Another GMAC mortgage....stop paying, or short sell??

[marinah1208]

Hi everyone,
I am in a similar situation to Dennis66 in a thread below. We have not stopped paying our mortgage yet -- our house is not selling, and if we drop the price any more it will be a short sale.

We would love to stay in our home, but are afraid that if we stop paying in order to qualify for a loan mod, we may not qualify anyway, and will be stuck with bad credit and the same mortgage (and the same inability to afford it). GMAC loss mit told us that they couldn't help unless we stop paying, but that is a scary prospect in case they won't help us anyway!!

Should we stop paying in hopes of a loan mod? Or should we go for the short sale and rent a home until our credit is good enough to buy again?

I know this is a subjective question, but we just don't know the likelihood of getting a loan mod in our situation because our interest rate is already low.

(1st mortgage GMAC, $340 principal, 5.125 ARM that will reset in 2010, monthly payment $2492; 2nd with Chase, $60,000 principal)

What do you all think? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

[Moe Bedard]

Hi marinah1208,

Welcome to the forum and thank you for joining...............

The problem that you could face is that a modification won't be able to help............they might extend the period before the rate change, if it is a struggle currently that wont help........

If you were to try a short sale your agent would be able to negotiate the deficiency with the lender............
The rep for GMAC that was telling you to go into default to get help, was most likely collections not loss mit unless the investor on your loan is FannieMae or FreddieMac......they do not modify until you are 90 days in default................try calling the number below and see what options the investor on your loan has.


GMAC Loss Mitigation
1-800-850-4622 ext. 2362609

[Dennis66]

Hi Marina,

I called the GMAC phone number with the extension as suggested by *** and that's where they gave me the runaround as I stated in my other thread. To recap, we have to be 90 days behind to get help BUT the rep "Rachel" said to call back next month "if you can't make your payment".

Here's what I'm doing. I will NOT be making my mortgage payment on Fri. 11/14. I will hold the money in my account but I'm going to then call GMAC on Mon. 11/17 and say "Now, I'm late, what can you do to help me"?

This is scary as I've never been late but I feel all I can do is see how GMAC responds to me now having my 1st late payment. Anything's better than sitting still waiting for a miracle to happen I guess. I'm also putting together my hardship letter to FAX and e-mail to "Javi" hoping that would get some action as this was recommended in another thread here.

Let us know if you're making any progress and I'll do the same!

Regards,
Dennis

[Moe Bedard]

It is all about the timing and the rep you get.........some are better than others.............

here is the direct number too........
1-215-682-1000

[SoCal 67]

From my recent experience. Once you are late on the first payment, GMAC will open up a case for you. Then they will find out who your investor is. If it's Fannie Mae as *** mentioned, the GMAC rep will come back and say you need to be 3 months behind for them to even consider moving forward with a modifiaction request. I was told by the HOPE rep at GMAC that her last 2 loan mod requests to Fannie mae were denied. Way to encourage me:-(

[marinah1208]

Thanks, everyone, for your advice and comments. It does sounds like GMAC is telling everyone the same thing -- can't help you unless you stop paying. Well we've got 3 weeks to make that decision, and I believe we will do what you're doing, Dennis -- put some money aside, make the call on the first day we're late, and see who our investor is and what they can do.

We don't have many other options --- it is a very scary prospect to stop paying our mortgage, and I never thought we would be at this point in our lives -- but I'm hoping our investor is Fannie, because that new plan they just released the details on sounds like it could potentially help us. (38% ratio would help significantly -- we are at 50% or more of our income with my husband's new job.)

Thanks again to everyone and I'll let you all know how it goes...good luck to all of you going through these incredibly stressful times.

Marina

[marinah1208]

A question regarding filling out the financial analysis form...I saw that someone on this forum said that you need to show $150-200 surplus after expenses in order to qualify at all for a modification. Is this surplus needed with our CURRENT mortgage payments, or a modified payment? Because our problem is that with our mortgage and all our other expenses, we are short every month, and that's why we can't pay our mortgage next month. Could someone explain the surplus to me, or point me to the thread/posts that explain it? I want to do this right because I know we only get one chance...

Thank you for your help!!

[Moe Bedard]

The best thing that you can do because the criteria is different with each investor, is to go over the financials with someone at GMAC and ask these questions. You would need to find out if they use gross or net income, and what expenses they look at...........some only allow a certain amount of credit card debt..........so this you would need to check........

[marinah1208]

So we were finally officially late last week, and made the phone call....my husband got Gary Neuman on the first try and spoke with him at length. We also have a HOPE rep assigned to go through for all our financials.

We found out our investor is Freddie Mac. Typically, you must be 3 months late to get a loan mod but Mr. Neuman said that is changing. He said our financials should show a monthly deficit -- not TOO big of a deficit, but not too small of one either. He and our HOPE rep would not give exact numbers, however.

Does anyone know from experience what kind of deficit Freddie Mac would consider acceptable for a loan mod? Are we talking a $250, $500, $800/month deficit...what would be too much or too little? We want to do this right the first time around so we don't get rejected...

[Moe Bedard]

the HOPE rep should know and be able to help........they put together the financials for different investors........FannieMae and FreddieMac being two of the largest aside from FHA. With the streamlined modification program they are trying to get a payment modified to a certain range, which is why a deficit is most likely o.k. in this case.

[marinah1208]

Thank you, ***. I will try to get more detail from her next week on that. She mentioned wanting to make sure we would have a small monthly surplus after the NEW mortgage payment, but understood that there would be a deficit now.

Thanks for your help!!

[RimToRimHiker]

I have a GMAC loan too. I will anxiously follow your progress and be routing for your success with a loan mod. Our loan resets in about 13 months. While it's awhile away, I'm starting to prepare my initial letter to GMAC based on all the posts I've read on this website. So glad I found this website!!! Good luck. Go get 'um!!!!

[marinah1208]

Thanks, DLS514, I will be rooting for you as well! Our rate resets in 13 months, also. Good luck to you, and I'll keep you updated...

[SoCal 67]

Hi fellow GMAC note holders..

I was denied my loan mod recently from Fannie Mae even with a job loss on our records. I told the loss mitigation department this was not acceptable and I would be contacting the upper brass at GMAC again. They called back and said they would be working on my case once more to make the financials work this time. What happened is they calculated my wife's temporary unemployment benefits as income. Which are going to expire in February. I hope they can do someting for us. We are 3 payments behind.
Good luck to all!

[RimToRimHiker]

Good luck SoCal!! Hope you will be writing a post real soon about your success with a loan mod. :-) We're all pulling for you.

[SoCal 67]

Thank you and good luck to you and all that are working on your loan mods!! Don't stress too much and enjoy the Holiday with your families!!

[marinah1208]

Good luck SoCal, I have been following your posts on here...I can't believe they denied your loan mod, but it sounds like you still have a chance.

We're trying to forget about all this stress for a few days and enjoy Christmas (until we have to get our financials in next Monday!). I hope you all can do the same - Happy Holidays!

[marinah1208]

A family member is considering making a monetary gift to us to help us pay off some credit card debt and auto loan debt, in order to decrease our debt to income ratio so we can qualify for a loan modification.

Does anyone know if this would be a problem for the lender with approving a loan mod? Without the gift, our debt to income ratio is too high to qualify for a loan mod.

But, the gift/payoff would show up on our credit report and on our bank statements when we provide them to GMAC. Would telling them we received a one-time gift from family due to our current economic hardship be sufficient, or would they question why we didn't send the money to them? Please help!

[Moe Bedard]

Is there a way for your relatives to pay off the debt that they are going to help you with directly online? If you have your car payment and credit card payments set up out of your checking account..............there should be a way to set up there account info on the ones that they want to pay for you. This way you do not have to make the large deposit into your checking account.

[marinah1208]

Great idea, ***, thanks! I think that would work. Do you think it will be okay that on one bank statement, our monthly credit card and car payments will show up, but not on the second (most recent) bank statement?

[Moe Bedard]

If it comes up then at that time explain that your family helped you to lower your debt ratio so that you can apply for the modification to help with the payments. It may not even come up.