Wednesday, December 30, 2009

MHA Loan Modification and the Missing Roof

It's been a while.

The roof is still missing although I did get a contractor to come out and remove the twisted metal and put down some protective stuff over the plywood. It has been 3 weeks since the storm. The adjuster finally came and now we are in the midst of trying to get the generous check endorsed by both our 1st and 2nd mortgage company. They will then dole out the money in small amounts, send an inspector (to verify that we are indeed repairing our house instead of pocketing the insurance money), overall I think we may have our roof repaired by March or April. I am not joking. Apparently Bank of America's idea of protecting their investment is to leave the house without a roof as long as possible. If I could just cash the check and have $20,000 in cash to flash in front of a contractor I would have the roof fixed by now, but NOOOOOO that's not the way it works. I guess some families would just keep the money and live with no roof? WTF?

In bigger news, while I was on hold with the mortgage company trying to report our insurance claim, in listening to the sales pitches on hold I learned that my family does indeed qualify for the fabulous Making Home Affordable Program. Yea!!

We fully qualify for a loan modification. The process is long and arduous. I have filled out all the paper work, copied tax returns, bank statements and profit and loss statements for the businesses (yet another reason why I have not been blogging), bundled everything up and sent it off certified mail. Now all we ahve to do is wait up to 45 business days, 9 weeks, to find out what Bof A is going to offer us. If they do what they are supposed to do our loan payment plus taxes and insurance will be under $2500/month. That would be such a load off.

Now before some of you hard core Republicans and other banking nuckleheads start reading me the riot act I want to put in my two cents on the whole loan modification thing.

1. We don't have a weird loan. We put down a full 20% when we bought this house in 06. It is a regular loan with a fixed interest rate. We qualified for the loan and had the income to support it when we bought the house.

2. We cannot sell our house. We bought it for $680,000 and currently owe about $580,000. According to Zillow our house is worth somewhere between $450-480,000.

3. Our income has decreased significantly due to the banking industry shutting down all loans and the housing market collapsing. I therefore fully blame the banks for our lack of income. Two of our businesses are related to housing and construction. My architecture business is dead because no one is building at all. Our check cashing business is down 60% because none of the plumbers, drywallers, painters, etc are working or cashing checks.

Due to the above points I fully believe that we should take advantage of the MHA program. I'll keep you all updated on the progress and see if we get screwed around with by Bank of America this is where I will air their dirty laundry.

Till next week.

2 comments:

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Frank Casher said...

Did you try asking your roofing contractor for other payment methods? Here in Miami, Florida, we get to ask our roofing company for payment schemes that are comfortable for both parties. They know that sometimes, roofing needs come in emergency cases. In your case, I think your contractor might have given you options. Well, I hope all is well now with your roof. Best of luck, Joymle!