Looks like I beat my foreclosure.

[rudder]

Glad it worked out. But a 40 year term? Holy jeebus.

Yes, that is a lot of money going into the bank's pocket rather than the OP's retirement.

 

[alkemyst]

Glad it's working out for you. Didn't know about the burglary!

Yeah, that sucked. What was the worst part is I was the third house in a row over about 2 months and we had just sat down as a neighborhood.

We knew it was a large purple 4x4 with beads and some other things dangling from the rearview mirror, it had a custom front plate and visor (no one remembered the exact wording), and there was roughly 4 hispanic males part of it.

My neighbor was having a three car garage built so most people that saw it (this was the first burglary) thought it was just workers clearing out his old garage.

My burglary was witnessed by the guy right across the street, he thought the purple truck and 4 dudes with stuff hanging from the mirror and both custom visor/license plate was just a coincidence.

They were here about 4+ hours plus they took my 4 or so fire extinguishers and set them off all over the house. I lost almost 100% of my tools, almost all computer stuff (fortunately my main rig is built in to my desk and requires disassembly to remove). They stole pizzas, roasts, my toilet paper/paper towels, a bunch of electronics, small appliances, all my CD's (they left all the cases, they just took the big binders I had), jewelry (which was not covered by insurance), etc.

Even today I am still finding things missing and it's been 5 years.

I am very lucky almost all my stuff was ordered online as I could provide receipts and even realize what I had lost.

What the insurance company tells you (just taking pictures or a video of the house) is not enough when you have a loss like mine. I had to get receipts, owner's manuals, serial numbers, very detailed pictures, etc. It was a six month ordeal. Meanwhile all this other stuff was going on and my ex-wife was also in the hospital.

I had no choice but to sign that check over to creditors.

 

[alkemyst]

On the plus side? In FL, on a 40 year loan, you're probably paying a reasonable amount monthly for your house. So, it's probably similar monthly cost as renting, and you're slowly building equity. Like you said, you're not planning on moving.

Too bad you didn't have home owner's insurance that covered your burglary.

Good luck with getting squared back on your feet. Hopefully you can quickly get to the point where you aren't carrying debt with adjustable interest rates that might spike for reasons you can't control.

as for the unfixable part of your credit, maybe you can get a note inserted into your credit reports at the 3 agencies from your judge or the mortgage holder (I don't know who would be the right one.)

Actually rent would be $500 more minimum what my new payment would be, plus I realize a $1000 a month interest write off that I can probably leverage against my withholding substantially.

 

[edro]

Yes, that is a lot of money going into the bank's pocket rather than the OP's retirement.

Long term mortgages aren't bad if you have a low rate.

 

[alkemyst]

That sucks, but I guess it's the best of a bad situation.

Regarding the CC settlement option. If you had taken the $20k settlement payment on the $40k balance...would part of that involve closing the account? Do they basically end their business with you at that point? Just looking for the downsides.
Thanks.

All the accounts have been closed already...they left them open long enough to generate about 10-20% over the last due balance.

On cards with more than a $500 discount, I would have to report that difference as income. (About $20000 of additional income which would be in a higher tax bracket....probably $7000 or so in taxes minimum).

Once the mortgage is reinstated and I have the letter(s) from the mortgage company that this was a clerical error, I can more forward with my creditors.

Until that happens they aren't listening to me. Even in the beginning I spoke to them, provided them the proof I was making my payments to my mortgage company, etc. They totally go by one's credit report.

Only Discover worked with me other than closing my personal line of credit. I am on a 0.99% interest rate for life of my current balance with them.

I am only making minimum payments until I have my full credit picture in front of me.

My attorney will pick that part up once the first part is done, everything hinges on the mortgage and then the rest happens.

 

[alkemyst]

Yes, that is a lot of money going into the bank's pocket rather than the OP's retirement.

I do not plan on letting it ride 40 years. However; the rate is the same as a 30 year. If I make the 30 year payment or better, I pay off much quicker.

More often people pick the 15 year mortgage thinking it's a huge interest savings. However, miss a few payments and you eat that savings. It's much safer to take the 30 year loan since the rate is typically not that different and make the 15 year payment when possible.

For my wife's car, she did a 7 year loan due to no pre-payment penalty and the rate for 5 years or more were the same. I was paying that on a 48 month plan...

 

[Eug]

I was in a conventional loan. For whatever reason my payments were received, but I was not seeing them on my statements and the mortgage company was sending me 'past due' letters.

I have a notebook full of calls saying they'd fix this quickly, but everytime it came close to a deadline my loan was sold to another servicer who then said I was past due and the process started all over.

After three years ($120k of payments), I finally did what I was told to do and stopped paying them. Then things started getting moving.

My payments however; were not 'discovered' fully until two years ago and then it took six more months to have them applied. They acknowledged it was a mistake, but they still were not removing the first three years of past due payment, late fees nor amortizing those payments as if they were made on time.

Holy frack.

Up here in Canada the vast majority of mortgages are actually financed by the banks directly. 3/4 in fact. And then another 1/8th by credit unions. Less than 5% are mortgage-backed securities.

 

[SP33Demon]

Hmm, 4 years of taking hits to the credit and your house is still worth 50% less? Probably should have filed bankruptcy 4 years ago, yeah you'd still have 6 more years of shitty credit but at least you wouldn't have to eat half your mortgage for the next 40 years and you can rebuild back to sterling credit 12 years after the bankruptcy. It's not like you needed credit for anything since you said you didn't need to use your credit cards. But hindsight is 20/20.

 

[JulesMaximus]

I am getting to keep my house, haven't paid for 4 years, and it's going to be like I never stopped paying.

My rate goes down dramatically, but the clusterfuck they caused against my creditors outside them is unfixable.

That sucks man, but I'm glad you're able to keep your house. :thumbsup:

 

[alkemyst]

Holy frack.

Up here in Canada the vast majority of mortgages are actually financed by the banks directly. 3/4 in fact. And then another 1/8th by credit unions. Less than 5% are mortgage-backed securities.

Well that has to do with the differences in mortgages in our country vs yours.

You also have roughly 70% of people owning their homes free and clear and paying them off quickly.

There is not much market in the secondary market if the loan doesn't accrue a ton of interest

 

[alkemyst]

Hmm, 4 years of taking hits to the credit and your house is still worth 50% less? Probably should have filed bankruptcy 4 years ago, yeah you'd still have 6 more years of shitty credit but at least you wouldn't have to eat half your mortgage for the next 40 years and you can rebuild back to sterling credit 12 years after the bankruptcy. It's not like you needed credit for anything since you said you didn't need to use your credit cards. But hindsight is 20/20.

The home's value should appreciate a bit more over the years. Filing bankruptcy is not so simple though if you don't have a place to live.

A bankruptcy would have prevented the mortgage company from working out a deal.

If I had to move it would be very hard to find a place to take on my pets.

 

[Adul]

wow what a nightmare.

 

[LikeLinus]

Prime example of the complete and utter idiots who ruin their credit, overspend and don't know how the hell to handle their finances. You get what you deserve.

 

[AdamK47]

40 years. That's insane. I just refinanced my home for 15 years at 3.5%. Went down from the remaining 23 years at around 6%. My monthly payment is almost exactly the same.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I still don't get how the payments were "not applied" so, where was that money going? Whatever it is it sounds like something criminal/corrupt was going on the bank's side and it sucks that it took this long to solve. But nice to hear it did get solved. Banks can be weird sometimes with their policies.

How did the house value end up being less than the mortgage though? I kind of heard of that before but really not sure how that would happen without something major like removing a house extension or filling in the basement or something.

 

[RPD]

What a train wreck. 40yr loan at your age, that's pretty brutal on top of raiding your 401k? Ouch.

Honestly, sorry to hear you did get robbed however.

 

[brianmanahan]

congrats alky

also grats on this thread, i heard that it's going places

 

[alkemyst]

congrats alky

also grats on this thread, i heard that it's going places

Not sure what you mean

 

[brianmanahan]

Not sure what you mean

i'm not sure what it means either, that's just what i heard

 

[alkemyst]

Prime example of the complete and utter idiots who ruin their credit, overspend and don't know how the hell to handle their finances. You get what you deserve.

LOLWUT? Did you even read the OP?

I pretty much stopped using any credit when all my cards started tanking, about 90% of what was on my cards was my college education and the rates were very good and I was paying the balances down quickly.

I did nothing to ruin my credit, I was paying EVERYONE including my mortgage company properly. My mortgage company ruined my credit and I did somethings that were probably financially stupid to try and solve that problem (signing away my insurance money and liquidating a 401K (that 401K wasn't my main retirement, but it was a rollover from a job I previously had an I was able to put it directly into a Vanguard Admiral fund that was yielding close to 30%).

Go trololol somewhere else.

 

[alkemyst]

i'm not sure what it means either, that's just what i heard

Sounds threatening.

 

[brianmanahan]

Sounds threatening.

yeah that's what i thought too

 

[alkemyst]

I still don't get how the payments were "not applied" so, where was that money going? Whatever it is it sounds like something criminal/corrupt was going on the bank's side and it sucks that it took this long to solve. But nice to hear it did get solved. Banks can be weird sometimes with their policies.

How did the house value end up being less than the mortgage though? I kind of heard of that before but really not sure how that would happen without something major like removing a house extension or filling in the basement or something.

This was very common in America for pretty much anything purchased in the mid 2000's. I bought in 2007 when the boom was supposedly done, but property continued to fall until 2009.

My neighborhood got hit with tons of foreclosures, which became crappy rentals and Section 8 properties (Section 8 is government subsidized housing for the poor, the problem is people then move all their friends and family in), to top it off they gave a countries immigrants aslyum in Florida recently and put them in some of the Section 8 here as well, that lead to some pretty bad gang problems for about two years until our police force was replaced with those that weren't corrupt.

The neighborhood is improving now slowly, at our price point though there are still better values out there. Once those properties accelerate in value, this will become the good deal it was before. I doubt I will ever see the full value of my house ($256k), I should return to the value it was at prior to 2004 though ($175k) and then do the typical 1-3% increase each year.

We have our own elementary and middle schools (the middle school is right behind my house). They used to be much better, but they are getting better again too as the neighborhood improves.

The thing that really sucked is like you I like to do projects, it's hard to work on a house when you don't know if tomorrow the bank is going to knock on the door and tell you to move out.

At least the foreclosure is over. I have no problem paying back what I borrowed. They are giving me a fair rate and fair terms now and I am going to be fair back to them and pay properly.

I am more upset with my creditors which I tried to explain my situation over and over again. They basically put me into a place where I couldn't pay...my minimum payments were already $2000, but my interest was only about $275-300 so my principal was going doing nicely each month especially when I could make a higher payment, at least $1700 was going to principal monthly. It still sucked to have to pay, but that was my education and it was worth it.

Once the credit rates went up my interest went to $1400-1500 so my principal only dropped $500 or so every month.

It was insane.

 

[alkemyst]

yeah that's what i thought too

So who stated this?

 

[alkemyst]

What a train wreck. 40yr loan at your age, that's pretty brutal on top of raiding your 401k? Ouch.

Honestly, sorry to hear you did get robbed however.

I don't plan on extending it to 40 years. I have a baby coming so that will give me a break in the beginning.

I am going to try for the 30% forbearance as well...being it's future value money, it's going to be a lot less to pay back in the future than doing it month to month. Since there is no interest on it, it just sits.

I am hoping after the baby my fiancee goes back to work and we can fast track the mortgage in 10-15 years. However; the interest rate is low so I have to balance that against 401k and Roth money/market.

At least I know my payments will be going to the loan now.

My burglary was posted about here, it happened back in 2009 though, several years ago.

I am sure many would have just blown that money on fluff, it really sucked signing it to the creditors. To top it off my mortgage company tried to cease it based on "lack of payments"...between my insurance company and them fighting plus me having to prove how I lost so much; it took six months to get through all that.