Central Mortgage Company Modification

[Joel Fraser]

Similar to many other people, I have been reading everyone's blogs trying to figure out what I too could do to modify my loan. I purchased my home in Feb 2005 for $448K and one short sale just went up today in my neighborhood for $300K. My loan balance is $400K. I live in San Diego and applied with the Assessor to have my property value and my property taxes lowered and they revalued my house at $305K in July 2008. I have never made a late payment. I am in an option arm and in May my payment jumped from $1685 to $3099. My interest rate adjust every month and for now is going down, however for some reason I am paying $400 more a than the P/I and escrow, which Central Mortgage could not explain. I have managed to make that higher payment but have put myself in debt every other way trying to remain current. I originally called Central Mortgage Company in May and also in June and they told me the only option was to refinance which I obviously could not do because I was upside down. I googled Central Mortgage Company trying to find a way to get a hold of them other than the phone number one their website, but no luck. A friend of mine works in the REO departmemt for JP Morgan Chase and she happened to come across the company in one of her magazines this month. In it Central Mortage stated they hired 38 people in their Home Owners Dept. to help home owners in risk of losing their homes. Additonally the CEO of this mortage company is Jim Walton.....sound familiar? Yep the founding family of Walmart. I called Central Mortgage last week and they sent me out a Modification package for which I am returning this week. One thing they told me was that I had to be delinquent, which I currently am not. I am not sure if that is something that I want on my credit and I am so scared to do the wrong thing. Any advice/help would be greatly appreciated. Scared in San Diego...