Milk/Sub-Prime Mortgage was a BAAAAD idea
I am a statistic… and I’m not referring to myself as one of the 9 of 10 doctors that agree that Tylenol is the most effective pain medicine. No, in reality, I am one of the thousands of dipshits that thought it would be a fantastic idea to buy a condo in Southern California in the mid-2000′s. Definitely the worst financial decision of my life and quite possibly the WORST decision of my life. Actually, the worst decision in my life was getting a Dave Matthews Band tramp stamp in high school… I’m still kicking myself for that (just kidding)! The entire process is a testament to why bureaucracy sucks and common sense has no place in law or business. Being caught in a system that no one really understands is frustrating at best and it really gives one a sense of how things can get out of hand after one bad decision follows another. Here is my mortgage stupidity in brief:
First of all, I had no idea what I was getting into when I purchased the property. It was all so easy and everyone was telling me that I was making this great decision. I thought I was going to live in the place for a few years then turn around and sell it for a tidy profit.
In retrospect, I am, as a half retarded friend of a friend would say, “The biggest moron he ever metted”. When I signed those fateful documents on the day of the close I was getting a loan for $380K that would cost me over $600K if I paid it back in 30 years. Maybe I should have examined the couple hundred documents that I was signing and initialing, that may have been a good idea. I did research, listened to people who I thought were knowledgeable but still made a very poor decision. This whole situation is a great example of a shared illusion on par with organized religion. Everyone believed the market would steadily climb forever… maybe not. By the way, this purchase was made at the pinnacle of the housing market. It turned out that the same year that Katrina took a shit on New Orleans I decided to do the same on my financial future. The two disasters in the gulf pretty much book ended my foray into the real estate market.
I dutifully paid my mortgage payments for the next few years while watching the housing market crumble and the equity in my purchase slip down the drain. It is almost comical how bad my timing was. My purchase was NEVER a good investment. Almost from the month after I made my purchase the market started to deteriorate. I picture the previous owner being a Warren Buffet style business Nostradamus but in reality they were probably just like me, trying to make decisions that made sense for them at the time – except their decision to sell was the right one and my decision to buy was laughably bad.
After months of hand wringing and the impending increase in mortgage payments due to the 5 year ARM the decision was made to stop paying the mortgage. At that point I had to become acquainted with all types of legal and real estate jargon like short sales, deeds, notes, and the dreaded foreclosure. During this time every sleazebag broker, agent or salesperson came out of the woodwork trying to “help” or give “advice” on the situation. The hardest part was knowing who was full of shit and who wasn’t. At one point I even met with a gay real estate duo, one of which was named “Tug” (I’m not kidding). If you name your kid “Tug” you are pretty much destining them to be gay right? That would be like naming your daughter Cinnamon and not expecting her to be a stripper.
Anyways, after talking with all of these vultures it became apparent that the first step in the process was to try to restructure the loan. This was the most fruitless part of the entire process. What they offered was a complete insult and it took them over 3 months to make it. After their proposal was rejected we moved on to attempt a short sale. If I had to make a SAT question out of this part of the proceedings it would be
Loan Restructuring : Useless ::
A – Short Sale Process : Degrading
B – Short Sale Process : Frustrating
C – Short Sale Process : Soul Crushing Waste of Time
D – All of the Above
That’s right! D is the correct answer! After OVER A YEAR of sending pay stubs, negotiating, working with an agent (who was actually extremely helpful), and disclosing every possible piece of my financial information a buyer was found and the first mortgage agreed to the sale. A very generous offer, given the circumstances, was made to the 2nd mortgage holder which was denied. A few offers and counter offers later we could not come to an agreement and the negotiations were over. All that work by dozens of people (us, prospective buyers of the property, real estate agents and loan company employees) was all for nothing. It is no wonder why the US is in a rut, we have millions of people employed to essentially do nothing but push paper around and accomplish nothing. At least when a sweat shop worker finishes their 14 hour day they have a couple hundred Nike’s to show for it.
Over a year and a half later and after all of the options for negotiating this process have been exhausted and the property was finally foreclosed on. In a way, I am glad that it is finally over but in another more accurate way I am terrified, because I went from the mortgage piranha pool to the lawyer shark tank… sweet baby Jesus save me!
