Making home affordable..being able to keep my home is more important than my credit score right??

[BathrobeGoddess]

I'm having a hard time letting go of my perfect credit rating. In reality, we will NOT be able to continue paying the almost $1000 per month on the house without spiraling down badly (DH has been out of work since July and I haven't had a contract since Feb 14) and our modification will put our payment at about $570. Of even more concern is that our original loan is totally a scam...interest only and adjusts in a year to make it possible to go as high as15% above prime. I wish I knew then what I know now . The mortgage company was as really up front about the fact that it will show us as 30 days late on our mortgage during our trial period.

I have a 740 credit score that I have killed myself to maintain! Why is that so hard...rationally keeping my home is much better than an awesome credit score right? I guess if we were foreclosed on, it would ding our score anyway...and much worse? Selling and moving isn't an option, we owe less than the house seems to be worth but we could never find a rental for 989 a month for 6 people. Trust me, we have thought about it but yeah...we would be looking at $1300 a month at least.

I don't know what I'm looking for...really the entire thing just sucks...

[bobandjess99]

I'm sorry.  Yes, the ding will stinky, but keeping your home for $570 will be worth it :  

[eirual]

A house is just a house if you ask me. I think if it was stretching me that thin I'd let it go and find something within my means (I know that sounds hard to find in your area- have you looked into gov't assistance or gov't housing? Can you take on a boarder to make up the difference?)

If there's no work there, would you consider renting your place out while the market recovers and moving to a place where you could get ahead?

[Denvergirlie]

Yes, you can stay in the house now, and pay the reduced amount, your credit score will be affected, but the real big issue is that you will most likely not be approved for a permament modification because you don't have the income to support the change. Your husband being out of work, you with no sales either, is not going to quailify you in the long term for a modification of the loan.

When you are denied the permament modification, they will demand full payment of the past due amount, since you won't most likely have those funds to bring the loan current, the bank will start the foreclosing process.

The HAMP program is well documented as not being a great program to really keep people in their homes. You still have to have some steady income to support the modified loan, which it doesn't sound like you have at this time.

So, just keep your eyes open to the fact that if your income situation doesn't change, and change fast, that you very well might be looking at a forclosure regardless.

best

[GirlBoyGirl]

I read on a different MB from people who did this program and they said their score started to improve pretty quickly, once out of the trial payments. And the mark on your credit shouldn't hurt too much since the point of the program is to stay in your home. Now if you wanted to move to a new home (and needed a new loan) then yea you wouldn't want to hurt your score at all. But a temporary mark should be okay in the long run.

But let me just wish you a HUGE good luck on this program. We first applied for this 14 months ago and STILL have not heard a THING! It has been the worst nightmare of my life! We never seem to move forward and sometimes we even more backwards, no one ever knows what they are talking about, every rep I speak to says something different. They have requested updated paperwork 3 times and finally, just last week I told them to forget it. This program is a notorious joke, even Capital Hill calls it a failure, but I wish you luck. However, don't expect to hear anything back for at least a year.

[Vaske]

That does seriously suck.  I can't comment on whether or not a modification will be to your benefit in the long run.

But as for your credit score...it is JUST A NUMBER, calculated for the convenience of your potential creditors.  It has absolutely nothing to do with whether you are a good person or not.  You've had a very challenging year financially, and you're doing the best you can.  You're not the only ones, either--a lot of people are in the same boat right now.  There's plenty of room between "perfect credit score" and "total deadbeat credit score", which is where most people's credit scores are.  I can't see how having a perfect credit score can help you at the moment, without also having sufficient income.

[BathrobeGoddess]

I thought once you did your trial, that was it for income? I didn't know we had to do that again? That is good information. They know about us getting unemployment and that I work under contract (I teach university courses though, I'm not in sales) We would be able to hold back in our savings (we have savings from when DH was working) the difference for those 4 months. I actually work at two different colleges so I have steady income from one of my jobs. Truthfully, foreclosure is at least 2 years away if we continue on the same path...I wonder if we should stop this process then?

[BathrobeGoddess]

Had to come back and AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!


My husband got a job today

[texmati]

woohoo!!!! So happy for you!!!