I wanted to share my families story. I have read a lot of heartbreaking stories and people in bad situations but I wanted people out there to know that not everything is bad for everyone. Feel free to share my story if you like, but I would rather you not use my name.

A number of years ago my wife and I bought our first house. We had lived in Arizona for a number of years and had decided to stay there a while longer. The housing prices in AZ were just shooting skyward at the time and it seemed silly NOT to buy a house and ride the rocket up. We had saved some money up for a down payment but our mortgage broker got us 100% financing anyway and some really good rates (I thought). Keeping that money in our pocket seemed like the wise choice at the time.

We were clueless. I didn’t really understand what an ARM was at the time our how it could bite us. I didn’t realize that we were sitting on top of a very fragile bubble. Just months after we finished painting the walls and figuring out where we wanted our furniture that bubble broke and we began our free fall. But it didn’t seem too bad at first and we were always people that paid our bills so we kept our chin up.

Fast forward two and a half years. We’ve got a new daughter and we miss our family (thousands of miles away in the eastern half of the US). House values in our neighborhood had PLUMMETED. Crime had gone up. Spray paint on our fence and rocks through our windows made us feel unsafe in our home. We decided to leave whatever the cost. We looked into renting the place out until the value returned. But we couldn’t get enough rent in that neighborhood to cover ONE of the mortgages. And being a landlord for a decade or more while the home returned to its original value wasn’t something I was looking forward to.

So we decided to sell it. We originally paid $250K for the home (100% financed remember). The value of the home was appraised at LESS that 50% of that amount. I looked into Realtors specializing in short sales and found one we were comfortable with. I feel like they did as good a job as could be done. They found a buyer willing to pay fair market value and negotiated for months with our bank. But in the end the bank said that we weren’t in enough “hardship” to consider a short sale. That if they were to agree to the sale that we would have to sign a “soft note” where we would owe the difference. . I wasn’t about to take on that kind of a loan with nothing to show. It felt more like a kick in the balls than a negotiation. I have worked VERY hard to become as successful as I am (which isn’t very, but I do a very good job and work in a highly desired market). And I have always tried to pay my bills. I didn’t have to skip eating to pay my mortgage but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t harming my family financially.

About that time my family told me about youwalkaway.com. We did a lot of reading. We looked into a lot of laws. We talked to lawyers and accountants. And we told our bank that if the short sale didn’t go through that we would walk away and they would get nothing.

And so we did.

And now we’re renting a beautiful house in the country. We are near our family. My credit is (or will be) shot. But I don’t care. I’m not buying another house for a good while. With a (much) reduced housing payment (rent is less than half of what our mortgage was) we’re focusing on eliminating ALL other debt (we’re on track to doing that soon). I thought that I would have guilt about the situation but some of the words in this blog (and on interviews I’ve seen you guys in) have really made me feel at ease. I’ve been raised a “you make a promise you keep it” kind of guy. I will keep my wedding vows. But there was no “till death” clause in my mortgage agreement. The agreement says “if I don’t pay the bank takes the house”. They agreed to this in the beginning and so did I. And I feel like it was a great move.