From a reader:
I was running errands with my Mother the other day when she told me the amount My Father and her paid for their first house, in Seattle, the year I was born-1976. It was $15,000. I waned to throw up. I know inflation happens and I don’t expect things to remain at the lows they were back in “the day”, but when I hear something like that, I can’t help but think about the tiny 2bdrm house in Central Everett, that was built in 1950- purchased almost 3 years ago @ $210k -and that was a good price? Don’t get me wrong, it is a very cute property with tons of potential. But unfortunately, it’s all being taken away like it’s no big deal. $$$-Money, money, money-and greed. We, my Boyfriend and I moved in with stable jobs and income. Though the Mortgage seemed a bit high to me at $1600 per month, My boyfriend assured me it would be fine I was just used to my low rental payment of $475 (w/ roommate). Regardless, things were good for the first year or so. He remodeled the detached, 2 car garage, completely. It was practially ready to fall down and he put around $20K into refurbishing and turning it into a work shop/paint shop so he could supplement his income by doing side work because things were pretty tight in the financial dpartment and his current job as the Head Custom Painter for a busy Motorcycle Repair Facility, just wasn’t enough anymore. Funny how that works, inflation in everthing is justified for what ever reasons, and when you are approved for a loan. a payment amount is set based on your loan type (which is based on your debt/income ratio), so depending on how much you are already in debt for and what you bring in supposidly determines what and if you’ll be able to pay. And since my boyfriend had 1 or 2 credit blemishes due to an X Girlfriend that used his visa # to buy some items on line without his knowledge or consent and didn’t find out until it was too late and his perfect credit was not so. Making his loan rate ridiculous. needless to say, things went down hill in the financial department trying to keep up with two more debts+plus pay his two existng cards, both w/ insane interest rates, and everything else, that eventually he slowly started falling behind until payments started being later and missed. Now the part that seems F’d up is when he kept in touch, and tried to work things out wih his situation and the soulotion was charging him to keep his house out of foreclosure- an amount due right away- and then jacking his mortgage up setting him back further than before and utimately setting things up to fail. Raising rates and tacking on fee after fee isn’t helping matters, it’s simply causing more issues for the struggling dweller. Wouldn’t it be more humane to lower a person’s Mortgage payment when trouble rises? Or when prices go up on everything like gas, food, etc… I think living costs and such monthy bills should. go down. Now that things are so bad they’re only headed down the road of getting worse.
The mortgage had reached about $2800 per month basically forcing my Boyfriend into depression and pretty much lost his drive to try since he was killing himself to keep up, but still falling further and further behind. We received notice of foreclosure for the 3rd or 4th time and decided he wasn’t going to pay the amount to keep out and instead file bankruptcy with hopes to get things back on track and keep his house- At the last minute he was unable to qualify though. So with very little time left before the Auction of his house on April 11 2008, he scrambled to find a buyer to attend the auction with hopes to purchase and then lease to him with buy back options after he was able to regain his stability. We found a friend of the family that was willing to write a check for the amount, and having attended plenty of auctions knowing the typical proceedures he attended with a blank check since the starting bid info was not availible before hand. When trying to register to bid he was turned away because he did not have a cashiers check for the strating bid or higher- so he asked what the amount was so he could run to the bank and obtain one. The man just said that wasn’t his problem and would not tell him. So he guessed, and had a Cashier’s Check isssued in the amount of $150K. When he presented the check to the bidding host, he was told it was’nt enough therefore he was inelegible to bid.
Although nobody bid on it, the house was still returned to the lending bank or beneficiary which nobody had or would release any info regarding who theat was. After trying to contact someone to find out what he could do to get the house back with know results, a notice to vacate was issued by a Real Estate Company that had been hired to Manage the property. When he responded as the noticed requested, he played phone tag with the guy for weeks until he just showed up offering cash for keys and a wanting a date of vacate. When we explained our intentions and the need to know who to talk to about working out some kind of deal to either buy back, lease, anything, the guy claimed to know nothing and was simply there to offer the keys for cash and tell him the alternative. He agreed to contact us in a week to allow him see what he could come up with. We still were were unable to get any info from anyone about who we needed to talk to and never received a contact like promised. Decided to call to make sure exactly what the process was at this point. As soon as my boyfriend said who was calling- The real estate guy chuckled and said he would have to call him back. Two hours later we were served with an eviction notice. Says we have until the 5th to respond in writing or vacate. I want to respond , but I don’t know if it will do any good other than extend our living situation a little bit.
It’s very nerveracking to feel so helpless in a situation that involves the roof over your head that you’ve worked so hard for, is being taken away because your hardest just wasn’t hard enough.
Don’t know if you’d consider this a nightmare, but I sure do. 
From TELL ME YOUR MORTGAGE NIGHTMARE STORIES, 2008/05/19 at 6:05 PM
Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, education, EMS, Eviction, foreclosure, foreign relations, GTC | Honor, interest rates, Investor, Mortgage, Obama, politics, securities fraud | Tagged: bankruptcy, Eviction, foreclosure, foreclosure defense, Mortgage |
[…] quinci wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptFrom a reader: I was running errands with my Mother the other day when she told me the amount My Father and her paid for their first house, in Seattle, the year I was born-1976. It was $15,000. I waned to throw up. I know inflation happens and I don’t expect things to remain at the lows they were back in “the day”, but when I hear something like that, I can’t help but think about the tiny 2bdrm house in Central Everett, that was built in 1950- purchased almost 3 years ago @ $210k -and that was a good price? Don’t get me wrong, it is a very cute property with tons of potential. But unfortunately, it’s all being taken away like it’s no big deal. $$$-Money, money, money-and greed. We, my Boyfriend and I moved in with stable jobs and income. Though the Mortgage seemed a bit high to […] […]