Mortgage Forum

SuzieQ

Okay here is my story.

My husband and I bought our home 3 years ago for $206. We were in our early 20's and didn't understand the mortgage process very well and ended up with a loan that looking back wasn't real great.

It was a ARM that adjusted in 2 years. After a year of owning our home we had it appraised and and $85k in equity. We took $30k to get married and pay off credit card debt. One year later it was adjustment time, we planned on refinancing but the bubble had burst and our home was now worth about $215k. Our rate was adjusting from 9% to 11% and since we didn't have 85% equity in our home no one would refinance us for a much better rate.

Well in January 2007 we adjusted again to 13%, our payments between the two loans at $2400, not including taxes or insurance. We put our house on the market in August 2007 FSBO and got a Realtor in December 2007 after receiving permission from our main lender (Homecomings) to do a shortsale. Well it is now May, no sale, no one even looking. We have not made a mortgage payment since January on either mortgage, haven't paid our property taxes or our home owner's insurance. We can't afford this home obviously and I don't see it selling any time soon.

There are short sales accounting for 47% of our housing market and our house is by far not the nicest one out there. The plan right now is to keep saving money so that when foreclosure happens we have a nice savings built up. But now after doing some research I'm afraid the mortgage companies will come after us for a deficiency judgment. In FL foreclosures go through the judicial process so I'm not sure how to tell if they'll come after you for the difference or not.

Our 1st mortgage with Homecomings has a balance of $198k and our 2nd which was a HELOC with HSBC has a balance of 29k. We have credit card debt of about $17k that we will be able to pay off in 18 months not making mortgage payments (or renting for cheap after).

Should I look into filing bankruptcy? My realtor told me some foreclosures in our area are going up to 1 year of no payments before anything happens.

What would you do?

rachael24

I really think Bankruptcy is the last resort. Have you looked into credit counseling or debt counseling services?

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Recent college graduate with a credit consolidation concentration.