Teacher from Nevada looking for advice.

[Mike]

I bought a home in Las Vegas a little over two years ago. When I was shopping for homes I asked the advice of two friends, husband (loan officer) and wife (real-estate agent). I was trying to see if I could afford a home and they quickly found a new home for me. There was no gun to my head forcing me to buy, but I was scared into purchasing. They strongly encouraged me to buy asap. I shopped around a little, but they kept pressuring me to hurry and buy or the home prices would increase so much that soon I would not be able to afford a home. As a naive new home buyer, I caved. Unfortunately the interest rates increased between the dates when I signed the initial papers for the house and six months later when the home was built. My mortgage ended up being far higher than I was originally told, so I got roommates.I am a teacher and at the time I was also making an additional $1000 per month for tech support that I gave at our school. As of this past year (since summer ’07) I have had two major financial changes: Our school changed it’s technology system and our new system has 24 hour support, so I lost my $1000 in pay per month. My second new financial burden is that I got accepted into PhD graduate program. I tried making up for the loss of income and the cost of college by doing freelance web design on the side, but the only thing that caused was trouble completing my demanding college work. By February I was a month behind on my mortgages (80/20) and my home that I paid $280,000 for is now worth less than $180,000 so I think refinancing is out of the question. In March I asked a couple of realtors (friends) for advice and both said that in my situation my best option was to let my house foreclose. Even though I hated the sound of that, I am now 3 months behind on my mortgages and think that I should not have listened to their advice. I feel awful even thinking about walking away because it is my fault for being part of such a bad investment. I don’t even like the term investment. I just wanted to have a modest (less than 1500 sq feet) home. I am completely distressed about this situation. I feel like I have completely screwed myself and I have no clue what kind of hell I am going to go through during this foreclosure process. I have spent countless hours searching for advice in articles online, but a lot of what I read contradicts other articles. I would extremely appreciate any advice or critical thought. I know I am an idiot for getting 3 months behind on my mortgage, no need to rub that in. :) There is no need to increase my anxiety level any higher than it already is.Thanks!!!!

[John C Picinich]

Find a good REALTOR to "short sale" the home. Call your lender and try to work out a "mod" you can also call a free credit service like hope now.
Nothing is worse than doing nothing. Call the Homeowner’s HOPE™ Hotline:
1.888.995.HOPE.

[John C Picinich]

I also wanted to tell you not to listen to their advice (your friends) the very best thing you can do is try!