My husband had a significant loss of income over a year ago (48%) due to the housing market. He works in construction inspection. He used to be quite busy with the housing boom. He was also making a crap-ton of overtime, so we were sittin' pretty and able to afford all of our expenses. Don't ask me how we got into so much debt during this high rolling time. Sigh. Of course the market slowed to a crawl, and then to almost a stop. The paychecks got smaller and smaller and pretty soon we were making decisions like... pay the car or buy groceries. Never a good place to be. So we are in the middle of filing chapter 7 and also surrendering the home. I'm heartsick as I am in love with my home. We put so much work into it and we are finally in the area we have always wanted to live in. My parents live just down the street and we have enjoyed everything about living here. We just don't see any other way. Tried a home mod but they were only going to lower our payment $200... which was not nearly enough to help.
So we have no idea when to start looking for a place to rent. We have gotten a lot of mixed advice. We stopped paying our mortgage Jan, paid a partial payment in Feb, paid one trial payment (what a joke) of our loan mod in April and got our NOD in May and just about 2 weeks ago got a Notice of Trustee Sale taped to our door. Fun. Our bankruptcy is being filed this week and our lawyer says this will stop the trustee sale for 2 months or so. The lawyer tells us that once the bank resumes the foreclosure after the bankruptcy is discharged and the house is sold at auction, we need to be out. Other people are telling us to stay as long as possible to save money. We have no idea what to do! We do not want to be kicked out on the street with 3 kids and no plan or anywhere to go. There are hundreds of rental homes we can afford... but I don't know if we will be able to rent any of them with our BAD credit situation. I'm all in a panic. Anyone have any pearls of wisdom?
Btw, we are in CA. I keep hearing that the foreclosure process is very slow here, and there are hundreds and hundreds of empty bank owned homes here, but it seems like they are getting ours over and done with in a hurry! We haven't had enough time to even save yet! Help!
So we have no idea when to start looking for a place to rent. We have gotten a lot of mixed advice. We stopped paying our mortgage Jan, paid a partial payment in Feb, paid one trial payment (what a joke) of our loan mod in April and got our NOD in May and just about 2 weeks ago got a Notice of Trustee Sale taped to our door. Fun. Our bankruptcy is being filed this week and our lawyer says this will stop the trustee sale for 2 months or so. The lawyer tells us that once the bank resumes the foreclosure after the bankruptcy is discharged and the house is sold at auction, we need to be out. Other people are telling us to stay as long as possible to save money. We have no idea what to do! We do not want to be kicked out on the street with 3 kids and no plan or anywhere to go. There are hundreds of rental homes we can afford... but I don't know if we will be able to rent any of them with our BAD credit situation. I'm all in a panic. Anyone have any pearls of wisdom?
Btw, we are in CA. I keep hearing that the foreclosure process is very slow here, and there are hundreds and hundreds of empty bank owned homes here, but it seems like they are getting ours over and done with in a hurry! We haven't had enough time to even save yet! Help!
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