[Selesai]

We bought our house with an 80/20 (no money down) for $369,000- 30 year fixed 80% and 20 year fixed 20%. The most recent sale in our neighborhood was for $309,000 (divorce death and short sale have caused this-- other houses are selling for $340 in our neighborhood.)
We obviously have no equity. I would like to try to find a way to have lower monthly payments, though. Is there any possible way?

 

[jtbuko]

We are in a similar situation: Bought in 2005 w/ small down payment intending to stick around for 3 years or so and now units on both sides are vacant and neighbor is unsuccessfully trying to sell home for 1/3 what we paid for ours and we are surrounded by more and more foreclosures. Cash flow is tight, but we are 100% able to pay our mortgage.

I have been told that it might be worth going to our existing lender and trying to negotiate a lower interest rate. Still researching the details to make sure we don't get screwed over in the process, but it sounds like a win win for us and the lender. We get lower payments since they are still mostly interest anyway, and the lenders goodwill helps lessen the temptation to walk away (as so many neighbors have) and leave them to take the loss. Maybe something similar would work for you?

 

[SeekingJoy]

What are the interest rates?

 

[onlygirls]

We have been in our house for a year and a half and have refied twice. The last time was in Feb/March when the rates went down. We owe more on our house than when we bought it, but we have a lower interest rate (5% on a 30 year fixed) and save a few hundred a month. We don't have PMI.

We live in a subdivision that is still in the process of being built. Because of the economy, home values have dropped and we could not sell our house if we wanted to with the builder pricing. They can go a lot lower than we can. We protested our property taxes because they estimated the home value very high, but the builder was selling for $50,000 less than we bought it for. We got the taxes down to what we actually paid for the house.

 

[Selesai]

The interest rates are 6.375 and 8.
I was looking into the Obama Foreclosure Prevention plans and that may help us refi. Our income is about half what it was last year, so that might help.
We don't want to lose the house, and we won't, but I would rather not kill myself in the process

 

[Jazmommie]

I wondered myself also--
we owe 170,000 on the first and 17800 on a second -interest rates are about 7.5 % so if we could do a refi-for 5 % we could lower our payments but will the house appraise for 190,000 like it did 2 years ago???

 

[Jazmommie]

I checked the obama refi plan -mortgage has to be 31 % of your income to qualify and ours isnt.

 

[Carson]

I don't know. My mortgage is with USAA (known to be a pretty agreeable lender) and I'm going to just call next week and ask innocently what is required of a refi. When we bought this house (Nov 07) we were allowed to waive the appraisal. If I can refi without an appraisal, it would be pretty sweet. We could pay back the costs in a year, and continuing to pay the previous mortgage amount, be mortgage free in 20 years. Hey, a girl can dream!

 

[PatchyMama]

We refi'd with USAA last august, they do indeed require an appraisal and if you have more than 20% equity you will be paying for private mortgage insurance. We were told that we had to have 10% equity to even be approved.... we just barely squeezed by before the market really took a dive and were able to refi. I imagine things will be much harder now.