I'm walking from my underwater mortgage

NY Post ^ | 01/31/10 | JANET SPEER

[TigerLikesRooster]

I'm walking from my underwater mortgage

By JANET SPEER

Last Updated: 7:34 PM, January 31, 2010

Posted: 4:34 AM, January 31, 2010

I stopped paying my $1,450-a-month mortgage on my 200-year-old, four-bedroom home in September 2008 -- after making the hard decision to walk away from my mortgage because it is hopelessly underwater.

It is not an easy decision to walk away from your home, and in the beginning I actually felt like a loser. That was the hardest part.

You see, I was raised to live up to my financial responsibilities. I was taught plenty about personal responsibility. But in this case I had no practical solutions to my financial dilemma -- I lost my job, was turned down for a mortgage modification and owed a lot more than the house is worth.

I WOULD RATHER FIGHT THAN SWITCH HOMES

I am a single parent with three children, one with medical issues. So, with only unemployment benefits and child-support money, I decided to pull the plug on my mortgage payments.

[robomatik]

maybe. my brother pays c. $700 for a c. $150,000 house (not including the equity he has placed in the domicile). but, he does live in a rural community here in sw ohio, so who knows.

[keepitreal]

She didn’t “walk away”. She stopped paying her mortgage almost 18 months ago and used the money she saved to pay off her other debts. And, she is still living there.

Of course, this is all someone else’s fault.

[familyop]

So the bank will get that most valuable property back from her. Consequences for the various ballooning payment schemes have been cooking since the ‘70s, and they’re finally coming around.

[bicyclerepair]

My brother’s friend has lived in his house for 2 years without paying the mortgage. Something about getting a lawyer and nobody knows who holds the deed?

[I see my hands]

"A person's gotta do what a person's gotta do"

A person's gotta pay back money a person's borrowed.

[MsLady]

She’s also 51 years old, her kids(adult children?) can’t be that young.

[bigbob]

She’s an idiot. “When it sounds too good to be true, it probably is” lady. She screwed up now all she can do is whine about how awful it is.

[jjm1776]

And the rest of America pays for her and others like her. And we wonder why we’re bankrupt both fiscally and morally.

[familyop]

"So, with only unemployment benefits and child-support money, I decided to pull the plug on my mortgage payments."

Ah...another grand scheme that failed: the divorce industry. Good! There won't be enough federal revenues to keep any of the social programs for that going for long, either.

May the big default arrive, when moral people are ready.

[I see my hands]

This is how deadbeats should be handled for all debts public and private.
And I'm not kidding.

[Truth is a Weapon]

Bingo. There is the moral failure. She has been living there rent free. She should have walked away 17 months ago.

[stylin19a]

I hope to be out of here by the summer

it takes 2 years to evict ?

[rlmorel]

Yep. Right you are...

I see this and wonder...what car is she driving...how old is it...do all of her kids have cell phones and does she have cable television and a 60” plasma HDTV?

If someone liquidates all of their stuff and cut back to the bone and still cannot pay even if they can get new terms, well I can understand having to walk away. But *something* tells me that isn’t the case here.

But I hear a rash of people justifying this behavior, stick it to the man. Which is exactly the mindset the liberals and Marxists in the government would like to foster.

[keepitreal]

Whatever the case, I am ready to go. I hope to be out of here by the summer. I want to get this over with.

Such a burden. 21 months without paying the mortgage. I bet she wants to get this over with (not).

[CharlesWayneCT]

and in the beginning I actually felt like a loser.

And in the end you were a loser.

[ltc8k6]

Exactly. And we are supposed to be sympathetic...and see the bank as the bad guy...

[willk]

“Bottom line, she sucked 54K out of the bank and now she’s leaving them high and dry.”

Here is a really outragous example where they bought a foreclosure down the street and then stopped paying on their existing house:

http://renorealtyblog.com/2010/01/the-lateral-move.html

[fireman15]

The 11% mortgage is probably accurate if she took out an ARM on the cash out refinance based on 100% of the appraised value. This is especially true if she had a low credit score to begin with. The article is short on relevant information however... to the point that there is no way to make a meaningful judgement on her situation. To me it sounds exactly like a typical situation that ultimately caused this crisis... mortgage brokers making loans to people who had very little chance of ever paying the money back. Multiply her situation by about a million other persons and you can see why will all be paying for this mess for decades to come.

[traumer]

“It’s called — get this — You Walk Away. I am single and dating again....”

:o)

[dfwgator]

Further proof that today most people’s word is worth s—t.