I bought a house a few years ago for $320,00 and now that house worth $200,00.?

Question

Everyting is too expensive. So I cant afford paid all the utilities bills plus a morgage. I dont know what to do if I should apply for bankrupt because I cant afford to keep paying the morgage. I cant not sell the house because a bought for $320,00 and now worth $200,00. I dont know what to do, before I was making good money working in a lot of jobs and now I lost all my jobs, just have 1 left with is low income. Please give-me some advise. IM lost. Thanks

Answer 1

You need to contact an attorney to negotiate with your lender a payment that you can afford.  Obviously you are facing a real hardship because of the loss of jobs, etc.  Attorneys that specialize in these types of negotiations can use that as leverage.  They can also go after your lender for violations in your loan documents by doing a forensic audit of your loan papers.  Go to www.feldmanlawcenter.com, they are good and can help you out.

Answer 2

You have what lenders call an "upside down mortgage".  Meaning you owe more that what the house is worth.  You only options are to negotiate a lower payment with your lender or to arrange a short sale and take responsibility for the shortfall.

Good Luck.

Answer 3

A short sale is when a lender accepts a discount on a mortgage to avoid a possible foreclosure auction or bankruptcy. Instead of buying from a seller, you are purchasing the property directly from the lender for a discount. For example: A homeowner, who is facing foreclosure, has an existing first mortgage of $300,000. You write an offer to the lender for $220,000, which is accepted as full payment for the loan. This is a short sale. Why are they willing to take such a discount? Several reasons. First of all, banks do not like excess inventory and bad loans on their books; therefore, if they see an opportunity where they can sell the property without a huge loss, they will do it. Secondly, lenders know they could lose a lot more money if the property goes to auction. There are so many fees involved if the property goes to auction, that they would be better off taking the discount beforehand and be finished with the headache of it all.

Answer 4

Yea, do you have any spare bedrooms? You could rent out 1 or 2, and split utilities with the roommates. Everything costs less, and you get free money for very little work.

Answer 5

First off realize that bank does not want there house back. There already sitting on so many houses that they won't beable to sell for years. Now what you need to do is talk to your lender (normally the bank) and be very firm. due to many reason you are unable to pay your for your house at the current rate. make sure they know how close you are for filing for bankruptacy and that you need there help. I've seen a few things they can do sometimes.

1. A refinance basicly resets you back to a 30 year loan. Depending how many years you have been paying for the house they can either help a little or a lot.

2. Set you up with a pending flex loan. That is where they might give maybe 2 years of low payments in hopes of times getting better for you then loan would go back to normal after the US crysis over and jobs are made aviliable again.

There is many other things the banks can do for you. It all depends on how scared they are of you droped your house on there doorstep. 9/10 houses that get droped on the bank end up lossing tens of thounsands for the banks acorss the america. make sure they understand your house is next. if you still owe a bunch of money to them then they know they will never beable to sell the house back to make the money back. and they also understand if they just pin you with the money you just won't pay them. i mean what are they gonna do?

kkkkkkkkkkill you?

Answer 6

If you really need to sell your home you can short sale it. Which is when you sell a home for less than what you owe, the bank has to approve it once you have an offer, and for that you would need to prove that you are going through a hardship.  

Answer 7

the best think to do is to rented  

Answer 8

You didn't mention if anyone else lives there.  Wife, kids...anyone besides you?  A roomie or two is a great start to solving your problem.

What you can do is get an extra job or two.  Go to a restaurant and wait tables, be a greeter at WalMart, call a temp agency.  Now look at your expenses...I'll bet you can find things to eliminate.  Don't despair.  When the going gets tough...you know the rest.

Answer 9

What happened to the loan when you bought it for $320K...you qualified for it then????

If you got an ARM mortgage b/c you couldn't afford a fixed payment...now you know why it was a bad idea.

The payments usually go nowhere but up.

Answer 10

So, your primary problem is loss of income, so you can't afford your mortgage and your living expenses.

You may be able to get a new mortgage at a lower rate, which would at least help a little.  This won't readjust the amount your mortgage is for, but would reduce what your payments are.

Otherwise, as others have suggested, try renting out bedrooms.

Every little bit can help.  The last thing you want to do is declare bankruptcy and/or walk away from the house.  Either of these will have a large negative impact on your credit for years to come, making it impossible for you to get any sort of loan or credit, much less a new mortgage.  This should only be considered as a last resort.

Answer 11

try and talk to you lender. ( good luck) A lot of them want you to be 3 months past due before they will talk to you. Try to get them to reduce the loan amount and give you a reasonable interest rate.  

Answer 12

Talk to your bank about refinancing or doing something to lower your monthly payments.  Just like the stock market, the price on your home will fluctuate, but that won't make your payment bigger or smaller.  Rework your other bills and see if you can cut out a phone or cable TV or internet service.  If you have internet at work, a home internet service may not be Necessary.