Dear Reader,
I want this thread "My
CW Short Sale Journey" to help people, as I have been helped greatly by the LoanSafe forums.
My thread is a work in progress because I am currently underway with the
CW shortsale process. I want to document here how I came to the decision and how the process is going. Ultimately I hope to tell everyone about a successful outcome to the process. I hope that sharing this journey will help you. Please keep coming back to see how my journey is going. Now here are the details...
My story is similar to everyone's: I'm responsible, college educated and was employed, living in a nice house that I put 20% down on, with a single
CW 7/1 ARM mortgage. Fast forward to today: my house is far underwater, and I am unemployed and unable to make payments without further drawing down precious savings. I couldn't refi even with an income, because of the fallen house value. And
CW won't discuss loan mod until I have another income, which I am trying to get. My loan is not backed by Fannie or Freddie, so Obama's plan won't help me.
I spent 3 months reading the LoanSafe forums studying peoples' experiences and figuring out the best option for me. I came to these 3 clear focused conclusions:
1.
CW doesn't want to help me. They have a fiduciary responsibility to the investors who back the loans and their interests are more important than ours.
2.
CW's loan mod process amounts to what one person here called "predatory mods", where they drag you through months of calls and uncertainty, then they come back with a multi-part loan mod which often leaves you worse off in the long run: your interest rate lowers initially but then resets back up; deferred interest and fees may be added in to the principal; you may now face PMI, which is expensive and an additional burden. In short, LOAN MODS SUCK. Please excuse my teenage lingo, but how else to describe them? SAY NO TO LOAN MODS, at least until the process becomes more humane and the outcomes more reasonable.
3. I bought my house to be a balloon, not an anchor. I want to pick the best of a bad set of options and MOVE ON, unencumbered by the baggage that this state of affairs brings with it. I want to stop worrying about my housing problems, because it's affecting every other part of my life.
So I decided to SHORT SALE my house. Here is the hard and fast of what I have done so far:
1. I contacted a realtor who I trust through references, and who specializes in short sales. I asked her about her track record with the process, and I educated myself on what to expect.
2. I had her immediately put my house "on the market" by listing it on the MLS.
CW wants to see that you've tried to sell your house for at least 90 days before they will consider a short sale.
3. I paid off all my debt except mortgage, and have reduced my expenses to the minimum.
CW will require at least 2 months of bank statements to show your financial activity. And they will run a credit report to see your full financial picture. Make sure it shows you to be someone under hardship, not someone who recklessly spends and loads up on debt of every kind.
4. I wrote a hardship letter. I did not write it in one night. I have been writing it on and off for 2 weeks. And I will work on it another 2 weeks if I have to. I want my hardship letter to be authentic and genuine. And it can only be that way if I take time with it.
5. We found a prospective buyer. This took a lot of work. I had to find someone who understands the short sale process and who is willing to wait out the several months or more that it will inevitably take to conclude the process. There are so many stories of buyers who won't wait out the process and you're left having to start over and find another one. Find a good prosepective buyer who's willing to work through the process as much as you are. Anyone else is wasting your time.
6. I stopped making my mortgage payment. This was the hardest of all the steps for me. I hate it, I don't want to be a delinquent homeowner, but it's essential. You can't demonstrate hardship to
CW if you're making all your payments on time.
This is where I am at so far. My 3 near-term next steps are:
1. My realtor will negotiate an offer with the buyer, and she will then write up the offer and submit it to
CW.
2. My realtor will follow up with
CW daily until they accept entering the short sale process on the property. This is NOT saying they will accept the offer. It just means they are willing to enter into the process.
3. If
CW collections calls, and I am sure they will, I am going to tell them I am in short sale on the property and to stop calling me. The right hand does not know what the left hand is doing at
CW, so I am prepared to have to tell them several times. I am not looking forward to hearing from a predatory collection agency, but I have no choice in the matter. Hopefully they will stop calling after
CW formally acknowledges the short sale.
I hope that my account of my journey has been useful to you so far. Please keep checking back as I update it. I would welcome your comments, but please, in the interest of keeping this thread focused, only contribute your experiences on the
CW shortsale process. You have the power to help me. And in turn I can help you, and in the process help others.
Let's help eachother out. Peace and happiness to everyone. More soon....
My CW Short Sale Journey 
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