azmktvictim's story

[Joel Fraser]

This forum has been a wealth of information, its also nice to know we're not alone in our situation!We purchased our home less than a year ago, and recently the builder is closing out some (12) of their spec homes for anywhere between 120k-400+k less than buyers originally paid! All of the current specs are a min of 70k less than the base prices of the homes that 1/2 the community purchased (approx 50 buyers)! So, upgrades don't account for much of the price difference. There will be are more spec homes coming up that will be ready to occupy soon, with the market in such bad shape- they are likely to sell at a similar price- they just kept building and building without buyers. (Base prices of the homes ranged from 440k to 560k or there abouts) So in addition to these prices, I believe there will be even more that are going to be forced to walk away from their home- which will of course continue the lower price movement. I know we're not alone and this has unfortunately happened to many within the resale market- but for me right now the fact that the builder is doing this to all of us who's money is helping keep him afloat, just aggravates me even more!So now we're at least upside down by at least $120k on a property we moved into less than a year ago!We also own a second home, that we've had on the market for nearly a year- with limited activity and of course many price reductions in attempt to keep up with the market which seems to be a never ending battle with things like short sales/foreclosures/new builds/etc. We are now considering moving back into our old home because of the negative equity in addition to not being able to keep up with the payments on the new place after a loss of monthly income that happened after we moved into our current house. The original plan was to sell the first place, and refi our current place and pay off the 2nd with our proceeds, we were smart in the regards we saved a nice chunk to allow for double house payments etc, but its now come to bite us...we're almost out and have 2 homes now =(We are current on both homes, but can't hang in there for much longer. I've read a ton of great information here about loan mods, and that might be a possibility for the monthly payment side of things, but as I've also read lenders are not are not adjusting principle (at least in any significance) and the process is approx. 3 month, and I also read that some companies won't even discuss a loan mod if you're current with your loan.We know this isn't an easy decision...and I hate the idea of walking away from something (as I know many here do) but we also feel that we're between a rock and a hard place- where we'd have to live here for 7-10 years to just break even, while having to sacrifice time with family, work double/triple jobs, max credit lines, drive cars that in that time will be held together with duct tape, etc. Not a pretty picture or a quality of life.We are going to try to discuss our situation with an attorney and see if we can gain any additional insight. The idea of a huge drop in credit score and potentially being hard pressed to get a loan within at least the next 3-5 years scares me. I did see the proposed legislation etc, I do think in time there will need to be some changes in the lending requirements...or the economy is going to be down for a much longer time, but of course all of that is unknown. On the flip side I see if we were able to get a loan mod and stay in the current place, we'd be "stuck" here for at least 7-10 years if we wanted to just break even with no equity to carry forward to a new home- so what looks better!??! ha!I am aware that a short sale is a better alternative to foreclosure, but not many are closing here in AZ. As in line with many discussions here, they haven't wrapped their arms around accepting a lower price- they'd still rather be forced into an even lower price months down the road at the foreclosure auction. So those attempting a short sale, just end up in foreclosure in a few months, just drawing out the end result by a bit. Ugh- what to do?!?!?Hopefully I've covered the highlights of our situation, we welcome any suggestions. Thanks for reading, and again for this wonderful forum created to help and inform each other!