Bad time to invest in real estate

[nicholback]

Instead of writing down notes and possibly losing them, I have decided to use the forum to do just that. This will be my ongoing time-line. To start with, the 15th of February we missed our first payment ever for anything. It goes like this...

March of 2003, my wife and I purchased a 2500 square foot home. Thankfully it is the perfect home for staying in and raising our children, if we can stay in it that is. I work in the "folies bergere" at the Tropicana hotel and casino in Las Vegas. I have been the lead dancer for 7 of the 12 years I have performed in the show. The money is not that great, but when I have my days free to work at Costco, then it is alright. I knew my career would not last forever, so in 2004 after our appreciation was on the up for our primary residence, we opened a heloc and heard that Phoenix was the next hotspot. Money down on fathers' day 2004 and signed papers a year later for a house that is now worth less than we paid in 2005. In 2006 we invested in a condo in Houston, tx. It is holding its value, but not by much, especially when you consider we paid for it while we were looking for renters.

We have depleted our heloc paying for the rental properties as the rent does not cover the mortgage payments, especially when they sat empty. ( The best laid plans of mice and men )
I knew the career would not last forever, and now they are closing our show on the 28th of March, so there it is. The plan was to sell the properties so we could afford to stay in our house... but now we owe a lot more than it is worth...
Oh, what to do...not sure

First things first. Stopped payin on the Phoenix house, mortgage serviced by Bof A. February 15th was the first "late" ever for us. Though it happened to be Sunday, we received a strange phone call from somebody speaking spanish and the only thing I understood them say was " bank of america ". I said "you must have the wrong number". the next day my cell phone started ringing with a number I did not recognize. I returned the call and sure enough, B of A. I didn't actually speak to anybody, it was automated and I just hung up after I heard who it was.

After all the stories I have read on this forum, I really don't see the need to try and go into a branch and speak to somebody when they don't have anything to say unless you are late on payments.

We still have our first home, a townhouse in Las Vegas that we purchased in Oct. 1998. We have had great renters for the past three years and would hate to have to move them out. My question for anybody reading this is, "Can any of the banks we have our loans through make us sell the townhouse to pay them if we foreclose?" The townhouse may be the only means for college for our two kids.


cheers

[Moe Bedard]

HI nicholback,


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

For the answer to your question, the best thing to do would be to contact a foreclosure/real estate attorney in the state where the property that is going into foreclosure is and ask how the lender would handle any deficiency that would be left between the sale and the amount owed. They shouldn't be able to make you sell a property that you are current on..........but do make sure to ask the attorney.