First let me thank Moe for this site, it is great! Where do I begin?

In June of 05 we bought our second home. We did a 2/28 with a starting rate of 8.5. Not a great rate but it worked. Our payment was $2400 which quickly went up to $2650 because of taxes. All of this was fine but over the last year my husbands income has gone down. Same job just down in sales commissions. He is down apx $30,000 for the year. (15k last year) Knowing his income was down we tried to refi in October 06. It didn’t make sense at the time we had a $15000 prepay. Knowing the arm would reset in June we started the refi process again in May allowing plenty of time to get it done and close after the prepay penalty.

To get into a better loan we were advised to pay down our debt which we did. This took some time but the ficos went over 700 and now we could get out of our evil loan…Until….the bottom dropped out of the market and our house would no longer appraise with enough equity!

Currently we are about $100,000 in negative equity. AND I put 15% down on the house!

We are working with chase. The first mod they sent was ridiculous and full of errors. Same story as what I see from others… they tell me I can’t pay during the mod process. December 1 will be 3 months of no payment and no mod yet from Chase. They are still working it…

So to sum it up IF they give me a mod I am looking at

8.5 % interest apx $2700 a month on a house that is $100000 upside down. They have destroyed my credit now at 540 fico so even if the market does turn around in the next few years, I won’t be able to refi into a good loan and interest rate. and what are the chances it will recover in value? Honestly the payment is too high with my husbands drop in commission!

Here is the bright side… I have a rental lined up for $1100 less than the current mortgage payment. Beautiful house brand new never lived in. It is better than I could buy for myself. AND the owner owns the house outright so I know there is very little risk of them losing the house and kicking us out!

I have 2 boys that I need to look out for. the emotional drain this has gotten to the point that I needed to take control and not let the debt collector bank control me. Did I make the right decision? Suze Orman said your house is not a hole. That is where I am at, I am paying into a hole if I stay.

As of today Chase has yet to give me their mod. They did call and leave a msg. but did not return our call back to them. Would a debt collector really call with good news? Probably not. I am ready to be done just having doubts. I have put hours and hours into this… I have learned so much about the evil mortgage industry and brokers. Amazing they are getting away with this!