Trying to get a mortgage modification
TEXT OF INTERVIEW
TESS VIGELAND: Loyal listeners will remember we recently traveled to San Diego to visit the home of Karin Andreen. She and her husband were struggling through a maze of mortgage modification red tape.
KARIN ANDREEN: Right. No documents were signed. All we have is a sheet of paper basically saying this is your trial payment. So every month we’re paying $400 less and so every month then we’re assessed late fees. And they’ve sent people to knock on our doors, so then we’re assessed for the people knocking on our door. They claim that they’re starting to foreclose on us, so we have a couple of thousand of dollars in late fees.
VIGELAND: And that’s because you had a trial modification?
ANDREEN: Correct.
Well, we have some developments on that story. Karin, welcome back.
ANDREEN: Thank you.
VIGELAND: So it’s been about a month since we visited you. What’s happened since then?
ANDREEN: Well, since then, we received a call from a new negotiator, her name was Melissa. And when she had called us on February 4, she said she’d get back to us on Monday at the latest. And we didn’t hear back from her until this past Friday on February 18.
VIGELAND: And I believe that’s after our producer contacted Bank of America and said, “Hey, what’s going on?”
ANDREEN: Right. He contacted them and I’ve been in contact with your producer. And you know, when we didn’t hear back from her, we assumed that we weren’t getting the loan modified and we started making foreclosure arrangements. And my husband has a couple of job opportunities elsewhere, and our condo was keeping us in San Diego.
VIGELAND: But eventually, the bank did give you an offer?
ANDREEN: Yes, they got back to us, the loan modification was for 40 years at 4.5 percent.
VIGELAND: Which sounds pretty good.
ANDREEN: But we unfortunately, we had to decline it. I mean, they waited so long to get back to us, we started making foreclosure arrangements.
VIGELAND: So you’re talking about making foreclosure arrangements, are you actually doing that formally or are you walking away from the property?
ANDREEN: We have been in contact with an attorney, talking to him about, it’s called “deed in lieu of foreclosure.” I know very little about it, but we’ve started talking about that. We talked about a short sale, but where we live, that’s just not feasible for us. You know, we looked at the terms of the 40-year loan, and unfortunately, we have a family of four and our condo is 850-square feet and it would take us 22 years to make back any type of equity in our place. You know, that’s not something that’s also feasible for us.
VIGELAND: Right. Do you think at this point you would ever venture back into the housing market?
ANDREEN: Not for a long time. We’re not very impressed with how it went this time. So, we’ll have to see in the future how it goes.
VIGELAND: Well Karin Andreen, thanks again for speaking us and best of luck to you and your family.
ANDREEN: Thank you.
VIGELAND: A spokeswoman for Bank of America, by the way, told us she was “totally embarrassed at the bank’s lack of timely follow through.”
Stories You Might Like
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
