I have been struggling for the past year to keep my head above water financially and I am not really sure where I am going to end up. I have worked out lower interest rates with some of my cc companies which has helped. But my mortgage is breaking my back. I suspect the value of my house has slipped below what I owe and in addition to that I have 2nd mortgage. My interest rate is pretty low, around 5 3/4 so I don't think I can improve on that. I keep hearing rumors that there may be a chance to renegotiate my mortgage with the lender. Perhaps that opportunity already exists? Does anyone have any advise as to how to position myself to be able to renegotiate my mortgage? Is there currently a set criteria? I am talking about reducing the principle not extending the length of the note. Also I figure it is time to start watching my credit report and I was wondering are there any truly free ones that will give you all the agencies?
Unless you have already begun to miss payments or are facing foreclosure, your lender will likely not be prepared to renegotiate terms with you right now. Loss mitigation departments can barely keep up with all the people that are facing foreclosure right now, so you will not be on the top of their list. Sounds like you have a good interest rate already. Keep making your payments on time as long as you can financially, and try to ride out this crappy economy until home values start to rise again. That may not be until the end of 2009 or 2010. Annualcreditreport.com will provide you with free credit reports from all the agencies, and this site also has links to websites where you can get free credit reports and then cancel your trial membership within a 30-day time period.
Current estimates indicate it will be more like 8 to 10 years before this economy and the housing market turns around. I've seen that on TV several times lately. Before that happens it is estimated that homes values will drop as much as 90 percent. Naturally, nobody has a crystal ball but that seems to be the consensus of opinions right now. Looks like both Chase and Citi are in a crisis situation and may fold within the next few days. If that happens we are really in trouble. They own trillions of dollars in paper assets which are likely to go down the tubes forcing a financial crisis that not even all the foreign governments can bail out of. I'm betting that the stock market will easily drop to 4000 or less on the DOW. Percentage wise the DOW has already crashed far worse than what was experienced in the 1929 depression days and has a lot more to go before it turns around. I doubt that anyone has any true idea of how bad things will become in the future. The above was posted very early in the morning and Citi did indeed go belly up and apparently almost instantly got approval for a bail out package of some sort. The amazing thing to me is that their going belly up in what is potentially the largest bail out in U.S. history happened and the stock market has gained well over 200 points by noon. Of course, 200 points in either direction is nothing in terms of today's markets. It could easily turn around and even lose up to 1000 points in one day. I think a 1000 point drop would cause them to shut down the market for the day. There is a rule to that effect but I don't know what the cutoff number really is. 1,000 I think. The markets are very volatile these days and can easily bounce up or down more than that. It can lose that 250 or so point gain in only a few minutes and then go negative by that much or more. The part that amazes me is that investors seem to think that government ability to bail them out of bankruptcy is limitless. Of course, that is an assumption that could not possibly be true. Just like everyone else, there are limits to what the government can do.
And remember, the government isn't bailing anyone out--we are. The government has no money except what the collect from us. So every handout comes from somewhere.
In the long run, yes but for the short term they are borrowing from foreign banks to shore up our faltering economy. We will therefore have to repay not only the original amount but every mounting interest on the debt for decades to come. Seems like the Bible said it pretty well when it said that the sins of the fathers will be visited on their children for 7 generations to come. If that turns out to be true we will still be paying on the debt for at least the next 140 years and probably longer than that. Of course the next crisis will most likely hit us in 140 days or less. Seems to be getting down to hours instead of days in fact.
1.You would think the world would pay their debt back from and after world war 2. 2.Only one country has paid us in full and it's not a big country.
For all I know those debts have just been forgotten about or completely forgiven. On the other hand, what do I know about it???? (LOL)
