I have to give credit where it is due and the loan modification that I was just offered yesterday is a fantastic deal for us. It will save our home. I wrote a diary on some of the problems I was experiencing back in July. Since then, the problems have grown worse and I had just about given up hope. Follow me below the fold for story...
Little did I know lost documents would be the norm and resending things two and three times would be necessary. My three month trial dragged on while we tried to tread water and not drown in lost wages, higher taxes, and skyrocketing utility bills. The time was ticking on my ARM as well, rates can't stay this low forever and I knew we'd be crushed when they rose.
I tried to mentally prepare myself for losing our home, my family home; the only thing I had left of my parents to hold onto. I tried to figure out where my elderly Uncle who lives with us would go? What would I do with my rescue Greyhound and six rescued stray cats? The stress was nearly unbearable and my health began to suffer as well. My nerves were shot from the roller coaster ride that has gone on for eight months now. Just getting out of bed in the morning became a chore as depression set in. In December they called and told me the loan modification was final and approved! I was excited until they called me with the new numbers. The payment would actually be almost 300 dollars per month more than my original payment although it would include my taxes and insurance, something my original mortgage did not do. In other words, it was a wash and was saving me maybe 40 bucks a month. I escalated at that time with my servicer because I knew it wouldn't save us. Just prolong the agony.
As it turns out they had somehow mixed up income statements and included someone else's income in my file and it went through Under Writing that way. Now it had to go back to Under Writing again, this time with just our income. The skeptic in me was on high alert by this time. It appeared that this was little more than a scam to put us into default and crush our credit rating which trapped us in the bad original mortgage. It got worse too. When I filed my taxes I realized that the six months of payments that I had made in the trial period last year were not included on my mortgage interest statement so I couldn't claim them on my taxes as a deduction. Instead of getting back a couple thousand dollars our tax return was only going to be 268.00 dollars. Another blow to our already shaky financial situation. Despair set in deeper.
Yesterday morning my Uncle called and said there was a large package from Saxon mortgage. I knew it had to be the finalized loan modification. I dreaded opening it all day at work. I just knew it would be awful and it would finally mean we are losing our home. I couldn't believe it when I opened the package and started reading the terms! They put us on a sliding scale that stays at a very low rate (2%) for the first five years, then increases 1% each year until it caps out at a 5.25% fixed for the life of the loan! All the fighting, faxing, mailing, hours of phone calls and crying had finally paid off. We are keeping our home! My new payment will save us almost 650 dollars per month. We can now even start to rebuild our gutted savings in case my husband gets laid off again. He is an electrician and work is still very hard to come by but this gives us some breathing room.
I have been one of the biggest skeptics of this program after having been through the wringer for eight months. I'm not sure how or why they've changed their tactics and are now really trying to help homeowners but I'm thankful. Thank you President Obama. I worked hard to get you elected and I was about to lose hope and faith in your ability to help those of us caught in this nightmare. I can only hope the program is being streamlined and more of us will be helped which will in turn help the economy. I'm happily eating crow this morning and it tastes great!
UPDATE: I have to leave for work and I see this hit the wreck list. I promise I will try to answer as many questions as I can when I get in tonight. I also plan on writing a more in depth diary on the process and its pitfalls. Thanks all!