Posted on July 14th, 2010 by
Dan S.
I wrote about our 80/20 arm mortgage problems about a year or so ago. This post is a follow up to that article. We got in over our heads with that whole deal I will admit and I thought it wasnt going to end well. However, we were able to avoid a foreclosure, get out from under the house and came out with little to no damage to our credit. So I thought I would share the story in hopes to maybe help someone else in our situation. We did a lot of research on the matter and after wading through all of the debt negotiators, the supossed stimulus options and various other dead ends we learned about something called a short sale. So we contacted the relators that pretty much got us into the whole mess and put them to work on it. After about 6 months of squabbling back and forth with the bank, countless people barging in to look at our house and a gauntlet of paper work we were able to successfully complete the short sale. It is not an easy thing to do and you have to remain persissant with the bank because you are asking them to basically take way less for the house than you were supposed to pay, but it is well worth it in the end. We are back to renting now, but walked away with a life lesson and a much better understanding about mortgages. The biggest lesson being DO NOT get into an 80/20 arm loan.
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Posted on November 2nd, 2008 by
Dan S.
Well, with Halloween over now I guess we are officially into the holiday season. So how is the video game battle shapping up for this Christmas? Will there be lines of campers outside the stores this year for that special hard to find game or game system? We have did a little digging to come up with the top 5 must have video games and game systems for Christmas 2008. Starting with the ever popular Nintendo Wii game system. This has been a hot seller since its release Christmas 2006. It is showing signs of being the must have system this year again too. To avoid paying a premium price or having to camp out for one 2 days before Christmas, buy early. The systems are not impossible to get right now. Just be at Toys R Us,Target,Best Buy or Wal-mart early in the morning and you should be able to score one. Next on the list would be the Wii Fit exercise game that came out this past summer. They have been selling like wildfire since they were released, but I have been noticing them more often on the shelves this past month. Especially at Wal-Mart early in the mornings, but buy early with this item as well just in case. The other 3 hot items are all music video games. You have Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band 2 out just in time for Christmas. These are both highly popular games, but I wouldnt worry about finding on them on the shelves. They are sure to be around. The last one might be kinda tough just because it is the latest Nintendo Wii game release. It is called Wii Music, and it is supposed to give the other 2 music games a run for their money this holiday shopping season. If the Wii and the Wii Fit are any indacator I would suggest to buy early for sure on this one. For more time and money saving tips please keep up with myvideo game blog @ www.PlaystationMoveBlog.com
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Posted on October 30th, 2008 by
Dan S.
Have you ordered a pizza lately? Did you notice the $2.50 delivery charge, and automaticaly assume that was going to the driver? Maybe you even decided not to tip because of it. It happens all the time, but I am here to clarify to the world how it really goes down. I work at a pizza delivery establishment, we will call them Pizza shack, and run into this all the time. The customer sees the delivery charge and asks if we see any of it. The fact is the driver only gets a portion of the fee. It started out as a $1.00 fee and at that time drivers were getting .50 cents per delivery. Then it went to a $1.50 fee and drivers were getting between .50-.75 per delivery. Now it has gone to a $2.50 fee and drivers are getting between .90 and 1.05 per delivery. It is just the companies attempt to raise prices without the customer noticing. Unfortunately it is costing their employees in their nightly tip money. Why do they even need part of the fee? Pizza guys use their own gas and wear and tear their own vehicles. It is just like the car topper issue. They want you to use them, even make it mandatory, yet they dont want to pay you anything extra. They just want the driver to get put at greater robbery , accident and ticket risk so they can get that free advertising out of them. So remember next time you have a pizza delivered, you gotta hook the pizza man up, because his company is not.
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Posted on October 29th, 2008 by
Dan S.
First time home buyers beware of the 82/20 Arm loan. It is a foreclosure trap. Please use our mistakes to your advantage. All I ever heard the whole 10 years we were renting was how we were just throwing our money away, but buying a house isnt all it is cracked up to be either. This the the story about how 2 years ago I regretfully talked my wife into buying our first home. I made the mistake of mentioning to a real estate agent that I was doing work for, that we were thinking about buying a house. Before I could even get the words out completely, he was shoving an available homes list in my face. He started to go into his whole pitch about how renting was a waste of money, homes only go up in value,how easy it was to refinance or even sell and move to a better house. Then he assured me that he could with out a doubt, get us in. So armed with all of the B.S. he had just filled me up with, I headed home that night to talk the wife into it. Reluctantly after a night and most of the next day of my badgering she agreed. The next day we were off house hunting. We searched for over a month with the wife trying to back out of the whole deal a few times through out. Finally, I found something in our range that peaked her interest. After the gauntlet of inspections, at our cost, and breaking it to our daughters that they would have to change schools, we agreed to put in an offer. The seller seemed to jump at the offer and we were headed to financing and then closing. This is where I suggest to never use a real estate agent, except to get you inside to see the house, and definately never use his financing guy if you do use the agent. When we were in financing, to their surprise we couldnt qualify for a 30 year fixed rate loan. The only way they could get us in was an 80/20 Adjustable Rate Mortgage(or arm). My wife and I were confused, and almost walked out right then, but with our head in the clouds about being home owners, our exhaustion from the whole ordeal and the thought of comming all that way and spending all of that time and money for nothing we signed it. We didnt even know what we had gotten into. It ended up being an 80/20 ARM Mortgage with a baloon payment in 2 years. If all that isnt bad enough I decided to try my own lawncare business this year of all years. Needless to say with the up and down economy this year it hasnt went well. So now here we sit 2 years down the road with our home in foreclosure no money to move and nothing but a handful of lies and empty promises from our realator and lender. I cant even bring myself to tell the kids we have to move again, and my wife pretty much hates me at this point. I cant help but wonder where is our bail out?
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Posted on October 29th, 2008 by
Dan S.
What is going to be the item that people are flocking for this Christmas? Is the economy going to keep people from splurging for that hot and hard to find item? Or is it the fact that everything is same old same old this year? I usually am one of the people standing in line to get that hard to find item so I can run home to put it on Ebay, but due to their overly high fees and shady practices I am no longer selling on their site. So I can sit back this year and just observe and report what I see, and so far I havent seen anything. The Elmo live has been a big let down for sellers from what I have seen, but what can you expect when a new version comes out every other year. Not to mention it is the highest price ever at roughly $60.00. The Nintendo Wii is still selling strong, but they are getting pretty easy to find and the demand is not quite as great so I dont think they will be fetching premium prices this holiday season. The Wii Fit exercise game that came out over the summer on the other hand still has a chance. They are still steadily fetching $20-30.00 over what they cost at the store. So there is a chance they will get scarce and might get up around $150.00 or so after Thanksgiving when the shopping season officially kicks off. I have also noticed the Disney Cars new diecast collection has released and as usual some of them are fetching a higher price right now, but if you just wait they will come down as quick as they went up. I did run across and item that showed potential in my searches. It was something called “Kipper the talking dog”. I only found one on Ebay and it was sitting at $76.00. There were some other people that had put up the beanie version, but it wasnt fetching as much. So keep an eye out for that one. The bottom line I guess would be that this Christmas shopping season you may as well save your time and energy and shop from the comfort of home online. If you start now you will have a greater chance of getting that hard to find item, and waiting for shipping wont be a problem!!
Tags: for sale, christmas shopping, christmas
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