Posted on: 25th Mar, 2010 05:23 pm
My husband and I live in Las Vegas and as everyone knows Las Vegas leads the nation in the most homeowners underwater. We purchased our home 4 years ago with Bank of America, they told us that the best option for us would be a 10 interest only loan. Only problem is that we didn't find out that is was a 40 year loan until closing. Our only income is Social Security for both of us my husband is retired and nearly 64, I'm on disability. Our house payment is about 46% of our income at present time. We have money in Stocks but don't want to cash in our retirement to pay for a home that is worth less than half of what we owe on it, and to make matters worth in a few years I loose my disability with the complay with and then our house payment will be over 50%. We also found out at closing that if we didn't pay extra on our payment that after the first 10 years our payment will balloon. We can't affford our home now, can't sell because home values have gone down, we don't know what our best option is. We don't want to use our life saying and live on cat food for the rest of our life. Pray you have some kind of help on what to do.
Your situation sounds difficult. It's possible that a loan modification could help you, but this would only lower your interest rate, not reduce the total debt.
Unfortunately as far as the debt goes, you're stuck with it unless you can do something like get the lender to accept a deed in lieu. Other than that you're really looking at bankruptcy as a way of clearing your debt, but you'd want to make provisions to try and protect your stocks before looking at that.
At the end of the day, house prices rise and fall, and at the moment yours has falled dramatically. Unfortunatley this is the nature of any investment, property included. Every home owner jumps for joy when the property market is booming, and cries a river when it falls.
Best of luck, and if you really want out of the mortgage i'd look at a deed in lieu or make some enquiries witha bankruptcy lawyer.
Good luck.
Unfortunately as far as the debt goes, you're stuck with it unless you can do something like get the lender to accept a deed in lieu. Other than that you're really looking at bankruptcy as a way of clearing your debt, but you'd want to make provisions to try and protect your stocks before looking at that.
At the end of the day, house prices rise and fall, and at the moment yours has falled dramatically. Unfortunatley this is the nature of any investment, property included. Every home owner jumps for joy when the property market is booming, and cries a river when it falls.
Best of luck, and if you really want out of the mortgage i'd look at a deed in lieu or make some enquiries witha bankruptcy lawyer.
Good luck.
Hi bonnie,
If you cannot afford to pay the mortgage, then it would be a better option to get rid of the property. You can contact your lender and apply for a deed in lieu of foreclosure. This will help you in getting rid of the property but will also have a negative affect on your credit report. Your score would go down by 250 points but you won't be liable for paying any balance amount to the lender. You can then rent a property and stay there until your credit improves and then apply for a reverse mortgage to buy a property.
Thanks
If you cannot afford to pay the mortgage, then it would be a better option to get rid of the property. You can contact your lender and apply for a deed in lieu of foreclosure. This will help you in getting rid of the property but will also have a negative affect on your credit report. Your score would go down by 250 points but you won't be liable for paying any balance amount to the lender. You can then rent a property and stay there until your credit improves and then apply for a reverse mortgage to buy a property.
Thanks