First, my wife and I have a nice income so I never thought I would be in this situation and that I could always fix everything. It is a very humbling and stressful situation we find ourselves in. Therefore, looking for good advice on how to climb out of this hole we find ourselves in.
We moved into our home about 8 years ago. Right after we moved in I was laid off from my job and we needed to dip into the equity of our home to continue to pay our bills. In 2006 we refinanced at a fixed rate of 6.5%, at that time my mortgage payment with escrow was about $4900. Since then our Real Estate taxes continued to soar as well as our utilities tripling. Now our mortgage payment is a whopping $6180 broken down as follows:
- $3982 P&I
- $1836 Escrow
- $ 362 Escrow shortage from prior year
Due to the increased escrow year over year (hence the shortage payment) and the rising utility costs we now find ourselves struggling each month to make ends meet. This has over time caused us to rack up some significant CC debt as well. We are currently 1 month behind on our mortgage.
I contacted our bank (Wells Fargo) and supposedly spoke to someone in the Work Out dept. I was told that I would need to submit our monthly income/expense budget for them to review. Then, if we show a balanced budget the Work Out dept should be able to determine a plan going forward. If our budget is not balanced, we would need to speak to the Loss Mitigation dept.
Finally, my questions… Can someone explain the difference between the Work Out and Loss Mitigation depts? Which one do I want to deal with? Is it in my best interest to demonstrate a balanced budget? Lastly, what type of options do I have for restructuring?
As with everyone on this board, last thing we want is to foreclose. We would like to make it through this struggling economy and sell the house, if necessary, when the market is somewhat better.
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