My Story.

I am a college educated, full-time employed woman, married to a college educated, full-time employed man. We purchased our home 3 years ago for $315K, which at the time was a good deal for the Seattle market. Now however, thanks to this soapy bubble-bursting, the house is worth $240K – well, less probably, because a tree took out our fence in a windstorm, and I suspect an ant infestation based on the volume of creepy crawlies my baby keeps finding and trying to eat…

Our mortgage payments are a whopping $2,150/mo. And, that’s AFTER a refi last year that shaved off a few hundred. How we ever got swindled into a rate so high, is beyond me – we were younger – we were caught up in the lust of home ownership – I think we naively expected that we would make more an more income each year, and the house would grow in value each year, and that it would be worth it…yeah right.

Anyway, we had our first child in September. Unforseen medical complications arose, and we soon found ourselves with medical debts (and we have good insurance…supposedly. But that’s another complaint for another day.). When I returned to work, childcare cost sucked up 3/4 of my take-home pay. The economy hit both our supposedly-stable jobs, and both our incomes were reduced. We were already struggling, but this sent us over the edge. We depleted our savings, sold everything we could, searched (unsuccessfully) for new jobs, and, we’re just out of options now.

We’ve sent modification request paperwork to our bank, but they haven’t gotten back to us. We’ve called…emailed…sat on hold…I got through to someone last week to ask where they were at in the process. The woman couldn’t answer, she asked me to fax my paperwork (30 pages) to 3 different fax numbers. Meanwhile, the foreclosure letters just keep coming. I thought it was in their best interest to work with the homeowners? I thought foreclosure was the worst outcome for the bank? They seem SO disorganized and unhelpful…

I hope people can read this, and feel less alone. We feel very alone in this process, and like there is a stigma that we’ve “failed” or something. But we haven’t failed – we’ve worked SO hard, hanging on by our fingernails to keep this house, and it’s like other powers are at work against us. Can’t fight with fate. We’ll be relieved when this is all over.