Mortgage Forum

Mike

I happened on this site in searching for foreclosure issues, home mortgage options, and hope this is where I will find some answers and direction finally. We have lived in our home for 18 years. We have put a lot of work and care into this home, however, last year we refinanced to pay off some debt and work on credit issues with the assurance from our lender (who is a friend of mine I thought) that we would be refinancing in 6 mos which would be enough time to "fix" our credit, which I might add we paid her for a "program to do this". I have been a realtor for the past 4 fours, and have not had an income in approx one year, which has basically resulted in the loss of my income. This puts the entire burden on my husband who is self employed and month to month at the mercy of his clients who sometimes decide not to pay until they too have the funds; as result of trickle down effect from our economy. I did contact our loan officer who I forgot to mention put us in an interest only loan bec of our credit scores. She basically wasted 2 months of our time saying she had gotten a loan product that would work, quoted an interest, only to abruptly end all contact with us. Let me also mention that we use stated income because of his self emp status and the net on our tax returns. Last year when we refinanced in July of 2007, our home was appraised at 490K; I had contacted the appraiser around April who informed me that values have dropped in the range of 30% which put our value at around 440K. We owe 346K; basically we do not have the LTV to refinance. I then began called our lender (Citi) and have talked to just about every department I could get a live person to answer the phone. Loss mit is not our answer because it is the amount we pay monthly that is the problem - 2600.00. They offered to let us skip 2 mos but that would not solve the problem. I have tried the refinance department which told me what I already knew, the value is not there. I have talked to the modification department and they have told me we are not in debt enough to warrant a loan modification. We are around 30% and they only consider people who are at least 40%. And here we are trying to eliminate debt only to have it used against us. I am told by different sources that in order for them to really "work with us" we should stop making payments. This is scary for us and against what we have practiced for so many years. If we could lower our payments or get the bank to restructure our loan at a fixed rate for what the house is really worth, if this is done, it would be worthwhile to try and stick this out. We really would like to sell in a year when our youngest goes off to college and that is another issue - will deal with that when the time comes. I have since been working at another job, 5-6 hours a day, with hope becoming fulltime, but it is not enough right now. My husband has taken on so much extra work, he is exhausted, and becoming very frustrated. I hope that there is something we can do to keep this home. Thank you!