Brown lawns

My wife and I have a new hobby. In our free time we drive around our area and look for brown lawns. There are many houses out here that have brown lawns but no For Sale signs up - yet. Still lots of Bank Repo signs and Bank Owned signs out here.

We know of houses that have sat with brown lawns for nine months and never a For Sale sign - in fact we have one at the end of our street. A real nice looking house too.

We saw a hilarious one the other day: a house with a Bank Repo sign on the front lawn and then right next door was a development that had been stopped while in progress! I took a picture with my cell phone camera but it's not sharp enough to post. We're going back there this coming weekend and I'll get a hold of a digital camera for that shot.

We've driven down other residential streets out here and I can find four or five streets that have half the residences For Sale - no lie. We've been down other streets where there are four (4) houses in a row that are up for sale - two of them with brown lawns. We've seen many streets that will have two houses right next to each other or maybe directly across the street from each other that both have brown lawns.

The lenders and brokers out here made a lot of money from reselling bad loans that ended up as Bank Repos and/or Foreclosures.

Out here it will probably take 15 to 20 years for house prices to ever be the same as 2006 prices.

My wife and I just keep watching house prices and waiting for the median house price to equal, or be less than, 3x's the median household income for a given area (zip code). That will be a return to normalcy, traditional house prices and traditional lending standards.

Elance.com - part time work

I've been bidding on projects on Elance.com. I have an agreement with someone for some part-time work but it won't start until September. It will help to add some part-time income that will also allow me to work from home in the evenings and on the weekends.

Payday loans - still need 'em

Well, my commissions from work are about 30% of what I received last year during the first six months of the year. So I've had to start borrowing from PayDay lenders again. I started borrowing again back in early May. The rates are in the neighborhood of 785% APR - it just chokes me financially. If I stop to think about it then I begin to panic and I dont have time for that. I've got to figure a way to start bringing in extra income. I've applied to Home Depot and a couple other places but didn't hear back from anybody. In the meantime I am going to have to ask a friend for a loan. I can pay 25 to 35% APR but not 785% APR - it's killing me.

No affair

Well, I must be going crazy. There is no affair. But that week I was really depressed and I could just not help feeling this feeling that I cant describe right now - just this deep, great sadness. Earlier in the week, that week of May 25th, I had gone with my Mom & Dad to visit the graves of my uncle and one of his friends. The cemetaries were so peaceful and beautiful. And it was a good day spending time with my parents - I hadn't done that in a very long time, just spending the day with them. When you get into your fifties, like I am, well, I just haven't done that in such a long time since I've been busy with raising my family.

Financial troubles will lead to affair

I can tell that my wife and my landlord are going to have an affair. He came over here yesterday at lunch time - she told me - to bring over some envelopes and stamps for our rental payments. My wife only gets 30 minutes for lunch so the timing has to be pretty focused. I was out of town on business so it allows them time to get more familiar with each other.

Besides, when he's been here a couple times I can see the eye contact between them. It makes sense - all I have to offer my wife anymore is my salary. I dont own a home anymore. I dont have any savings anymore. After 22 years of marriage and two kids all I can offer my wife is my salary plus bonuses. I've been financially decimated. All she ever does now is make comments about how she wishes we were rich. I'm trying as hard as I can to keep it together.

Our new landloard is about the same age as me and we actually have a resemblance to one another. Plus he's happy and likes to make jokes. Why not? He doesn't have any financial problems like me. Heck, he owns this house plus more. And he's financially stable. He can offer her a future, I cant anymore. She can depend on him not me. Twenty-two years ago I had a lot to offer a woman - a stable marriage, a dependable man, steady employment, financial upside. we even prospered for a while. I never strayed, I even turned down a couple of women co-workers. But now I'm in my early fifties with only my paychecks to offer a woman, much less my wife.

She's already told me she cant count on me. She doesn't trust me. All I've ever done was try to provide for my family. I just try to make ends meet. She wanted to live in a brand new house fifteen years ago and I did it. She wanted a mercedes-benz and I did it. Not much more to say.

I know her sisters will support her. In her family blood is thicker than water.

Paid In Full and Credit Report after Short Sale

Someone asked me a question about this. Here's my reply:

You must have your realtor request that your 1st and 2nd mortgagors give you a letter stating that your account has been "...Paid In Full." I think "Account Settled" is also just as good but you would need to speak to an attorney about that. If you can, get them to also state in your letter something along the lines of "No balance due." and maybe something about they "release all liens".

I pulled my credit reports: TransUnion, Experian, Equifax.

Experian shows this for both my 1st and 2nd:
Payment Status: "Legally paid in full for less than the full balance"
Comments: "Election of remedy - reported by subscriber"
(also lists it as a "Key Derogatory")

TrueCredit.com shows my 1st as "Improved account" for TransUnion
TrueCredit.com shows my 2nd as "not yet reported" the change to TransUnion

TrueCredit.com shows my 1st as Settlement for Experian
TrueCredit.com shows my 2nd as Settlement on Experian

TransUnion lists the Condition as "Derogatory" for the 1st but Pay Status is "Current"
Experian lists the Condition as "Closed (Paid)" for the 1st and no Pay Status.
Experian also shows it as a CO - Chargeoff.
Equifax lists the Condition as "Closed (Paid)" for the 1st and Pay Status as "Current"

TransUnion lists the Condition as "Derogatory" for the 2nd but Pay Status is "Late 120 Days"
Experian lists the Condition as "Closed (Paid)" for the 2nd and no Pay Status.
Experian also shows it as a CO - Chargeoff.
Equifax lists the Condition as "Closed (Paid)" for the 2nd and Pay Status as "Late 30 Days"

I closed (recorded) two weeks ago but my realtor is waiting for Title company to send the official letters from the mortgage companies to them so that they can in turn send them to me. But I did call my 1st mortgage company and the loan servicer of my 2nd (a mortgage backed security sold by Wells Fargo but loan serviced by GMAC) during the the process of closing and they both told me I was Paid In Full. My realtor has the letters but is waiting for more paperwork from the Title company before forwarding on to me.

Since I can see it listed on my credit reports as Paid In Full I'm not worried about any collection agencies coming after me. I will need to file a Form 982 with my taxes next year to show I am Insolvent. Anyone that reviews my assets (zero) and liabilities would see that I am going to be insolvent for the next 3 to 4 years.

(5/27/08 Tuesday 6am PST - And with the way my life at home is now going I may be heading toward divorce in a year. I told my wife that I really don't think we're going to have the proper debt-to-income ratios in a year - I think we're really going to be renters for at least two years; I still have so much debt to pay off. She's going to open up her own checking account and then have her paycheck direct deposited into her own account. She said she was watching Dave Ramsey last night and she needs to take ownership of her own life. And I think intimacy between us stopped last week. We had a bad weekend talking about finances. It's awful this has happened to us - next month is our 22nd anniversary and she and I had talked about going to Vegas but that's not going to happen now. Basically she married the wrong person. It's funny, I think what will probably happen is that she'll end up marrying our landlord. He's funny, happy and rich. It's probably easier to be happy and funny when you're not worried about money all the time.)

Good-luck with your short-sale and let me know how it goes.

Another Neighbor house selling for less

The neighbor across the street and three houses down dropped their asking price to $425K. They had been asking $499K. And back in November they were asking $625K!

My wife and I looked at some houses last weekend just for entertainment. We looked at a house that was 3774 sq.ft. and the realtor was asking $370K! It had ALL the upgrades that my wife likes. It was way better than our current house. Of course it was a foreclosure, no furniture, just an empty house.

We drove down another street a couple blocks away and that street had five out of ten houses for sale with brown lawns on three of them and red pieces of paper (Notices of Default, NODs, eviction notices, etc.) in the windows. All of these houses have three-car garages.

Anyway, we're going to rent for another year and try to save some money and pay off bills in the meantime. I kind of doubt my debt to income ratio will be under 35% next year since I'm on year two of a five year debt repayment plan with all my creditors. Well at least I can sleep at night.