Good things are happening!
We are currently selling our home and moving. Where to? That is a question I ask myself everyday. But, we will be moving. My heart is set on Utah. For a lot of reasons. I never ever thought of myself living there, but at this point, most of my family is there and I am tired of being so far from family.
We'll have to find out where we are moving before Sep 6, as that is the date the bank has set for our sale to be completed by. Why is the bank deciding this? Well, we are one of the ones who bought when the market was almost peaking here in SoCal. We bought Dec 2004 and it all went downhill Jun 2006. (Amazing to see those dates and realize what we have gone through since then.) I will post numbers and information here, hoping that our experience might be helpful for others going through anything similar.
We bought our 1875sf home in 2004 for 365k. We started a loan modification process through Pres. Obama's Making Homes Affordable program. (I thought this might be the only thing I really benefited from from Pres. Obama's Presidency, which turns out didn't really benefit me.) We'll, 6 months later we found out that the bank denied our Loan Modification, upon the grounds of insufficient information and that our hardship wasn't supported. Well that got my blood boiling, because I would call EVERY month to make our modified payment and asked if they needed more information from me, and they never did. We started our Mod payments in December and apparently they knew in Jan, but never told us, that we would be denied. So we payed up till May when the notified us and then had to make some relatively quick decisions on what to do with our house. We decided to Short Sale the place, our realtor had a buyer all set and we signed the offer for 165k! 200k less than what we originally paid. This will affect our credit about 50 pts. and maybe a little more for each late payment which for us will come to 3 months of LP.
We stopped paying our mortgage to be able to save money to move into a rental. We were told it would take 2-3 months before the bank would approve the short sale, which we were ok with. Now, flash forward 3 weeks. We found out we were approved and would have to complete the sale by September 6th. Currently we are in escrow with this buyer and last week received notice from the bank (BofA) that they are NOW approving our loan modification. What a joke! But we will consider it for the next few days as we have to decide whether to accept their Modification terms before Aug 2, really before July 30th so they can receive the Docs before Aug 2.
I have looked at places to rent closer to Jeff's work, but who knows how long he will remain there. It puts us in a bit of a pickle as far as leasing a house. People want a 12month lease and we aren't sure we want to stick it out that long in good ol' Cali.
Jeff has a job prospect in Utah, so currently we are holding out on word from that place before we have to make final decisions.
Part of me is sad to sell the house, but the opportunity for greater financial security really outweighs the benefits of this house for me. We will have to wait 2-3 years they say before we could get a FHA loan again.
There are certain impressions I have had, but part of me holds my breath when I think of those, because I wonder how much of those thoughts and feelings are just me vs. the Holy Ghost. But, at this point, I will trust those feelings and move forward. It can't hurt. I have overcome disappointment in the past and will continue to deal with an adjustment of expectations in my future. It is part of the experience of life.
So, I am sure my next post will provide you all the answers to the burning questions you have about the Bartmess Drama. I wouldn't mind knowing some answers myself!
