To Clear Your Curiousity
With the advent of Rosie asking about it, which launched other people into asking, I shall fully explain the whole housing situation here. To preface, I didn't hide this or anything, it was all just kind of weirdly up-in-the-air and confusing so it was easier to not launch into it with anyone until it was more solid, yanno?
Like almost everyone else in California, my parent's house is currently upside down. For those who are uninformed, that means that the mortgage they're paying on, which was set before the housing bubble burst, is more money than the house is physically worth now. This happened to almost everyone who bought or refinanced a house or borrowed money against their house, and it sucks butt. Luckily, we're generally able to cover the elevated monthly payment, but it finally reached the point where it's simply not worth it to pay that much a month for this house, especially with Nancy moving in permanently and June moving in temporarily. As a result, they've stopped paying the mortgage payment. It would seem more logical to simply renegotiate the mortgage loan to adjust to current situation, but because this has happened to EVERYONE practically, mortgage companies will basically not do ANYTHING for you, help you at all, unless you show that you are having trouble paying, AKA beginning to default on the loan as a whole and missing payments. That's when they feel it's worthwhile to renegotiate the loan to a lower value and interest rate rather than just lose their money entirely when the person just completely ignores the outstanding debt. So we've stopped paying the mortgage payment in hopes of them coming to us to renegotiate, which is what has happened to basically every person mom has talked to who has gone this route.
HOWEVER, there is a chance that they will not want to renegotiate at all. Slim, but there. They are legally allowed to evict us after 3 months of nonpayment (we haven't even actually missed a payment yet, though), though because of the backlog most people don't even get NOTICES OF LATE PAYMENTS until they've missed like a YEAR's worth. There's just so many people doing this, the companies are inundated with such things and can't catch up or pay attention properly to what's going on, you know? Rosemary's house that she intended to default on, they haven't gotten a single late payment notice, let alone eviction notice, and they haven't paid for a year and a half, happily living in their NEW house. Her kids are just living there rent-free waiting for the mortgage company to catch on.
Anyhow, being the cautious woman she is, and our habit of being the exception to the rule in these things, she wanted to have somewhere to go lined up in the event that they suddenly decide to completely not negotiate, and evict us right on the 3 month deadline. She didn't want to have to scramble and settle for somewhere cramped and ugly just to have SOMEWHERE to go in the last minute, you know? Our plan in general was, if we end up either not having a chance to negotiate for this house, or if they won't renegotiate to a satisfactory low rate, we would find a house to rent (for reference, it costs less to rent a BIGGER house in this town than to pay our current too-high mortgage payment for this house) in the in-between while we slowly searched for a new house to buy that would happily accommodate everyone, and ideally be a good place for mom and dad to just end up living out their retirements in when it comes to that.
Now, it just so happened that while we're deciding all of this, we hear tell of Cody getting his court settlement for his hand, and that they bought him a house with it. He, of course, is going to be going on his mission next year for 2 years, so they will be renting this house out until then. Dingdingding! We tell Monica about our whole schpiel and go by the house, and while it has it's weirdnessess, it's a cute, one-story, three bedroom house.
They have renovations to do (it was kind of like the people they bought it from had attempted to DIY it up, but gave up halfway through? So like the floor isn't properly installed and there's dried grout junk on the newly-tiled bathroom and stuff), but we've basically collectively opted to rent that house once they're done fixing it up, Max and I will live there (and store Nancy's stuff and do the cookie cutter business) paying the majority of the manageable rent until it becomes necessary for it to become the family's house as a whole, if that ever becomes necessary at all. It's kind of like moving out, but for the sake of family security?
...I think that covers it all? XD Feel free to ask for any clarification or further explanation if something seems backwards or missing a step.
Tangentially, June comes in tomorrow! No idea how long she'll be with us, but she's getting Alicia's room until she can move in with her stepdaughter in San Diego. We cleaned out Alicia's room and couldn't help but giggle while we put pretty new bedding on and dusted and adjusted things to make them presentable. I mean, she's blind.
Like almost everyone else in California, my parent's house is currently upside down. For those who are uninformed, that means that the mortgage they're paying on, which was set before the housing bubble burst, is more money than the house is physically worth now. This happened to almost everyone who bought or refinanced a house or borrowed money against their house, and it sucks butt. Luckily, we're generally able to cover the elevated monthly payment, but it finally reached the point where it's simply not worth it to pay that much a month for this house, especially with Nancy moving in permanently and June moving in temporarily. As a result, they've stopped paying the mortgage payment. It would seem more logical to simply renegotiate the mortgage loan to adjust to current situation, but because this has happened to EVERYONE practically, mortgage companies will basically not do ANYTHING for you, help you at all, unless you show that you are having trouble paying, AKA beginning to default on the loan as a whole and missing payments. That's when they feel it's worthwhile to renegotiate the loan to a lower value and interest rate rather than just lose their money entirely when the person just completely ignores the outstanding debt. So we've stopped paying the mortgage payment in hopes of them coming to us to renegotiate, which is what has happened to basically every person mom has talked to who has gone this route.
HOWEVER, there is a chance that they will not want to renegotiate at all. Slim, but there. They are legally allowed to evict us after 3 months of nonpayment (we haven't even actually missed a payment yet, though), though because of the backlog most people don't even get NOTICES OF LATE PAYMENTS until they've missed like a YEAR's worth. There's just so many people doing this, the companies are inundated with such things and can't catch up or pay attention properly to what's going on, you know? Rosemary's house that she intended to default on, they haven't gotten a single late payment notice, let alone eviction notice, and they haven't paid for a year and a half, happily living in their NEW house. Her kids are just living there rent-free waiting for the mortgage company to catch on.
Anyhow, being the cautious woman she is, and our habit of being the exception to the rule in these things, she wanted to have somewhere to go lined up in the event that they suddenly decide to completely not negotiate, and evict us right on the 3 month deadline. She didn't want to have to scramble and settle for somewhere cramped and ugly just to have SOMEWHERE to go in the last minute, you know? Our plan in general was, if we end up either not having a chance to negotiate for this house, or if they won't renegotiate to a satisfactory low rate, we would find a house to rent (for reference, it costs less to rent a BIGGER house in this town than to pay our current too-high mortgage payment for this house) in the in-between while we slowly searched for a new house to buy that would happily accommodate everyone, and ideally be a good place for mom and dad to just end up living out their retirements in when it comes to that.
Now, it just so happened that while we're deciding all of this, we hear tell of Cody getting his court settlement for his hand, and that they bought him a house with it. He, of course, is going to be going on his mission next year for 2 years, so they will be renting this house out until then. Dingdingding! We tell Monica about our whole schpiel and go by the house, and while it has it's weirdnessess, it's a cute, one-story, three bedroom house.
They have renovations to do (it was kind of like the people they bought it from had attempted to DIY it up, but gave up halfway through? So like the floor isn't properly installed and there's dried grout junk on the newly-tiled bathroom and stuff), but we've basically collectively opted to rent that house once they're done fixing it up, Max and I will live there (and store Nancy's stuff and do the cookie cutter business) paying the majority of the manageable rent until it becomes necessary for it to become the family's house as a whole, if that ever becomes necessary at all. It's kind of like moving out, but for the sake of family security?
...I think that covers it all? XD Feel free to ask for any clarification or further explanation if something seems backwards or missing a step.
Tangentially, June comes in tomorrow! No idea how long she'll be with us, but she's getting Alicia's room until she can move in with her stepdaughter in San Diego. We cleaned out Alicia's room and couldn't help but giggle while we put pretty new bedding on and dusted and adjusted things to make them presentable. I mean, she's blind.