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Home > Time to pat ourselves on the back a bit.

Time to pat ourselves on the back a bit.

February 3rd, 2012 at 04:27 pm

We didn't do anything more than what we should have done. We continued to pay our mortgage.

But thousands (tens or hundreds of thousands? I really have no idea what the number is) did (or are) walking away from the mortgage. We didn't.

Oh, I know that many people didn't have a choice. But it seems that a great many did, and chose to walk away. We didn't.

We thought about it. Very hard. In fact August and September 2010, we were very darn close. In fact, the subject came up again between my wife and me just six weeks ago.

A little back story - I took a new job four years ago this month. Yes, February 2008. Just as the bubble was bursting. The job allowed us to be much closer to family, so our kids could grow up knowing their grand parents. We lived in a beautiful gorgeous Victorian house in a small village in north west Michgan. We put the house on the market in Jan. 2008. And we still own it.

I'm still glad we moved. The improvement in quality of life is priceless.

But, we were short on cash maintaining two houses. From February of 2008 to October 2010, we had choices to make - namely which bills to pay. We always paid the mortgage on time and in full. We fell behind on credit card payments. I know, we shouldn't have credit card debt, but we did and we do.

Then something happened in Oct. 2010. DW had done a massive free lance project, and se was paid $10,000. Also, we had renters move in to our for-sale house. These events allowed us to become current on all past due bills, and allowed us to remain current, and
we have ever since. And of course now we have foster care payments to help out. Trust me, we take care of the kids first and ourselves second with theses foster care payments.

The bottom can fall out again. All it would take is to have our renters move out or stop paying or trash the house or have the furnace go kaput. We are still walking a thin line. But, we continue to make our mortgage payment.

And that is satisfying.

1 Responses to “Time to pat ourselves on the back a bit.”

  1. PauletteGoddard Says:
    1328287169

    I'm glad you held on. An entertainment weekly in my city just ran an article about two couples who walked away from their mortgaged houses and bought new ones at a depressed market scant years later: only one person of each couple was the mortgagee, so the other one who didn't have a ruined credit record would buy the next house.

    Every mortgagee in our area who bought from 2004 to 2011 has a property with a current market value below what they purchased it for. When I try to imagine myself as someone who has a choice to walk away from a mortgage just because the real estate market went down, I wonder what it would be like if everybody in my position did exactly that, and who would suffer.

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