Upside down on Mortgage

Is this just an estimate or has the house been appraised? Also, most companies will not finance 100% of the property's value, so is the $13,000 what you need to bring down the mortgage principal to 100% value, or is it what you need to refinance?

If the mortgage company did an appraisal, was it a true full apprasial, or what they refer to as a "drive by"? My point is you may want to consider having an appraisal done.

You're other option is to talk to a different bank or mortgage broker, but at $13,000 you probably won't have much luck. Just keeping putting extra down on that principal each month and try again in 6 months.

First thought - is the company telling you are upside down initially OR have you actually had your house appraised. We are about to have our house appraised because though our bank is giving us a home value they admitted they were getting it from Zillow. Our friends had thier house actually appraised and it was worth $20,000 more, which was enough to get it refinanced. We are goign to have ours appraised too because zillow doesn't count in the special factors in our home.

Find out about the 'Making Affordable Home Refinance Program'. If your home is serviced by Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae, you should be able to refi without getting your home appraised. We are in the process of doing this now. Go to the website and read all the FAQ questions for details, they also have a part where you can see if your home is serviced by them (it's NOT the bank that you pay your mortgage to, that doesn't matter). From there, I called our Mortgage company our bank had a special # on their home page on the website for HARP) and sat on hold for over an hour (I work at my desk all day so I knew I could out-wait them). Keep telling them you are interested in HARP and want to refinance. Make sure you refer to, and look at the REFINANCE section, NOT the Home Affordable Modification program, that's for people who are behind on their mortgage already and will affect your credit negatively.

http://makinghomeaffordable.gov/

good luck

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Do not cash in 401Ks.
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Does that 13 thousand go towards your loan? Then I say go for it. If it is for fees then I would talk to a real estate expert. (Which you might want to do anyway) Also I wouldn't do any other type of loan other than a conventional 15 or 30 year loan at a really low rate. Please do not do an interest only or adjustable rate mortgage.

Hubby and I are in a similar situation. We are going to put our tax return towards it, and we are saving like crazy. Not sure if it will happen anytime soon, but I doubt interest rates will be going up anytime soon either.

We've been in the same boat and our mortgage company wouldn't refinance us and we didn't qualify for a loan modification. We're about $150,000 upside down and we were willing to pay it through and stay BUT we're stuck in a high interest only ARM (I don't know how we got into that one UGH!) Our mortgage company wouldn't lower our interest or put us into a fixed rate. That's all we asked. But we didn't qualify for any program. We tried for 4 years. We've lived in our house for 6 years and was always on time and current with our mortgage. We are now short selling our house. We heard that it is better than foreclosure. We don't want to do it but we have found no other options. If you can hang in there and keep paying your mortgage, that would be the best option. If you can't, I've heard that short selling is better than losing your house. You'll have to find a good realtor for that. Otherwise, hopefully you'll be able to refinance eventually if you can stay and hang in there. I wish that was the case with us. =( Good luck!!

Perhaps you could take out a personal loan for $13,000. I'd only do that if you'll save money with a lower interest rate on the mortgage. If you have property, such as a car or boat that you could sell that would seem to be a good way to go also. You can buy a second hand car that would still provide transportation.