BiggerPockets

My husband lost his job of seven years over a year ago and has been picking up what ever he can here and there since. We've had this place since 2001 with a fixed 30 year loan. Since my husbands layoff to make our mortgage payments I've been selling everything we own, we never had any payment problems until last October when I didn't have enough to cover that months payment.

In December we received a notice of default, the lender came up with a deal that if we sent in $800.00 he would catch up our payments to when we would be caught up until February of this year. On Sunday December 14 he (lender) left a message for us to get back with him. We called him back the next day but since he wasn't in the office his supervisor took our call. When my husband explained the deal that was given to us and that we had the money to send, the supervisor told us that his guy didn't have the authority to make such deals and what ever money we sent would just be returned.
So we left a message for the lender to call us back.

The next day the lender called us back and told my husband that since we didn't call him back ( he's claiming that we didn't call) that his new deal is we now have to pay $1000.00 and have a full time job and he will set our loan up to current until February. After over an hour of arguing back and forth trying to explain what his supervisor had explained to us my husband finally asked if he would put his offer in writing. He promptly said that he would not and forwarded us over to his supervisor. Who in turn told us that we will have to contact their attorney about payment because the property was being sold.

We received notice of trustee sale in January, this past Thursday was the sale and nobody showed for any bidding. Just yesterday we received another mortgage bill saying we now owe $3700 due on April 1st.
At this point we are completely lost we never have been through this before, this was our first home. We feel that our mortgage company hasn't given us fair treatment or maybe this is how things are done?
I understand that we owe them, we don't dispute any of that, but since we cant land a full time job the have refused any type of assistance like loan modifications or taking out our equity we had about 5000.

I guess what my question is, is what happens now? Since nobody bid at the trustee sale. How much time do we have to get another place to live, what is the next step that is taken? My neighbor said that the loan goes back to the original lender now but other people are saying that we can be evicted any day now. I have very young children and cant have them put out on the street or living in our car.
I'm trying to gather up what money I can at this point to either rent something or buy a cheap RV or travel trailer that we can stay in until we get back on our feet. We're not one of those dead beat people or one that got a loan they couldn't afford, we tried getting help with loan assistance through various companies but it keeps falling back on a full time job other wise we would have been able to save our home.
Any advice or help on this that anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated.

Amiee

Amiee,

Forgive me for asking but since your husband lost his job how have you been contributing? Do you have a job? Do you have so many other bills that makes it impossible to pay the mortgage? I understand that times get hard especially in your position but I only wonder if anything could have been done to fix the problem and not let your home go into foreclosure.

At the point the foreclosure is water under the bridge. I'd stay in the house as long as possible, and accumulate as much money as you can to make a new start.

Your husband is going on two years without a steady job. One or both of your really need to get a real job and very soon. Any landlord is going to want to see income before they will rent you a place. The foreclosure is a strike against you, and if you have no steady income, you're going to struggle to find a decent place to live.

If there's really no work at all where you are, move. With no house to sell your strings are untied. The economy is bad, but there are still jobs.

If you both lack real skills, take some classes to get some skills. One of my daughter's friends in doing a six month online dental assisting course. That's going to pay a lot more than the telemarketing job she was doing previously. There may be state or local job retraining programs. Have you checked into those?

Your big problem is lack of income. You need to focus on fixing that.

I'm also in Arizona. I'm not a foreclosure specialist, so I may be well off, but would the bank consider a modification if you met the criteria? Did you owe more than your house is worth? Do a quick check on Zillow.com for a basic idea. Can you make a steady payment if it was lowered to make it affordable? [if affordable to you represents a bigger loss than foreclosure, there's not hope]. If you can't demonstrate you can pay this new lower payment, the choice for the bank is always the same - foreclosure.

So figure out how to demonstrate you can make a payment and return to the good grace's of the lender, and there may be a shot, assuming it's not too late. email me with the answers to the questions I posed along with what you still owe on your mortgages and I'll see what options you may still have.

Take care.

Greg