Short Sale Part 1: Bringing you up to speed

I’ve felt pretty bad that it's been so long since I last posted.  While I’ve been doing a fair amount of journaling to work through things I don’t want to post in a public forum, there are a few ongoing situations I do want to write about here given my aim to be of public service in some way.  To get back into the swing of things, I’m going to catch up on how things stands with my condo.    

As a side note on the public service thing, if anyone has questions about loan modifications, short sales, foreclosure, or anything along those lines, please feel free to contact me.  The options and processes can be extremely daunting, almost paralyzing to some people, and there’s not much out there in terms of homeowners’ experiences.   I was lucky enough to find people who pointed me in the right direction at some key points, and while there were, and are still, some major frustrations, I’ve gotten to where I have a very good handle on all of this.

Ok, back to the post.  For those who are not aware, I’m selling the condo.  Since this whole ordeal effectively began in late October of 2009 when I learned that my property taxes were all messed up, this post will start with some updates.  To read about the property tax mess, here’s the link to the most recent post I wrote on the subject, from December of 2010: http://mrsj2004.blogspot.com/2010/12/condo-update.html.  There’s also a link to the post in which I talked about the September 2010 newspaper story here: http://mrsj2004.blogspot.com/2010/09/newspaper-story-about-our-taxes-is-out.html.

Following that post I embarked on the first of two tries at a loan modification under the Making Home Affordable Modification Program laid out by the president (HAMP).  HAMP was part of the first round of homeowner assistance legislation that came out once the foreclosure crisis erupted.  That first shot at a loan mod was difficult and frustrating as I experience what many others like me were going through, that being the bank losing documents I’d submitted, claiming they never got other materials, and so forth.  I was ultimately denied for the loan mod in March of 2011, surprisingly enough because I wasn’t yet in default on the mortgage.  Funny that I’d done everything I could to stay current, but was being punished for it.

Later that month I learned of another route for loan mods, through the Fannie Mae Mortgage Help Center.  Using the Help Center as sort of a mediator between myself and the bank, I collected and submitted more extensive documentation.  It took me a couple of weeks to collect everything, but by mid-April had everything I needed and gave it all to the intake staff at Fannie Mae.  Learning from the first go-around, I followed up weekly to make sure nothing additional was needed.  By mid-May I learned that my modification had been accepted for a trial period, and I was thrilled.  As long as nothing went wrong, I’d have a permanent modification within a few months.

Fast forward to late July, and the mod was being made permanent.  The trouble by that time was that my marriage had taken a nose-dive.  Fortunately, Trey agreed to sign the modification contract, which meant that in the event we were able to work things out, the condo situation would again be on solid ground.  Well, we all know how the marriage situation worked out, but I still hoped to be able to hang on to the condo.  Along with the rest of the group that was fighting our developers, I was still optimistic that things would work out in the end.

Then the group hit a brick wall.  The core group of us was advised by our attorney that while logic dictated that the developers had obviously engaged in some fraudulent behavior, they’d covered it up too well.  Our evidence was circumstantial and would not hold up in court, and to dig further into the financial records in an attempt to prove what we’d been hoping to would cost tens of thousands of dollars.  In August of last year, we decided we had no choice but to hang it up.  Though this was quite a blow, I still was still prepared to stick it out and hold on to the condo.  Yes, I’m stubborn like that.

Over the course of the fall, after it became clear that divorce was my only option and was subsequently filed for, I did some number crunching and found that I might just be able to hang on to this place.  The property tax issues had finally been resolved, and while it was unlikely I’d see a refund of any of the extra money I’d shelled out in taxes over the past couple of years, at least things would return to normal.  This meant a much more affordable mortgage payment, which would be quite a stretch on my income alone, but I was prepared to try to work things out.  Things were looking up on the housing front.

Then, last December I received an email from a resident in the 1010 building (1010 N. Sterling, the building in which both the sales office and fitness facility are housed).  She simply asked whether I might have a few minutes that evening to chat over the phone, as she wanted to make me aware of something going on within the development.  I made myself available, and that’s when the shit hit the fan, and when I got the best story yet out of this horrible ordeal.

With that I will end this post – it’s already gotten insanely long.  Watch for Part 2 in another few days (it’s already half written), which will talk about the “internet modeling agency.”