Looks like I beat my foreclosure.

[Blanky]

My house got burglarized to the tune of a $30,000 loss

Now that sucks at a time when you're trying to dig out of debt.

I have to ask, though, how did it cost that much--did they do damage? I have a decent abode but I don't think it would cost that much if literally everything was taken out of it; all electronics, furniture, etc. I don't think they add up to that, and surely burglars didn't drive off with a Uhaul of stuff?

They were here about 4+ hours

Oh @*#*, that answers my question, damn.

Too bad your neighbors didn't take any pictures or anything. I live in a nice neighborhood but I am the only person with any security cameras, to my knowledge.

plus they took my 4 or so fire extinguishers and set them off all over the house

 

[LikeLinus]

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.

Says guy who goes around gloating about how awesome he is. Buying expensive crap and talking down to people like you're some baller. Had an M3 thread less than 2 years ago. If you were fiscally responsible, you wouldn't be in such debit.

I will quote you...

"I had one 5% and one 6% card that both were fixed interest, this held most of the $60k+ of debt I had in the form of my education costs because I couldn't qualify for school loans at the time due to my income. I had a 7% personal line of credit for $20k as well."

So you had 60k worth of credit card debt and you think you're financially responsible? You think stopping payment on a mortgage for 4 years was the right thing to do? lol

You think liquidating a 401K and using insurance money to try and pay off your debt was a smart move?

You think I'm trolling because you just proved you have no clue how to keep your finances in check and you're completely clueless?

Overspending, high credit card utilization, emptying your 401K, personal loans, stop paying mortgage and more. Completely reckless and it's the whole reason you are in the situation you are.

Lol, what an utter joke. You are EXACTLY the type of people I'm talking about.

 

[alkemyst]

Now that sucks at a time when you're trying to dig out of debt.

I have to ask, though, how did it cost that much--did they do damage? I have a decent abode but I don't think it would cost that much if literally everything was taken out of it; all electronics, furniture, etc. I don't think they add up to that, and surely burglars didn't drive off with a Uhaul of stuff?Oh @*#*, that answers my question, damn.

Too bad your neighbors didn't take any pictures or anything. I live in a nice neighborhood but I am the only person with any security cameras, to my knowledge.

$15,000 of it was clean up costs. After six months we had cleaned it ourselves. The fire extingushers put out a very fine dust throughout the house. Every morning for along time there would be dust on everything. We kept wiping things down and cleaning it until the dust was finally gone.

We had three different quotes and all pretty much came in at $15k.

There was also about $5-10k in items that were beyond the limits of the policy namely my tools and my computer/electronics.

They tried to even steal my Rigid TS-3660 table saw. They did get almost all my hand tools, my air compressor and my pressure washer. Both of those last items I only had for a couple months. They had all the lamps in my house by the back door all wrapped up and stacked up the furniture back there as well. My neighbor finally went over to see what was up. They took off and he still didn't call anyone for about an hour.

This was a list of the items I lost, more stuff was later found to be missing:
Sony Vaio PCG-GR5E/BP
Japanese to US adapter
Logitech Nano VX mouse
Sony Vaio PCG-GR5E/BP
120GB WD1200VE
SD adapters
Wireless G Card
Sennheiser PX200 Headphones
Kingmax 4GB Flash
Belkin SurgeCube
Pentium III 1.2Ghz
512MB Ram
Floppy Drive
Canon PowerShot SD450
SD450 accessory pack
10" SmartFrame
Canon Neckstrap
Ricoh R1s 35mm camera
Change Locks @ AceHardware x 5
Vornado Variable speed fan
Fire Extingushers
Cuisinart Toaster Oven CTO-390PC
Emerson 1000W Microwave MW8111SS
Krups Rice Cooker / Crock Pot FDH212
RoomsToGo Sloan Coffee Table (includes end tables)
Nike Dart sz 10
Nike Air Force 09 sz 10
Acme Glass (replacement window)
Wedding Bands
Cross Necklace
Hoop Earrings
2 Guide Gear Lanterns
TV/Radio For Hurricane
16 pack AA Duracell
16 pack AAA Duracell
Converse Chuck Taylors Sz 5
Brother XL2230 Sewing Machine
Charmin 24 count
Bounty 12 Big Rolls select a size
Motorola Z9n
Dell D400
2GB Ram
floppy
160GB Harddrive
Adapter PA-12
Dell DVD/CDRW PD01S
Adapter PA-10
Case
Cosco 2 Step Stool
Canon A650IS
Sanyo Batteries
Kingston 2GB SD
Ridata 2GB SD
Lowepro D-Res 10 AW bag
Transcend 8GB SD
Sandisk 4GB sd
Battery Charger
Krafttech Tripod
Casio FX-7500G Calculator
Paladin 4910 SealTite Pro & connectors
Harbor Freight 41482-0VGA SAE Taps
Harbor Freight 41481-0VGA Metric Taps
Compaq EVO N610C
1GB Ram
Logitech MX620
USB Hub
Black&Decker Batteries
Craftsman 19.2V Drill/light
Craftsman 10" compound saw
Craftsman 3100psi Pressure Washer
Craftsman 165psi Compressor
Ryobi BS901
Black&Decker JS660 Jig Saw
Craftsman Rotary tool
Craftsman Tool Box 30792
Ace 32 gallon Trash Can
299 piece sockets 35299
21 piece Drive Tool Acc. Kit 42283
17 piece Metric Wrench 49671
17 piece Metric Wrench 49671
13 Piece LP Metric Wrench 45964
10 Piece Metric Crowsfoot 4363
10 Piece Metric Ignition 42339
11 Piece Metric Stubby 44139
7 piece SAE nutdriver set 26504
5 piece metric nutdriver set?
7 piece SAE Hex by Evolv 10044
7 piece Torx by Evolv 01005
7 piece Metric by Evolv 10058
Gearwrench Stubby handle 81209
1/2 drive handle 44996
1/4 drive handle 44994
3/8 drive handle 44995
OBDScan Tool (odbscan.com)
mini plastic case
19.2V Craftsman Charger/2 batteries 11377

 

[alkemyst]

Says guy who goes around gloating about how awesome he is. Buying expensive crap and talking down to people like you're some baller. Had an M3 thread less than 2 years ago. If you were fiscally responsible, you wouldn't be in such debit.

I will quote you...

"I had one 5% and one 6% card that both were fixed interest, this held most of the $60k+ of debt I had in the form of my education costs because I couldn't qualify for school loans at the time due to my income. I had a 7% personal line of credit for $20k as well."

So you had 60k worth of credit card debt and you think you're financially responsible? You think stopping payment on a mortgage for 4 years was the right thing to do? lol

You think liquidating a 401K and using insurance money to try and pay off your debt was a smart move?

You think I'm trolling because you just proved you have no clue how to keep your finances in check and you're completely clueless?

Overspending, high credit card utilization, emptying your 401K, personal loans, stop paying mortgage and more. Completely reckless and it's the whole reason you are in the situation you are.

Lol, what an utter joke. You are EXACTLY the type of people I'm talking about.

I am sorry I couldn't afford to pay for 7 years of my college education myself. At 5 to 6% those rates were not bad at all.

Sorry you feel that I should have used that insurance money and just blown it on replacement stuff I didn't really need at the time. I needed the debt gone.

I stopped paying on my mortgage because the payments were not going anywhere and the process was financially crippling me. I didn't just stop paying though, I got an attorney and addressed the problem. The reality was the first time I stopped paying was because they returned the last two payments I made.

It simply took 4 years to get the case through the system. I would have liked this done much sooner.

It sucks living in a house you have no idea on what going to happen in.

 

[the DRIZZLE]

It sucks that you had the issues with the mortgage and the burglary but you were setting yourself up for disaster having all that short term floating rate debt. Even if your overall leverage was manageable the floating rates meant that any credit event or change in interest rates could create the chain reaction that you experienced.

I know a lot of people who have borrowed a lot of money for school, including part time MBA students making ~$100K a year and I've never heard of anyone not being able to get enough student loans to cover their costs. I do know some people who put it on credit cards because the short term interest rate was lower than the rates they could get from traditional sources.

 

[alkemyst]

It sucks that you had the issues with the mortgage and the burglary but you were setting yourself up for disaster having all that short term floating rate debt. Even if your overall leverage was manageable the floating rates meant that any credit event or change in interest rates could create the chain reaction that you experienced.

I know a lot of people who have borrowed a lot of money for school, including part time MBA students making ~$100K a year and I've never heard of anyone not being able to get enough student loans to cover their costs. I do know some people who put it on credit cards because the short term interest rate was lower than the rates they could get from traditional sources.

I didn't have floating rate debt at all. My credit cards were fixed APRs.

At the time I went back to school they were looking at the previous years incomes. I was told I should have been able to save 30% of that income to go back to school with.

They didn't consider my divorce nor me no longer working to go to school full time.

The rates at the time for the loans I did qualify for were higher than my credit card rates.

 

[OverVolt]

Its suspicious. The bank may know you will BK based on debt levels and such and is just appearing to give you favorable terms in order to get you to pay a little before they foreclose on you? Just stalling essentially.

I always figured this was their tactic. Reduce your payments to make it seem like you were making good on your loan, then foreclose anyway when they finally get around to it since so many are in the same boat.

 

[Genx87]

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.

How can you not sue them for ruining your credit score over a terrible clerical error? Where were your payments going and who was cashing them?

 

[highland145]

How can you not sue them for ruining your credit score over a terrible clerical error? Where were your payments going and who was cashing them?

Might be the David vs Goliath. My bor in law had a problem and it was always that dept, no that dept, no that....you get the picture. How many $$ do you have to sue them with?

 

[master_shake_]

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.

you are the man!

congrats alky!

fuck the bank amirite?

 

[LegendKiller]

I didn't have floating rate debt at all. My credit cards were fixed APRs.

At the time I went back to school they were looking at the previous years incomes. I was told I should have been able to save 30% of that income to go back to school with.

They didn't consider my divorce nor me no longer working to go to school full time.

The rates at the time for the loans I did qualify for were higher than my credit card rates.

There is no income qualification for federal unsubsidized student loans. You can borrow as much as you need.

And paying 40k/yr for 3 years? On a 260k house? Are you stupid?

I don't believe a shred of this story. You are a pathological liar.

 

[alkemyst]

Its suspicious. The bank may know you will BK based on debt levels and such and is just appearing to give you favorable terms in order to get you to pay a little before they foreclose on you? Just stalling essentially.

I always figured this was their tactic. Reduce your payments to make it seem like you were making good on your loan, then foreclose anyway when they finally get around to it since so many are in the same boat.

Except they are stopping the F/C and entered a contract.

 

[alkemyst]

There is no income qualification for federal unsubsidized student loans. You can borrow as much as you need.

And paying 40k/yr for 3 years? On a 260k house? Are you stupid?

I don't believe a shred of this story. You are a pathological liar.

Believe whatever you want, like I said the loans I could get were at worse terms than my available credit.

I could not get any pell or subsidized money.

You are pathologically mad.

 

[alkemyst]

you are the man!

congrats alky!

fuck the bank amirite?

Not quite, the bank still wins. The bank always wins.

 

[alkemyst]

How can you not sue them for ruining your credit score over a terrible clerical error? Where were your payments going and who was cashing them?

They got the money. It just was lost in the electronic shuffle.

If you can find an attorney that can make a case, I am open to hear about it. At least here there is nothing they can do. The bank just claims it was a clerical error and they can't be at fault for another creditor raising my rates.

I'd love to have a solution, but there isn't one.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Are you going to switch banks after all this? (preferably to a credit union) I would do it just in spite. It's only 1 customer so not much harm to them, but I'd still do it anyway, who knows what kind of other screw up they do.

On the other hand they could easily screw up the mortgage transfer process to the new bank and you could be in a whole other issue so maybe it's best to leave it alone.

Moving a mortgage when it's closed is not cheap though, my old bank wanted about $1,500 when I moved to a CU. The CU actually paid about 1k though, they was pretty nice of them.

 

[master_shake_]

Not quite, the bank still wins. The bank always wins.

god dammit!

 

[LegendKiller]

Believe whatever you want, like I said the loans I could get were at worse terms than my available credit.

I could not get any pell or subsidized money.

You are pathologically mad.

It doesn't matter what I *believe* it is what is fact. The fact is that you are a fool if you don't match your assets and liabilities, education is a long-term asset and credit cards are not long-term liabilities. Despite what you say, there is no such thing as a fixed rate credit card. They can increase the interest rate at any time, even the CARD Act didn't stop that, just reduced how much they could increase it at any given time. I know, I worked in the capital markets department for one of the largest CC Companies.

It doesn't matter if you couldn't get any Pells or subsidized, you could get gobs of unsubsidized money. Any idiot knows this, but you somehow didn't, despite supposedly being a genius.

You are a liar, always have been a liar, and always will be a liar, bro.

 

[alkemyst]

Are you going to switch banks after all this? (preferably to a credit union) I would do it just in spite. It's only 1 customer so not much harm to them, but I'd still do it anyway, who knows what kind of other screw up they do.

On the other hand they could easily screw up the mortgage transfer process to the new bank and you could be in a whole other issue so maybe it's best to leave it alone.

Moving a mortgage when it's closed is not cheap though, my old bank wanted about $1,500 when I moved to a CU. The CU actually paid about 1k though, they was pretty nice of them.

The problem like many Americans face, is that you cannot refinance a loan when the property value is less than the loan value.

Mortgage transfers are probably how my loan was messed up to begin with.

 

[alkemyst]

It doesn't matter what I *believe* it is what is fact. The fact is that you are a fool if you don't match your assets and liabilities, education is a long-term asset and credit cards are not long-term liabilities. Despite what you say, there is no such thing as a fixed rate credit card. They can increase the interest rate at any time, even the CARD Act didn't stop that, just reduced how much they could increase it at any given time. I know, I worked in the capital markets department for one of the largest CC Companies.

It doesn't matter if you couldn't get any Pells or subsidized, you could get gobs of unsubsidized money. Any idiot knows this, but you somehow didn't, despite supposedly being a genius.

You are a liar, always have been a liar, and always will be a liar, bro.

Well Holmes, those fixed rate products were fixed rate for over 7 years. The ONLY reason they changed was due to my credit score looking as if I didn't make a mortgage payment in over a year at the time.

I'd seek help if I were you if you think I am a liar. It just shows you are trolling or jelly.

 

[alkemyst]

god dammit!

Think of it like this, I owed $256k to start; by the time I stopped paying the bank already got $120k (not counting the $3500 in insurance and $2000 in taxes per year at the time). Even if they foreclosed and only got $80k at a sheriff's sale, they'd almost have gotten back 100% of the loan amount.

Now on paper that $120k only represents about $10k off my principal probably.

A loan company will make 2-3x the loan amount if the loan goes full term. They can afford 1-2 people not pay and still break even.

However; the mortgage was a powerful thing, in the past people saved their whole lives to buy a home only to live in it a short period before passing it as inheritance.

 

[halik]

Err where did the payments go the first couple years? They simply didn't cash the checks?

Also how the hell did you buy that M3 if you're 60K in hole in CC debt, facing foreclosure and all this other nonsense?

How did you not have insurance on your assets? Residential mortgages REQUIRE insurance and coverage levels being percentage of the note value.

There are no income stipulation for federal unsubsidized college loans; what you wrote is patently false.

There isn't a single place in the US where residential property went down 75%. Not a single place.

You picked 40 year fixed note, and then prepaid to the tune of 100K in the next 3 years(?)

 

[JM Aggie08]

So after 4 years of not paying due to my mortgage company never applying the first three years of my payments to my mortgage, I am coming out of it decently. Despite my house only being worth about 50% of the loan now (it was as low as only 25% of the loan), my intention was always to keep the house. I knew from the start Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae do not do principal reductions (which is funny how these are government backed more or less yet our government is forcing private banks to do principal reductions).

They are basically removing all past due fees, all late fees and taking my principal balance and applying all 3 years of payments to the loan as if it started today. They are only tacking on the insurance and tax payments they have made for me over the last four years.

They are also dropping my rate from the 6.875 (Base Rate) it was (which was a good rate at the time) to 4.375 (APR) at 40 years with no pre-payment penalty. They are also giving me the option to forbear 30% of my principal at zero percent interest to the end of the loan. It's a straight up conventional loan, not a HAMP/HARP deal where after 5 years you start adjusting until you hit the current rate at the time nor is there an insane 50%+ balloon payment at the end of a 40 year term.

Previous offers were tacking on $110k in late/past due fees at 7%+ interest with a $150k balloon. Payments at 40-50% of my GROSS income with a huge balloon at the end and a high APR.

Now things that they cannot fix is the credit hit I took. My lawyer (and a few others I spoke to) say basically there is not much that can be done anymore due to the way the laws and specifically how judges are handling these cases. It becomes just a clerical error.

I had one 5% and one 6% card that both were fixed interest, this held most of the $60k+ of debt I had in the form of my education costs because I couldn't qualify for school loans at the time due to my income. I had a 7% personal line of credit for $20k as well. These kinds of credit are not even offered anymore except the personal line of credit and I don't believe that would have that kind of rate.

Once my creditors were updated with my credit reports, they began raising my rates dramatically and lowering my balances...some immediately closed accounts.

The first two cards above went to 12.99% adjustable then 15.99/18.99% and then both to 26.99%. I was able to move chunks of it to 0% balance transfer cards, and was going to put the rest on my line of credit only to find out they closed it due to my 'delinquencies'. Everyone was always paid properly, for my school debts I was paying 4-5x the minimums. I started moving the balances to my other cards which were still a 'decent' rate.

Soon after this the train wreck started happening. Those 'decent' 8-10% cards which were my day to day cards which I paid off monthly and offered points both began lowering my limits making transferring my higher balances impossible, but also began raising rates.

In about three months I went to 26.99-27.24% across the board. My interest per month went from $300 to $1500 (which was more than my mortgage P&I at that point). My minimum payments became what I was paying already, but almost half was interest. I was spending thousands of dollars in interest per year.

My house got burglarized to the tune of a $30,000 loss. I thought I was doing the right thing and stroked that whole check to my creditors minus a replacement laptop for my ex-wife which she needed for her work. Everything else we went without.

I also liquidated my 401K that I could touch...which left me with a $9000 tax bill.

It wasn't enough to pay everyone off and the balances climbed back to around $40k (I had them down to around $12k, but we had three surgeries needed and a couple other emergencies that all hit during this). My current 'settlement' offer is around $20k. Most of these creditors have made my principal back a few times over just in interest.

The sad thing is I did nothing wrong. I made my payments to everyone like I was supposed to and even better than expected.

There are more people that have similar stories, you don't hear much about them...it's only newsworthy when the people don't pay, destroy the house and flee.

Anyways, just an update

Å

WTF kind of mortgage has PMI that high???

 

[dmcowen674]

congrats alky

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

Congrats on surviving OP from another survivor.

Surprised you are not getting the normal shens kind of responses so prevalent with AT.

 

[dmcowen674]

Err where did the payments go the first couple years? They simply didn't cash the checks?

Also how the hell did you buy that M3 if you're 60K in hole in CC debt, facing foreclosure and all this other nonsense?

How did you not have insurance on your assets? Residential mortgages REQUIRE insurance and coverage levels being percentage of the note value.

There are no income stipulation for federal unsubsidized college loans; what you wrote is patently false.

There isn't a single place in the US where residential property went down 75%. Not a single place.

You picked 40 year fixed note, and then prepaid to the tune of 100K in the next 3 years(?)

Here comes the shens shit.

Never heard of a place called Detroit? Hell property values went down there a lot more than 75%.

What does it matter what the insurance requires when they find excuses to not cover a loss?