Waaay Upside Down

[yeswecan]

Hi NorthCoast,

Really nice title on your post. I am also WAAAY upside down. We too were investing in real estate and counting on that to continue to provide income. I too paid the 5K to the attorney on this site. Here's links to my posts so you can read my story. Nice summary on your 1st post, I wish I had written mine so clearly...

HOPE not helping...berates me like the lender!

http://www.loansafe.org/forum/stop-f...real-good.html

So, re the attny, we have our 1st call with him tomorrow, after spending more that 6 weeks going back and forth about the docs. Will post with how its going. We are doing each property separately. Starting with the first one we bought and what seems like the toughest lender, Aurora. THis one is also the most upside down, probably 250K.

[crumpy]

NorthCoast and Yes-We-Can --

I am also waaaaay under water, upside down, am also an honest person. I was not irresponsible when I bought and later borrowed. I am also in California, with my home on the Central Coast, where I used to work. I do want to keep my home. However, my employer went belly-up with the real estate slump -- and I have had to move just to find a job that pays decently, hundreds of miles away. I am now renting in the city where I work.

Back in July, 2008, I set out other details of my own sad story in detail under the thread "Confronting the HELOC Monster" in the "Tell Us Your Story" section.

Well, after substantial research and discussion with lawyers and others, I decided to walk. I purposefully made August, 2008, my last month of paying either my first (purchase) or my second (HELOC).

I really do want to hold on to my cottage and was hoping I could go back to live in it. My dreams are now dashed. I have written the lenders in earnest and urged them to work with me to REDUCE THE PRINCIPAL to the current market so that I can hold on to the home. I have even urged that I am willing to give them everything I earn if I sell the house within the next decade, so they can recoup ANY loss on their loans to me. But the lenders WON'T BUDGE.

I just don't understand why they would rather take it in foreclosure than try to take the loss through a principal reduction. All I get is bureaucratic responses "fill out the loan modification appliction", which on its face says they will not reduce principal and that demand lots of personal information for the mere suggestion that what I will get, at best, is a delaying of the inevitiable through lower payments, with no hope ever of getting out from under the rock.

Meanwhile, I am today suffering a very long wait. They are taking a ga-zillion years to initiate foreclosure! All I have gotten, a few weeks ago, is a letter via certified mail from a "trustee corp." telling me they were initiating foreclosure -- which can be 4 months or more under CA. law -- but at the same time continuing to send me the probing, nosy, invasive loan modifications with no suggestion they are willing to reduce principal.

So, I now paid $850 for my insurance for the year, am starting to pay someone to check in on the house, and am now going to have to pay $1500 in taxes. I really wish they would just foreclose, once and for all and come after me so we can duke it out. I am dreading this situation!!!!!!!

I am probably going to have to file for bankruptcy.

So, that is my story today. Thoughts are appreciated.

[NorthCoast]

It’s been some time since I’ve made any posts, but honestly nothing has been happening other than Chase collections offering me a new load of bull every couple days. I thought I’d throw this out there in case anyone’s curious.
With Chase I missed my January Payment. After about 2 weeks they started calling. Every time, I told them that I submitted my papers in December, I haven’t heard anything, and I’d hired an attorney to handle it for me.
Feb 6^th I was told I’d been assigned to a modification person. Gave her contact info to Griswold and Agdeppa. After lots of prodding on their end that I wouldn’t get a mod if I wasn’t current , I made a payment to them on Feb 24^th. February 25, my file was sent to Texas to be reassigned (i.e. thrown to the bottom of the pile).
After a couple weeks I was given a new modification person. This info is all coming from collections. I got his contact info and forwarded it to Griswold and Agdeppa. They called him every few days for a while, although his instructions were that he was too busy and to only call him every other week.
In the meantime I talked to collections again one day who inquired as to why I’d hired an attorney. According to them they had only just received my paperwork in March and in their minds were moving so quickly. When I told them I’d submitted my paperwork in December and was supposedly assigned a mod person (I even gave them her name and number) they said they had no record of it.
Another thing they wanted to know was whether Griswold and Agdeppa was a real attorney because they only deal with lawyers, and homeowners. No 3^rd party counselors.
On April 3^rd my wife got a call from Chase saying “Congratulations” you’ve been approved for a modification. The lady specifically said that she was the closer for the mod dept. and that she needed to conduct a 25 minute interview to determine our debt/income ratio. My wife told them she didn’t have all the info and that I would call them back Monday.
April 9^th I called back the number provided, and sure enough she’s just collections. She said supposedly we’d been approved for something, just didn’t know what. She gave me the number for the supposed “real closer” (3^rd real closer), who coincidentally was at lunch when I called.