Negative Equity

Ganluan

So, I made the mistake of looking at home valuations in my neighborhood, and apparently our home has lost 30% of its value since we bought it back in early 2006. After looking back at home sales during that time period, I'm fairly certain we were screwed by a combination of the builder, the appraiser, and ourselves (for not checking comps). This is all negative equity at this point, as we put nothing down on the house.

We're not planning to move anytime soon, but I'm wondering if there's something I can do to at least lower the payments a bit. I make more than enough to cover them, but my wife will most likely stop working soon so anything we could save on mortgage payments would help.

I guess I'm somewhat annoyed that people who defaulted will get principal/interest adjusted, but people like us who pay on time get nothing. Is there anything I can do by calling the mortgage company (Countrywide)? Interest rates are roughly the same now that they were then, and we already have a fixed rate. There's probably nothing I can do, but it sucks we could be paying several hundred dollars less a month right now

jhunter46

I am in pretty much the same situation. We purchased our home for $190,000 in June of 07. We paid a fair price, but because of the current market, our home is being appraised for 160,000.

We're not looking to sell for about five years, it just sucks we're making payments for a house that isn't worth the actual payment.

Richard_Dastardly

I doubt you could lower the actual payments... but, you could petition to revalue your home with the city. That way you would be paying less in property taxes.

taeric

Yeah, unless you qualify for any of the items the bailout is forcing some banks to do, I don't think you can do much to change your mortgage. Best you can do is indeed to lower your tax liability.

Also, I would caution against taking the bailout measures if the bank gets an equity interest. Especially if you are able to keep the payments going.