Are you underwater?

[BabyMine]

With home prices falling we have now found ourselves owing more than our house is worth. Luckily we love our home and don't plan on moving so we are hoping to ride it out. Another good thing is it's only about 30K. My SIL bought her home 3 years ago for 200K and it's now worth 88K. We live in Florida so we are getting hit hard. How are you doing?

[ohsara430]

voted lemonade. On our current house no and on the house we recently sold technically no but the house had lost serious value it just came out of our equity when we sold. Our rule is we won't buy unless we have 20% to put down for this very reason.

[kbud]

FL also. I posted about it in the FL thread but bought in 2007 for $203,000 (prices were already falling so we thought that was good) but now the same floorplan, same neighborhood has sold for $77,000. They were auctions of foreclosures but still very sad. I had no idea it would go so low. On the positive we can afford it and my DHs job seems pretty secure. I expect it to go down more as we live where the Space Center is and come June the shuttle program is gone. I huge % of the workforce here is associated w/NASA and the shuttle.

[kijip]

No, but only because of the downpayment. We have lost some value, though not a huge percentage (yet I guess, we shall see). Had we been more strategic in our buying, we would have waited to buy. But we figured that an in town place would be ok and we were admittedly too emotional about wanting to buy...having been homeless as a child, comfortably owning a home was something that was very very desired for me. Live and learn. On the whole, we don't regret the purchase, we see this being a rental later on and as gas prices rise as the decade passes, in town places will be more desirable.

I did the math and even with a very modest recovery starting 4 years from now and less than the long term average we still come out ok, even factoring in increased property taxes(based on a few factors), inflation and the cost of proactive repairs. I do wish I had been as strategic pre-purchase as I was with this post crash calculation, lol.

[pinay]

We're not underwater on our current home- we bought it 2 years ago and it had actually appraised for $10K more than we paid when we refi'd just a few months ago. However, our condo that is a rental has lost almost $200K in value :( We may be looking at a short sale in the very near future as it's been a constant source of stress for us and we're not sure if/when the value will come back up.

[Pear]

I think we are ok on our current home. Our last house it cost us 35k to move. We considered staying rather than have to write that check to the bank. We figured out that moving lowered our monthly expenses enough each month that it was not a great idea to stay indefinitely and we really wanted to move to our current state, which luckily in addition to having lots of family has a lower cost of living.

[nellonello]

We are $300,000 under:crying:. As long as we remain employed we are ok. If we lose a job we are in deep trouble. Of course we bought at the peak in 2007. I do feel a bit of relief that we are on a 30year fixed.

[sste]

Not underwater but if we sell now we will lose about 30k factoring in sales price, real estate agent costs and taxes, and all money put into our condo.

We bought ten years ago too and negotiated one of the better deals in our building!

We are probably going to end up renting it out . . . though in our case I do not anticipate the value rising much in the next decade and the vintage plumbing is only go to deteriorate so I wonder if I may lose still more money that way. Also, it has totally sucked this year to have to start saving for a new downpayment from scratch . . . it ended up being almost my entire salary we socked away. We are lucky we are able to do that . . . but still it is not so much fun.

[veronica]

We are not under water, but only because we put down 1/2 on our home , when we purchased. If we were to sell, we'd make enough to pay closing/commission and have no equity left though. It stinks because we want to move.

[KrisM]

Not underwater. We bought at about the peak and have lost about 40% of value. We had a big downpayment, so we aren't underwater. But, if we sold today, we would lose about $100k of that downpayment.

It's nice to know we can move if we have to. We have no plans to so hopefully the prices go back up over the years.

[egoldber]

No, we are not underwater. We are lucky. We bought at a good time (2001) after having significant equity from selling another home and moving from a very high COL to a not quite so high COL area. We also paid ahead starting from day 1 so we have rather significant equity in our home.

[MichelleRC]

Underwater here. Someone get me a snorkel.

[scrooks]

Not underwater here. We bought a foreclosure in 2005 (a couple of years before that became common) and got a good deal. We got an 80/10/10 loan and worked really hard to get the 2nd paid off (which we did about 3 years ago). I'm a little nervous about what our home would be valued at today. We refinanced 1.5 years ago and they told us it went up almost 20k in value. I think right now were could probably sell it for what we bought it for and walk away with some $$.

[SnuggleBuggles]

No. Got a great deal on our house and values keep going up in my neighborhood.

Beth

[MoJo]

Lemonade. My best guess is that we're not actually under water, but that we'd have a near impossible time selling.

We bought in '03 at the price the previous owners paid five years earlier.

We'd like to move (closer to DH's work. . . or closer to my work. . . or closer to family), but probably won't for a long time.

[daisymommy]

Yes, by nearly $100K. Most people in this area are. It's devastating. We have outgrown our home, and can't get out of it.

[LMPC]

No, prices have stayed relatively stable here. Those that did go down are starting to trend upwards (at least according to my real estate agent).

[JoyNChrist]

No, we bought our house at a great price and did a ton of remodeling ourselves, so it's worth a significant amount more now than when we bought it last summer. Of course, I have no idea how hard a time we'd have selling it, but we plan to live here for at least 10+ years, if not forever.

[caleymama]

Yup, underwater here. Probably by about $50,000. We bought in '07 and have no plans to go anywhere, but it stinks to feel trapped here anyway if we were to change our mind.

[jess_g]

No, but we are about even with what we paid. Hopefully prices will go up some before we need to sell. My real concern is the time it takes to sell a house around here. It can take upto a year and thats a long time for me to think about keeping the house neat and tidy.

Jessica.

[WolfpackMom]

No, we put down 20% when buying, right now smaller, less fixed up houses in our neighborhood are going for about $2k more than we paid for ours in 2008. We hope to move two years from now but will only do so if things trend up enough for us not to be harmed by all the closing/real estate costs etc.

[jren]

No. Our house is still worth more than we bought it for. Mid-level home prices never skyrocketed and crashed in our area. Some of the more expensive homes in our area have dropped in price (from 1 million down to $800K), but those are the 10k sq ft homes that not everyone is in the market for.

[TwinFoxes]

No, but we just bought in 2009. When we sold our house in LA earlier that year we weren't underwater either, and made a profit on the sale.

[Moneypenny]

We are not underwater, but we had lots of equity from our previous home to use as the down payment. I'm not even sure what our home would go for now, so I just checked Zillow (not the most accurate thing, I know) and it estimates a price about 4% less than what we paid four years ago, so I don't think that's too bad. I guess that's the nice thing about living in an area that doesn't experience the crazy highs - we don't experience the crazy lows, either.

[Penny's Pappa]

We're skimming the surface. Luckily, it looks like the downturn is starting to level off around here, but it has made us re-think our long-term living situation. The plan was to move to the next neighborhood over once we had school-age children since that district is one of the best in the state. Now, though, it looks like we'll have to wait until the market recovers, so we're planning to stay in the house for several years longer than what we had originally anticipated. Oh well. Not ideal, but we like our current location very much and the schools are still quite good, so we don't feel like we've lost too much.

[BabyMine]

FL also. I posted about it in the FL thread but bought in 2007 for $203,000 (prices were already falling so we thought that was good) but now the same floorplan, same neighborhood has sold for $77,000. They were auctions of foreclosures but still very sad. I had no idea it would go so low. On the positive we can afford it and my DHs job seems pretty secure. I expect it to go down more as we live where the Space Center is and come June the shuttle program is gone. I huge % of the workforce here is associated w/NASA and the shuttle.

:hug: Florida has been hit very hard. We built our home in 2002 and put down 20% and we are still upside down.:( It's so sad about the space program and the cut backs. I hope Florida gets a boost in the next 10 years becasue while I know we are ok for now I still don't like to feel trapped.

[JElaineB]

I live in a midwestern college town. We refinanced last fall and our house appraised for $20,000 more than we paid for it 2.5 years earlier. It helped us get out of PMI. We have put at least $20,000 in improvements into the house, so it was good to know we recouped our money, essentially.

[HIU8]

Not right now. It just appraised for $20,000.00 less than we paid for it. But we put down 47% in cash when we bought the house. We did end up having to take out a line of credit to make some repairs that we didn't anticipate about a year later and we refinanced at a lower rate very quickly after it was done, so we do now owe more. If the value of our house decreases more we could be headed in that direction though.

[boolady]

No. According to a realtor we recently had through, and recent sales of comparable sales in our neighborhood, we could sell our place for about $55,000 more than we bought it for. We've also lived here since 2002 and put 20% down, so we have some equity in the place.

[Binkandabee]

No, but we bought in 2002 and had 20% to put down from the sale of another home. We have a decent amount of equity since we've paid our note down, but our house isn't worth much more than we paid for it ten years ago. The value of our first home rose by 50% in the 5 years we were there.

[ellies mom]

Well, we kind of lucked out. If we had bought our house at the going rate for the neighborhood at the time, we would be solidly underwater. But our house is a divorce house and the sellers were really impatient. It had only been on the market for a month at the going rate (not long at all in our area) and they decided to cut the price $30K. We happened to pull up an RMLS search that evening and it popped up our search so we looked at it the next morning and put an offer on it that day. So the really good price, combined with the 20% down has given us a decent cushion.

I'm still glad we are not trying to sell right now but at least we wouldn't lose a ton of money if we had to sell right now.

[sarahsthreads]

No, but we bought in 1999, refinanced to a 15 year loan when the rates were super low, and the prices in our area have gone up somewhat (but did not skyrocket then crash.) Assuming DH stays employed in the area, we plan to stay in this house until the girls are out of school (and probably beyond that as well) because we are walking distance to our schools, at which time the mortgage will be paid off. (And then we can start taking out college loans. Yay!)

Sarah :)

[bostonsmama]

Not underwater. We did a combo of Dave Ramsey's live like no one else so you can live like no one else (paying a near double mortgage payment) and also bought 10 years ago. Our home has lost about 40% of its value since the height of the bubble, but we still could get almost 100% more than what we paid for it if we FSBO'd. We're about 3 years from paying off our home. We actually made the decision that even though our interest rate is 4.8%, we can't make nearly that in a money market savings acct, so we're funneling what was going into savings into paying off the house.

[ThreeofUs]

Not underwater. Bought a little high, so I guess we're about 10% down in value. To be fair, we're in NE Ohio, the "epicenter" of the foreclosure crisis. Just a few blocks over, houses were selling for $2,000.

But there's just no way we could sell right now. We need at least a little bit of a recovery. Houses on our block have sold for $300K (2/3 of an acre, but houses that need a lot of work) and there is no way we can take that kind of a hit.

[AnnieW625]

Yes, by nearly $100K. Most people in this area are. It's devastating. We have outgrown our home, and can't get out of it.

:yeahthat: I do love my house, but yeah we could use another a bathroom, a playroom, a larger BBQ area, an attached garage, an office, and a 4th bedroom, but yeah even if we can sell we'll most likely buy a place with an attached garage and a 1/2 or second full bath. :rotflmao:

Prices in my city aren't nearly as bad as they are in other parts of our area (mainly some neighboring cities that have higher rental areas and higher foreclosure rates). We will have a true ARM starting in June so I am a tad nervous, but trying to stay positive.

[BeachBum]

I'm not familiar with the term lemonade. Can someone explain it?

We have a house for sale...and have a verbal offer for $50K under appraised value (gulp). But actually I think we will take it. We will walk away with money, but when you consider our down payment and what we put into the house we are about breaking even. (We owned for about 10 years).
The offer price is about $400K less than what it appraised for when we refinanced at the top of the market....shocking!
That said, we feel like we got a great deal on the house we bought...so it all kind of works out.

[brittone2]

We squeaked out when we sold our house in NC. We pretty much broke exactly even including realtor fees, etc. because DH's employer picked up the tab there. So we squeaked out by the skin of our teeth, even though the offer we got was probably a little low (and we might have gotten more had we waited, but we got an offer 2 weeks into listing, and we took it). We bought in 05, sold in 2010.

We moved to a different state and things here haven't been hit *super* hard. Impacted, but not hammered. We probably overpaid a bit on our current house because we bought from a FSBO seller, and it hadn't officially hit the market yet (found out about seller considering it listing through friends/former coworker of DH). The PO had realtors telling her she could get an inflated price that was not supported by the comps we found (at all). If we had let her test the market, we likely could have gotten a bit lower price, but we would also have rolled the dice on losing this place, which was in the neighborhood/location we wanted. It was also the best built house we could find in our price range (by far) even though it needs some updating. If we had to sell today we'd probably be a tad underwater (just closed in Jaunary) after paying closing costs, etc. but nothing crazy. We'll see how much prices continue to drop. The one saving grace in terms of losing equity is that we locked in our mortgage rate at pretty much the bottom. We had a long gap between going under contract and closing (to make our offer more palatable for the seller, we gave her her choice of closing) and I'm very thankful we paid to lock our rate.

With the current market, I'm not ready to shell out a lot of money on cosmetic upgrades right now. We want to rip out carpet and put in hardwood, etc. (carpets are in great shape though), but for now we're planning to live with it for at least a year or two before investing a lot more $$.

[gatorsmom]

Not underwater. We will probably be putting our house on the market in the next 6 months and will make some money but not nearly what we could have made 4 years ago. :(. But dh was smart and when our construction business was doing well, he paid down a lot of our principal.

[kbud]

This is appropriate to this thread. Underwater mortgages Rise...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110308/ap_on_re_us/us_underwater_mortgages

[KrisM]

I'm not familiar with the term lemonade. Can someone explain it?



Just a fancy way to say "other". A while ago people started putting random things instead of "other" in their polls :).

[s7714]

No we're not, but we bought right before things really got crazy. My BIL/SIL bought about two years after we did and they are definitely underwater now. Their neighbor put his larger house on the market a few months back for near $200,000 less than what my BIL paid. It ended up selling for even less. They said it literally makes them sick to their stomachs when they think about it.

[mytwosons]

Houses around us just aren't selling, so it's hard to tell. If we were lucky, we'd break even, but most likely are a tad underwater. We put down 30% 15 years ago. The housing market here was decimated.

[maestramommy]

Well, our house has dipped below our purchase price. But we're planning on staying here a while, so we're not worried about it. Luckily we didn't buy at the peak, but after prices had been falling for over a year already.

[mommylamb]

No, but we've lost a lot of value. We put 20% down when we bought and we've lost a good amount of that. We bought in early 2006. We sold our condo and bought our current home, so we made a lot on that condo, which we used for the DP on our townhouse, and we've lost much of it. Fortunately, our jobs are relatively secure, but we'd really like to refinance, and I know it will mean putting more money in to bring up the equity. I'm just not sure how much and I've been reluctant to have an appraisal done in case it's impossible.

[wencit]

We just refinanced our home, and the appraisal came back at $30,000 more than what we paid for it, so thankfully, no, we're not underwater. We don't plan to sell that house anytime soon, though.

[Indianamom2]

We are not underwater with our house.

We purchased it for about $10,000 belowed it's appraised value and it might have gone up a little bit since then. It definitely hasn't lost value, plus we removed an above ground pool and replaced a worn deck with a much nicer one. We've probably added a bit more value there.

However, we live in a very low COL area where housing values have remained pretty steady throughout this crisis. I think I even heard that the average housing price was actually increasing around here.

[momof2girls]

NO, thank goodness we bought in 2000 when the prices were starting to go up but not yet crazy. I was convinced we were paying way too much at the time, but thankfully it has turned out ok.

[Melanie]

With home prices falling we have now found ourselves owing more than our house is worth. Luckily we love our home and don't plan on moving so we are hoping to ride it out. Another good thing is it's only about 30K. My SIL bought her home 3 years ago for 200K and it's now worth 88K. We live in Florida so we are getting hit hard. How are you doing?

Yep that is where we were...then we had to relocate. Like you, it's not that much so I'm hopeful that it will recover...soon! So Cal is getting hit hard as well.

[elliput]

Yes. We bought the house we own in 1997 and have not lived there since 1998. The market did go up a bit and has since tanked. We have not had an offer on our house for more than 50% of what we originally purchased for. I think we over paid to begin with, as I left all of the negotiation to DH and he agreed to buy for the listing price. :banghead: And DH refuses to sell at a loss. :banghead::banghead::banghead:

[Puddy73]

We are probably about $30k underwater. Our area had a huge building boom right before the recession hit so the market was flooded with beautiful new houses. We do live a desirable neighborhood so I'm hoping that prices will recover in two years when we plan to move.

[KrisM]

No, but we've lost a lot of value. We put 20% down when we bought and we've lost a good amount of that. We bought in early 2006. We sold our condo and bought our current home, so we made a lot on that condo, which we used for the DP on our townhouse, and we've lost much of it. Fortunately, our jobs are relatively secure, but we'd really like to refinance, and I know it will mean putting more money in to bring up the equity. I'm just not sure how much and I've been reluctant to have an appraisal done in case it's impossible.

I have a friend who just refinanced and they are underwater. She was only able to do it with her current loan company. Have you called and asked them?

[llama8]

We bought in 06' and are slightly underwater/break even at most if we sell now. We are doing an addition on our home so we will not need to sell. Home prices on LI NY were hit, but not as bad a some other areas.

[khm]

Probably by a bit. I can get bummed about the fact that we probably could have gotten this house (or similar) for $25k less, but it really doesn't play that way since we had a house to sell to get here.

Had we waited, that house would have netted us probably $20k less, so I do need to focus on the fact that we weren't buying this house coming from a rental. If I take BOTH transactions into account, we did OK. We didn't sell low and buy high, ya know?

[BabbyO]

We are slightly underwater/break even point right now according to the appraisal but I doubt we could break even if we were ACTUALLY selling.

That said...thanks for the chuckle. For some reason every time I've seen this thread today I've read, "Are you Underwear," in which case I'm really curious to see the responses!

[GaPeach_in_Ca]

We aren't underwater. We're also at a net positive as far as gained/lost equity due to the market. Our current house has lost value, but less than we gained (& realized by selling) on our previous house. The first house was purchased in 2003 and the second in 2007 at what I think was the exact peak of the market in our area. It was a wash since we were selling at the same time.

[sariana]

I chose yes, but we may actually be at about the break-even point. We put down 20%, but we bought in December 2006, and our house has lost about $250,000 in value.

[smiles33]

I chose yes. We lost our 20% down payment and more, but since that 20% down payment was entirely profit from the sale of our first house, I'm trying not to think of that as a total loss. I'm much happier in this house and it's worth it to me to have moved when we did. Plus, we're hoping it's our forever house!

[baymom]

Not underwater, thankfully, but it has come down in price from the peak over $200,000. Luckily we bought in 2002, before the peak. We refinanced last summer, so our mortgage payment each month is far less than the rent our neighbors are paying for the same floorplan/square footage home and that gives me a sense of security.

[mommylamb]

I have a friend who just refinanced and they are underwater. She was only able to do it with her current loan company. Have you called and asked them?

We have, but we don't qualify for loan remodification because of our incomes (which is what a lot of people who are underwater are able to do). We are perfectly able to pay our mortgage, so there isn't much sympathy. I have no intention of not paying my bills like some people do unless I wasn't capable of doing so (sorry to offend anyone, but I think that's immoral. We knew what we were getting into when we took out the loan, and just wish we could take advantage of the lower rates now). Plus, my loan is still in jumbo territory, and it's harder when the $$ is non-conforming. But thanks for the suggestion. Hopefully this spring the values will go up enough and we'll have our 20% back. Values around here are back on the upswing.

[vludmilla]

Not underwater but I only purchased the house last June. We put down a large enough downpayment that the bank should hope we default as someone would definitely buy our house for the amount we owe.

[Jo..]

If we sold today, we would likely lose 100k.

But we paid cash for our house, so we are okay.

DH wants to build a new house on new land, so we will probably kiss that one hundred thousand dollars goodbye and learn to live with a mortgage.

The good news is that building costs and mortgate rates are so low right now that we could build a very nice house fairly inexpensively.

[KrisM]

We have, but we don't qualify for loan remodification because of our incomes (which is what a lot of people who are underwater are able to do). We are perfectly able to pay our mortgage, so there isn't much sympathy. I have no intention of not paying my bills like some people do unless I wasn't capable of doing so (sorry to offend anyone, but I think that's immoral. We knew what we were getting into when we took out the loan, and just wish we could take advantage of the lower rates now). Plus, my loan is still in jumbo territory, and it's harder when the $$ is non-conforming. But thanks for the suggestion. Hopefully this spring the values will go up enough and we'll have our 20% back. Values around here are back on the upswing.

Bummer. They didn't qualify either, for the offical deal, but were able to refinance. I'd guess they have a smaller loan than you and maybe that made the difference. They were both out of jobs last year for 8 months and had the house up for a short-sale and still paid every payment out of their savings. Even then they didn't qualify for a modification! And, boy are they happy they didn't not pay, since she got another local job and they are still in the house.

I'm glad values are going up somewhere. I hope it comes over here soon!

[mommylamb]

Bummer. They didn't qualify either, for the offical deal, but were able to refinance. I'd guess they have a smaller loan than you and maybe that made the difference. They were both out of jobs last year for 8 months and had the house up for a short-sale and still paid every payment out of their savings. Even then they didn't qualify for a modification! And, boy are they happy they didn't not pay, since she got another local job and they are still in the house.

I'm glad values are going up somewhere. I hope it comes over here soon!

Wow, that must have been awful for them. I'm glad she got another job.

[Fairy]

We're in good shape. Other than the flood. :irked:

[trales]

We bought in 2004, put down more than 20% and the house is worth less than we paid for it. We overpay the mortgage and hope to put an addition on and stay for a long long time. Not ideal, but it is what it is.

[Snow mom]

Wow, we can't loose the figures people are discussing because our house was only about $200K to begin with. I'm sure we've lost value--I have no idea how much. At this point we've paid off 90% of the purchase price so I'm certain we have some equity in the home, just not sure how much (and also I doubt we'd be able to sell without a major remodel.)

[MamaSnoo]

I voted lemonade. According to Zillow we are right on the bubble. (Does anyone have other places they like to use to estimate the value currently?).....I guess as long as we keep pre-paying and if prices don't dip more, we may avoid the flood.

[dcmom2b3]

No, thankfully. I could have made a better decision, but was lucky to have locked in my price in '01, moved in in '02 and I still have a chunk of equity now in bad times. I was lucky rather than smart.

[niccig]

We think we would break even, but have nothing to put towards down payment on the next house. We're staying put. DH's work is only here, we really like DS's school that's 15 mins away. We're staying and plan to do some work on the house in next 4-5 years, then stay another 8 or so - DH will be retired and DS in college by then

[bigpassport]

Completely underwater. Taking scuba lessons.


Does anyone have other places they like to use to estimate the value currently?

Eppraisal.com

[kristac]

Eppraisal has us $10k under what we paid for this house 6 years ago- Zillow has us gaining 1k equity. We just had our property taxes reassessed and thier figure is closer to Eppraisal. With our down payment we aren't upsidedown but can't really afford to move either.

Our old house in FL- we sold for double what we payed for it in 5 years (this was 6 years ago)- just looked it up on Eppraisal and it is not even worth what we built it for. :( Ouch. Glad we got out of there when we did.

My parents have lost nearly $500K in equity from the peak. Luckily it is still valued over what they paid for it.