Comments on: Our House Loses $15,000 in Value :(

By: J. Money

J. Money — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 14:26:11 +0000

Ouch indeed. At least we both can afford it though, eh? That’s the only saving grace from all this really (besides the fact it changed the future of my entire career since I started blogging cuz of our house purchase). Had we gotten ourselves into crazy variable rates that reset every couple of years it could have been a $hit ton worse :(

By: Otto

Otto — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 15:06:14 +0000

We bought our home in July 2009, (2 months for the cutoff date for the FHA streamline Refi date. SUCKS). At that time it was worth 265k, we bought it for 235k (we put 27k down), So we only needed a loan of 208k at 5.25 Rate.

Fast Forward 3 years. Our Value of the home is now 199k, We have 202k on the loan. So we are underwater. Good times!

Our loan is not through Fannie mae or Freddie Mac, so we are screwed there. We missed the june 2009 cutoff for the FHA refi streamline.

With interest rates in the 3.5% range, we could save some SERIOUS $$$ if we could refi, but we can’t because we’ve lost more than 30% value of our home in 3 years.

So yeah, I feel your pain.

By: J. Money

J. Money — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 21:40:45 +0000

Oh I hear ya – LA is sick over there… worse than DC and we have it pretty bad too!

By: Rebecca @ Trim Waist Fat Wallet

Rebecca @ Trim Waist Fat Wallet — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 01:05:19 +0000

OUCH! That’s gotta hurt. Personally, I’m routing for houses to decrease in price (before you yell at me, it’s only because they were inflated to begin with) to make living in Los Angeles less rediculous than it currently is. I can’t believe what houses were going for and even though they are a lot lower, they’re still too high. 2 bd, 1 ba 800 sq ft for $380? Right. Stick with it and keep your eye on paying off the mortgage. Eventually, it will work it. Hopefully. :)

By: J. Money

J. Money — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 23:43:29 +0000

Yeah! It automatically adjusted for us :) We now save about $150 a month because of it - can't complain there, right? Especially since we just keep on plowing it all towards the principal!

By: KS

KS — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:01:54 +0000

Well at least you can renegotiate your property taxes this year if you haven’t already. That’s what I’m doing for mine when it lost value. It might save you a few hundred bucks.

By: J. Money

J. Money — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 05:34:58 +0000

@Money Beagle – That’s great!! Looks like you’re in a wonderful area right now :)
@Jamie Jefferson – Yup, that’s the plan… very VERY fortunate we can at least pay the mortgage okay! Things would be a lot different if we couldn’t :(

By: Jamie Jefferson

Jamie Jefferson — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 23:50:06 +0000

That DOES stink, but it’s not an uncommon story. The appraiser who came to our home while we were doing a refinance recently told us a huge percentage of the homes he takes a look at it are on upside down loans. Like you say, it only matters what the price of the home is when you go to sell it. As long as you can pay your mortgage (and you’ve refinanced when you could), just sit tight.

By: Money Beagle

Money Beagle — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:30:22 +0000

Our city/county and neighborhood have been seeing a boom lately, where sale prices have gone up 10-15% over the last 18 months or so. This has been good news. I use a combination of Zillow, the city assessed value, and comparable sales to determine my estimated value. Seems to hit pretty close to when things sell.

By: J. Money

J. Money — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:10:19 +0000

@Melissa@LittleHouseInTheValley – GREAT example for sure – I check them every single day (sometimes twice! haha…) but I tend to like the drama that comes with the stocks too ;) Even though it’ll be YEARRRRRS till I ever need to touch it.
@Jerry – I agree – riding it out is def. the best way to go if you can do it… maybe our house will one day become an investment property?