what kind of help is available for first time home owners late on mortgage almost 3 months

Your best resource would be to visit www.makinghomeaffordable.gov or call their toll-free hotline at 888-995-HOPE (4673) to discuss your individual situation. Happy Holidays!

Best advice I can give you is to contact your mortgage company. They have incentive's to help you stay in your home. Be leery of Loan Modification companies. These loan mods are very expensive and rarely help. Another option is to sell your home before it get's real ugly. Selling your home before it actually goes into foreclosure can help you credit recover faster. WilliamAcres.com

The best advice is to contact your current mortgage company. Mortgage companies do not want to foreclose on any of their borrowers. As you talk with them, make sure you are completely honest with your circumstances. Unless you just decided you weren't going to make your payments, it almost doesn't really matter why you were late. If you have a game plan, they will want to help. They will want to know that you are going to be able to make the payments going forward. For example, if they were to extend your loan by three months, so that your loan showed January 1, 2012 as your next due date, could you pay your current payment amount on time going forward? There is a way for them to make that happen. If your income has been reduced such that your current payment amount is too high, they may be able to help modify the payment amount. It may take several rounds of negotiations. I know several people that were told no several times or were offered a plan that really didn't help before they were offered a plan that does work. Good luck to you.