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Loan modification involves adjusting your interest rate, the length of the loan or other factors until it's an affordable monthly payment.

"There are as many as 5 million homeowners who are struggling with their payments, who are 30 days, 60 days, 90 days behind," says Ralph Roberts, author of the blog KeepMyHouse.com and the book "Protect Yourself From Real Estate and Mortgage Fraud. Lots of people need loan modifications."

How do you ensure that you get the most favorable terms you can, so that you can stay in your home?  Should you do it yourself or get a pro tohelp? Here are 11 tips and strategies that can ease your mind and keep your home from foreclosure:

1.      Start now: loan modification is no longer an option just for homeowners who were in default – with their lender filing a motion to start the foreclosure process, usually taking place after 90 days of late payments.

Homeowners are receiving help now before they go into default, says Moe Bedard, founder of LoanSafe.org and president of Loan Safe Solutions, a firm that performs forensic loan audits on mortgages for borrowers' lawyers. "Some mortgage servicers require a borrower to be 30 days late or more," Bedard says. "Some will work with you before you are late (that is rare). This is really a luck of the draw on who your mortgage servicer is and sometimes the negotiator you are assigned."

Take a quick quiz on the Making Home Affordable website to get an idea of what options are open for you.

2. You need professional help (or do you?): Are you going to pursue a loan modification yourself. Should you hire an attorney or a loan-modification firm? Seek help from a nonprofit housing group? The advice varies.

"Are you savvy enough, and do you have the time, to battle these lenders on your own?" Bedard asks. "It's always wise to have someone help you." However, he adds, "if you do have some type of track record, and you have some time and you are savvy about these things, then you could tackle it yourself … because no one is going to fight like you."

Spending perhaps $2,500 on an attorney who's well-versed in these issues can be money well-spent. be careful not to pay any fees upfront or disclose bank-account information to parties other than your loan servicer or bank because there are a number of loan-modification scams out there, so.

3. Find out who your actual lender is: You may get a better modification this way. Your loan could be owned by a single bank or it’s been sliced up into tiny pieces and turned into a mortgage-backed security and is owned by many people.

“If the bank owns the loan, you for sure have the possibility of getting more flexible terms, because they don't have to go anywhere else to get pre-approval,” Roberts says. "You really don't know what you qualify for unless you know who owns your loan."

How do you find out this information? Go directly to your mortgage servicer and ask who owns your loan. You can find servicers' phone numbers on your mortgage statement or book of payment coupons or at Hope Now. You also can try the Web sites of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, where you can input your address to find out if it is a Fannie or Freddie loan, respectively.

The Obama administration has the new Making Home Affordable program which hopes to help about 9 million American households. Participation by servicers is voluntary, but the government is offering incentives for them to participate. Most major servicers are expected to participate, and an updated list can be found on the Web site.

4. Be honest: As part of an application get your financial information together and present it to the lender. Give the lender accurate information and exactly what they need, so the process goes quickly. Do not be embarrassed by things you did to put your finances in jeopardy. Do not hedge on information to make yourself eligible for the loan modification. Now isn't the time for deception or anything less than full disclosure.  It will only come back to bite you.

The Making Home Affordable site, requires you to gather the following paperwork before reaching out to your servicer:

Information about the monthly gross (before tax) income of your household, including recent pay stubs if you receive them or documentation of income you receive from other sources.

• Your most recent income-tax return.
• Information about your savings and other assets.
• Information about your first mortgage, such as your monthly mortgage statement.
• Information about any second mortgage or home-equity line of credit on the house.
• Account balances and minimum monthly payments due on all of your credit cards.
• Account balances and monthly payments on all your other debts such as student loans and car loans.
• A letter describing any circumstances that caused your income to be reduced or expenses to be increased (job loss, divorce, illness, etc.) if applicable. (See next tip on how to craft the perfect letter.)

5. Write the ideal hardship letter: As a very important part of your paperwork, you'll need to have a well-written, concise so-called hardship letter, which is specific and explains how you got into this mess. A two-paragraph or three-paragraph letter is needed rather than a five-page letter.

6. Get the right people on the phone: One of the biggest frustrations can be just getting the right person on the phone. If you're trying to do it on your own is to make sure you're talking to the right department. You should be talking to 'loss mitigation' Not collections.

7. Be realistic: The sad truth is, once your case is presented to your lender, you don't have much influence over what your deal will be, professor Guttentag says. The lender's representative looks at the numbers and presents a monthly payment that gets the lender the most money possible, while still keeping you in the house. Often what's tinkered with most is your interest rate – sometimes it's brought even as low as 2%, and on rare occasions even lower – until the monthly payment becomes affordable.

So the lender, in essence, slides you a deal across the table. Do not sign on to a deal that you can't afford. If the modified loan is too high, speak up. There is some potential for the loan modification lender to have some discretion. Say why it's too expensive.

Show them a detailed budget that demonstrates how the loan modification will still leave you too close to the edge. Through the work you've done with a professional, or through your own calculations, tell them what payment would work for you.

You're being honest. There are so many homes now that lenders don't want to get stuck with, and it’s really like playing a poker hand.

Foreclosure is extremely expensive (for lenders), and it's only getting more expensive.

8. Stay calm: Homeowners often become frustrated and angry when seeking assistance from their lender and rude behavior doesn’t help. For the lender it is a business decision, but there is flexibility and this comes into play with being nice.

9. Call in the politicians: Don't be afraid to 'CC' your senator or congressman on your documents if you’re getting a runaround. The lender doesn’t really want the file to make headlines. Don’t use this on first go-around, but only if a problem arises that can’t be solved.

10. Leave a paper trail: Document everything as to who you spoke to, when and what was discussed. Be a detective.

This keeps you incredibly organized during the process and you will have the documentation to show you tried everything if you need to go to a lawyer in order to keep your home

Use certified mail and/or shipping companies like FedEx, so that you know the paperwork concerning the loan modification has been received.

11. Patience is not just a virtue, but a necessity. A normal loan modification can take 30 to 90 days.