Yes, we have moved. Yes, we didn't shout it out on the Internet telling people about our financial drama. We are more private than that. Yes, since I am married to Ben and he REALLY doesn't like people knowing our business, He says "If you want to know what is going on in my life call me and talk to me, I am not posting it on the Internet." But, now that it is officially over I feel I can talk openly about what we have done and been through.
We didn't think we would be moving when we bought our home three years and two months ago, but we just take what we get and learn from it all. This learning curve is kind of sucky, but we are learning. Here is our story for the past 18 months.
In Sept of 2008 we found out we were going to have Katelynn. At that very moment I knew that we would not be able to stay in our house unless some miracle happened. I wasn't going to work anywhere near as much as I had been when she came. I had been working three or four days a week and am now working only one day a week. That drastic pay cut was not going to cover our mortgage of $2200 a month. Yeah, that mortgage sucked from the very beginning. So, we started calling our banks and telling them that things were going to change and what could we do to keep our house. What did they keep telling us, "I'm sorry, But I don't see the problem. You are current on your mortgage and are currently making x. why do you need help?"
We sent hardship letters, budgets, pay stubs, filled out forms, and went through a lot of paperwork that got us nowhere. We went back and forth with this for five months and then decided that since the bank won't help us unless we have defaulted, I guess we need to default. We haven't paid on our first mortgage since Feb 1, 2009 and have been intermittently paying our second since then.
The banks finally started calling and asking why were weren't paying and we told them the story again and again. Every time the bank called it was someone new that just wanted to collect. I knew they wanted their money of course but I wanted a loan modification. We kept going back and forth for a few months and we received notice from our first mortgage for a loan forbearance that if we paid $500 for June and July and then a balloon payment in August of $3500 they would think about a plan and they hoped that we would be able to catch up enough to continue paying our mortgage. They were also hoping that we would somehow make more money so that they wouldn't have to do anything. I knew that wasn't going to happen, I wasn't going to work more and Ben wasn't going to be making more. We did decide to pay the two months of $500 but not the balloon since there was no promise that they would change our loan. This plan was just something to buy us time in the house. Since Katelynn was a newborn at the time I didn't want anymore craziness in my life (I was already a wreck, I didn't need a foreclosure and moving hanging over my head.)
Things were moving along and we received notice from our first mortgage in September that we were now in foreclosure. Which we were kind of waiting for since we started this whole thing. What we didn't receive was a foreclosure date. There was absolutely nothing on this simple paper stating when we needed to be out by. When we received that letter though we called our wonderful realtor Sarah Hedrick and told her we were ready to start the Short sale process. This was in October. When we first met with her she asked when the foreclosure date was so that she could know what the time table we had. We showed her the paper and she told us to call in and see what they could tell us. That was when we found out that Jan 21 was our foreclosure date. If we wouldn't have called then we wouldn't have known that date until two weeks before. In December that was when they posted a note on our door saying the foreclosure/sell date.
So, it was up on the market for a two weeks and we already had an offer in and the process started. The first person backed out but we already had a back up that was pretty excited about the house so they wanted to stick it out. The holidays came and went and were just waiting it out slowly looking for somewhere to live. I had been looking for somewhere probably for over a year but nothing ever felt right. I knew that we were getting down to the wire though. We looked on craigslist to no avail. All I could find there to rent were scams. It was awful looking for places there. So, I started looking through property management places and was having more luck since these were actual homes and not a joker wasting my time. We just kept looking and waiting for something to happen with the banks.
Finally we got notice from our first that they were going to accept the offer and were going to give the second $3,000. Then we had to wait for the second to respond. A week later the second came back and said that they would accept if we gave them $2000. We didn't want to give them $2000 so Sarah said that we should counter with just $500 and see if they would accept that.
It was now the beginning of February and the first had said that they wanted this over by March 11. Either a foreclosure or Short Sale would happen that day. The foreclosure in January didn't happen because we had an active buyer pursuing the purchase of the house, which gave us more time in the house so we could find something for ourselves.
It took a couple of weeks but the second mortgage finally got back to us and said they would accept just the $500. It was now three weeks before the deadline for something to happen and things had to happen quick. We were lucky enough that everything did happen quick. We finally found somewhere to live in the beginning of February and moved in on Feb 26th.
The past few weeks have been very crazy with moving, signing all sorts of papers, and my sister from Idaho in town. It is done though. We are no longer home owners as of today and it sold for $163,000. We paid $278,000 3 years ago. Gross. I know. We have definitely learned from this all and will not be buying anything for a little bit. Hopefully, we can relax and enjoy everything around us. We moved closer to everyone and everything. It is still weird to think that Target is just a mile or two away and that right now my gas tank is almost empty and I don't have to worry if it will make it home or not going back and forth, in and out of town. The home is smaller but a little bit bigger in some ways. I have space in the kitchen for all of my stuff and the living room is a little bigger and so is the dining area, but there is one less room and the garage is smaller.
I know this is long and I don't know if any of it made sense but if you made it to here, Congratulations! This took me two weeks to get written out.
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