paying jobs for middle-class workers, resulting in a shrinking of the middle class and little opportunity for the lower class to climb the ladder.
• Increasing cost of living, with salaries failing to keep pace. Increased fuel prices affect the price of everything, from gas for our cars to food on our tables.
• Lack of sufficient health insurance, often leading to foreclosure or bankruptcy when a family member falls ill with a condition that requires expensive medical care.
• Inflated house values resulting from several factors, including fraud, flawed government policies, and irresponsible lending and borrowing.
• Inflated property taxes based on inflated house values.
• Speculative investing or what former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan might characterize as “irrational exuberance.”

I often warn homeowners not to use their homes as ATM machines–cashing out all of their equity to finance a lavish lifestyle–but what is happening more and more is that homeowners are not cashing out their equity to finance a lavish lifestyle, but simply to pay their bills.

Although some people facing foreclosure are primarily responsible for the situation they find themselves in, many are simply victims of stagnant wages and a steadily increasing cost of living. In Foreclosure Self-Defense For Dummies, my co-authors and I advise that regardless of the reason for your foreclosure, you have options, but you have to act quickly before those options dry up.

If there is any good news coming out of the current mortgage meltdown and foreclosure epidemic, it is that more and more lenders are willing to negotiate a deal with homeowners/borrowers. Contact your lender and find out which options are available. You can also contact Hope Now by calling 1.888.995.HOPE to get in touch with a free or low-cost, HUD-approved credit counselor.

Don’t put it off another minute. Have the audacity to hope for and secure a better future for you and your family. Get help and start taking steps to save your home or get out from under a home you can no longer afford.

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