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If you’re reading this, the housing crisis has gotten your attention. In fact, it’s likely that the crisis has become “personal” for you.

If you are one of the almost 100,000 Californians who received a Notice of Default in the past month, you are dealing with some strong emotions like fear, embarrassment, frustration, despair, and anger. Not nice! These can do a ton of damage to their life - OR, they can propel you into action to defend yourself, protect their family and save their home!

This is not for the faint of heart. You have now embarked on a journey through foreclosure, CA-style. So, suck it up and get ready to get even more uncomfortable, for a good cause - YOU!

Never has so much wealth just dissappeared. And the problem became global as our financial markets sold mortgage backed securities worldwide. About 15 million Americans purchased homes during the market run-up from 2004-2006. It is likely that more than 8 million will go into foreclosure between 2009 and 2012.

And, as bad as it is now, it’s likely to get worse before it gets better. More numerous than the sub-prime loans that started the decline, thousands of Alt-A Option ARMs are resetting to higher payments and it is now estimated that more than half of these will fail and require some type of workout such as foreclosure, short sale, deed-in-lieu or settlement. Current modification initiative, including President Obama’s Making Homes Affordable Program, is only a stop-gap measure, meant to stem the rising tide of foreclosures. It does nothing to address the actual problem of lost value. That pricey problem is still “out there”. Recently announced efforts to offer principal reductions, from banks, government and private “hard-money” lenders, are still just talk.

Nationwide the numbers are bad - nearly 20% of homeowners are underwater on their home mortgages. And, although that sound terrible, the problem is many times worse in states like CA, NV, AZ, FL and MI where rates exceed 50% in many metro areas. This bubble-deflating work will take us many years to work through.

The numbers are mind-numbing and the amount of “evaporated” wealth is astounding! But, for you it is personal. It is of little comfort that so many millions of smart, hopeful and hardworking Americans are experiencing just what you are. You have to deal with your crap.

Dealing with it means facing a new set of rules around a new set activities like default, foreclosure, eviction, bankruptcy, deficiency judgements and others.

My hope is that, while this stuff is not fun, at least all the resources we provide can help you get through and give you a little lift - to lift you out of complacency and depression - and empower you with some street-smart actionable facts and the confidence to find your way forward.

Rockwood is known as “The Loan Mod Mercenary”, helping thousands to negotiate mods.Visit Rockwood’s site about DIY Loan Modification at Home Loan Modification Don’t reprint this exact article. Instead, reprint a free unique content version of this same article.