From today’s Ann Arbor News, “Ann Arbor area homeowners – like those across the country – struggle with “underwater” mortgages.” The short version is that we too probably owe more than our house is actually worth. Now, I guess we’re lucky/fortunate in the sense that we aren’t that underwater (some of the people in this article are more like $80K upside-down, and we’re nowhere near that) and short of some unforeseen disaster, we have secure jobs and will be able to keep making our payments.
Still, it’s frustrating, and it is especially frustrating when you do everything you’re supposed to do as a responsible citizen and the only people who seem to be catching a break in terms of refinancing houses and negotiating deals with banks are people who were always way in over their heads. I mean, if we had had one of these goofy balloon mortgages and were telling the bank that we couldn’t afford to pay anymore, we might get some help. But since we are homeowners who just want some kind of break to be able to refinance, we’re getting nothing. Oddly, I wonder if we’d have a better chance of getting a banker’s attention if we just stopped paying our mortgage. Which, of course, we aren’t going to do.
Anyway, we’ll see what happens. Annette has grown weary of being on hold for an hour at a time only to be told by the bankers that we are SOL; I might give it a whirl next week.