WHAT TO DO.......????

[skifinnatic]

Ok....here's my story....35 yo male with 30 yo wife, 3 kids, ages 6,4, and 2. I make $110,00/year, my mortgage balance is $600,000, my house is worth $525,000. Neadless to say I'm upside down. My goal before the housing market tanked was to use my equity to purchase my live aboard and then sell the house. I DO NOT WANT TO GET LANDLOCKED in my house. I want to get out on the water with my family. I feel stuck now.....any suggestions????

[Pblais]

You need a new plan. You need a plan that addresses your whole family in a way that actually works. Your financial setbacks need to be worked through into a new plan. You have a surplus of desire and a shortage of means to make it happen.

There are many ways to "get out on the water".

[skifinnatic]

Well....that's what i'm looking for...a "new plan".....would it be better to buy my boat now, and walk away from my house, letting it foreclose?? If I walked away from my house before i bought the boat, my credit score gets dinged, and hence, cannot buy boat. I could buy boat, move family aboard, and walk away from the house.??

[amytom]

Sit tight. Foreclosure just adds to everyone's problems. Houses in Southern CA will come back. You might have to wait a while but when it does make your escape then. You only loose the money when you sell.

[psteele235]

Start with assessing your responsibilities to provide for the wife and kids. IMHO you need to keep the job - with all the layoffs finding another will be 100 times more difficult than keeping what you have and presumably the job brings benefits as well as income - and see the housing downturn out.

Meanwhile buy a dinghy, teach the kids how to sail and save as much as you can.

In a few years, hopefully, your home will be worth more than the mortgage and you will have a stronger, competent crew.

Best of luck!

[Southern Star]

If you allow them to foreclose on your house, they will be able to sue to collect on any shortfall on resale from the value of the mortgage. In short, they will end up with your boat as well as your house. You're young and, while it does not seem like it now, things will turn around.

Brad

[Connemara]

Assuming your income is enuf to cover the mortgage payments, sit tight. You've already put some money into the house. Why would you throw that away?

Buy a small boat to play with until things get better and you can afford a bigger one.

If you're really jonesing to cruise, think about leasing your house for enuf to cover the payments and few bucks for income stream.

Connemara

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by skifinnatic

I feel stuck now.....any suggestions????

Yes - Don't get financial advice from the internet...

It sucks but you are kinda are stuck for a while. My brother rents a boat from Bluewater sailing once a month for a couple hundred bucks and keeps the jonesing in check.

He also bought a dinghy and launches it in Long Beach and Puddingstone.

Work on the 10 year plan not the 1 year plan.

[Tellie]

Here's the right financial advice. If you owe someone, pay them, and impress a great personal responsibility lesson on your three kids who look up to you.

[S/V Antares]

75K down on the mortgage is less than 15% so you can bet in So Cal these things go up and down by twice that. Bail when you can sell the house without dipping in your pocket and then downsize. Get the kids involved with a local sailing club. It will be a few years but you have the luxury of youth. in my youth I sailed more when I did not have a boat! Lots of people looking for crew.

"Endevor to persevere" Chief Dan George

[sandy daugherty]

You dream of escape. Re-examine what you are running from. Make it just a stepping stone, a role you have to play. Play it well! Suspend judgement of whoever makes it most painful; re-write the rules to read "I win when I can do this without taking it home with me." Decide that there is a certain intersection or stoplight that marks the physical boundary between thinking about work and enjoying the things in life work made possible. Do this for four years, till the youngest is semi-self-tending. Teach the kids to swim and sail and love the water. Read them stories of sea-going adventure. Cherish the wife, and don't spend any time at work dreaming about (or web crawling) a life at ease. Convince Ceasar you are rendering everything he's paying for. After four years you will be back on top of your mortgage, making more money, and able to make non-catastrophic choices. The rest of the family might also be pumped for a long voyage!

[imagine2frolic]

If you can afford to buy the boat. Why don't you use that extra money towards your debt? 35 is just a kid! There's plenty of time to get the dream working. Nobody is promised life is easy!

[skifinnatic]

Originally Posted by imagine2frolic

If you can afford to buy the boat. Why don't you use that extra money towards your debt? 35 is just a kid! There's plenty of time to get the dream working. Nobody is promised life is easy!

Well, i wouldn't pay cash for the boat, The idea was to move aboard and start making payments on the boat till the boat is paid off. And i'm not running from anything. I just want to get out on the ocean for awhile.

[imagine2frolic]

This is the kind of thinking that has gotten America in the mess it's in.....I JUST WANT. Many of us here are putting plans on hold. The economy is the reason. It would be a mess for you if there was an IRS agent as a member here, or even a banker that holds your mortgage. Not very sound thinking at all.

I feel for you being upside down. I could have left for good 3 years ago, but my wife wanted to hang onto the house a while longer. I was retired, and now I am back to work. Many of us have put things on hold. BEST WISHES in getting the mess sorted out. You aren't alone.....i2f

[skifinnatic]

Originally Posted by imagine2frolic

This is the kind of thinking that has gotten America in the mess it's in.....I JUST WANT. Many of us here are putting plans on hold. The economy is the reason. It would be a mess for you if there was an IRS agent as a member here, or even a banker that holds your mortgage. Not very sound thinking at all.

I feel for you being upside down. I could have left for good 3 years ago, but my wife wanted to hang onto the house a while longer. I was retired, and now I am back to work. Many of us have put things on hold. BEST WISHES in getting the mess sorted out. You aren't alone.....i2f

i2f,
First of all, I am not one of "those Americans." I've served my country in the United States Marine Corps. I've worked hard all my life, starting at the age of 14 bussing tables. I don't have my hand out to the government. I believe in hard work. It's just very frustrating that I see the people doing it right (me) paying my mortgage on time. Is the governement helping me out??? No, they're lowering the principal balances of mortgages of people that aren't doing it right. Once again, the good get punished. IT"S GETTING OLD!!!!