Time Marches On

Posted on April 17, 2010 by Cooler By A Mile

Phoned WaMu on March 6, 2009 at 9:00 am and spoke with Juan C. Per Juan, “WaMu is hiring and training people. They are getting about 150 requests a day. As of today’s date it has not yet been assigned.”  Juan estimated it would be reviewed by Friday 3/13/09 and suggested I call back then.

Phoned WaMu on March 13, 2009 at 9:20 am and spoke with Margie. Per Margie, it’s “going to be a 97-day turnaround from when the negotiator gets it” and it “should have been assigned.” Margie confirmed that nothing appeared to be missing and could not understand why it hadn’t been assigned; she then gave me a priority number to fax in my 34-page packet, even though it had been received already. When I asked her what a reasonable time frame was to follow-up, she said they would contact me within 48 hours and reconfirmed my cell phone number.

Faxed WaMu on March 13, 2009 the 34-page packet.

48 hours elapsed with no calls from WaMu.

Phoned WaMu on March 13, 2009 at 8:50 am and spoke with Kathy. The paperwork had been received on March 16, 2009 and forwarded to an “opener”. It goes to an opener first and is then assigned to a negotiator; that can take up to seven days (3/26/09). I pressed Kathy on what happened to my original submission, the one I mailed in, because we were losing time and each day counted; she said she would open up a Work Order for the original submission and indicated that once the Work Order was opened, they would contact me within 48 hours. Kathy said the whole process should take 30 to 60 days and that they were averaging 66 days.

48 hours elapsed with no calls from WaMu.

Phoned WaMu March 20, 2009 at 10:00 am and spoke with Kristen. Per Kristen, “on March 16, 2009, the packet was forwarded to C. H.” (an opener) for research and to be assigned. “Escalation is looking into what happened to the 2/24/09 submission.” I will either get a phone call or a letter in the mail regarding more info needed or that they are working on it. Kristen suggested calling in 3/31/09 to follow-up.

March ended with no calls from WaMu.

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Inside The Box

Posted on April 16, 2010 by Cooler By A Mile

Please explain:

In May 2008 my salary was reduced by 50%. I have supplemented my income with freelance work but am unable to obtain full-time employment at my original salary or supplement enough to reach my original salary and honor my mortgage obligation.

I continue to seek full-time employment at my old salary without success.

I am only able to make payments by using savings; those savings will soon be depleted.

I seek a reduction in interest and a modification to a fixed 30-year mortgage. This will enable me time to obtain higher-paying employment and allow my savings to last longer to meet my mortgage obligation. I have no desire to sell my home.  

I moved on to Number 10. “Would you prefer to keep your home or sell it?” I checked Keep my home.  Number 12. “Do you have any other loans on the home?” I checked No. I completed the remainder of the form, painting the best possible picture about how much my home was worth, how little I owed relative to its value and how frugally I lived. Then I gathered the requisite paperwork (a full 34 pages) and headed out to make copies and send my application by Certified Mail to WaMu Home Preservation. It was February 18, 2009.

On February 24, 2009 I phoned WaMu. The packet had been received. A file would be created, reviewed and checked for missing items. Then, a processor would be assigned. I was advised to call back in 7-10 days.

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Chase the WaMu Bait & Switch

Posted on April 15, 2010 by Cooler By A Mile

Even as I signed the modification with Washington Mutual I felt niggling questions…why was the payment so high? Over $6600.00 a month is an awful lot of money, but I guess that’s what I needed to pay to clean-up the negative amortization and improve my credit rating.

And we all know your credit rating is almost as precious as your virginity – it must be kept intact.

So pay I did. I paid the February and March payment not only on time, but added in extra money towards the principal. I was making decent money in my new job and aside from this mortgage, my expenses were minimal. I could actually see the loan amount getting smaller. This was a good thing. Of course all good things come to an end, although the end was more abrupt than anything I could have imagined. On March 25, 2008, my new employers informed me they had radically underestimated the operating expenses for the business and they simply could not afford to pay me, the sole employee other than a part-time clerical person, the salary I’d been promised. Effective immediately they needed to implement a 50% salary reduction. I’d been paid for March and had thirty vacation days, so I could get paid another month at full salary but after that, as of May 2008, my salary was cut in half. Not a wage freeze or a 10% or 20% reduction, but a 50% salary reduction.

With only six months in the job I knew if I started a full-on job search people would think I’d done something wrong and that I was a job-hopper or a problem employee. Not good. I had to suck it up, at least until September 2008, when, with a full year on my resume, it wouldn’t look so bad to seek a new job. I had some non-retirement savings, about $60,000, having sold a second home, so what I could do each month was supplement my reduced earnings by dipping into the savings, thus keeping the mortgage current, continuing to reduce the principal and improving my credit rating. And it actually worked, for a while. I took on more freelance work and in order to keep everything going, rented my home again for a summer month and even took in guests while I was in residence.

In September 2008 my official job search began, and I joined the ranks of countless 50+ year-old baby boomers seeking a senior-level, high-paying job. Something else happened in September 2008:

WaMu Assets Sold to JPMorgan in Record Bank Failure  

Sept. 26, 2008 (Bloomberg) — Washington Mutual Inc. was seized by government regulators and its branches and assets sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co. in the biggest U.S. bank failure in history.

WaMu became “unsound” after customers withdrew $16.7 billion since Sept. 16, the Office of Thrift Supervision said yesterday. Branches are open today and depositors have full access to their accounts, Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., said.

The failure of WaMu, which has $188 billion in Deposits, ratchets up pressure on lawmakers to piece together a rescue package for the nation’s financial system. The government’s inability yesterday to reach agreement on a bailout and the seizure of the biggest savings and loan sparked a sell-off of bank stocks, led by a 27 percent tumble in Wachovia Corp…

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Barn-raising

Posted on April 13, 2010 by Cooler By A Mile

Welcome to my world. At the moment it is very small and focused on only one thing – keeping my home. It used to be a much bigger world, especially back in the 90s when finally, after working since the age of sixteen and saving virtually every penny earned, I was able to achieve my dream of having a house “down the shore”. Even that was not as neat and orderly as it sounds; as in so many stories, there were twists and turns along the way.

I wanted to buy an old house, not build one, but after searching for years, writing letters and even knocking on doors of the remaining bay front homes still rich with character and charm, it became obvious the last ones standing were much-loved and not for sale. In 1998 I bought a 60’ x 110’ plot of land in New Jersey on the seven-mile barrier island shared by Avalon & Stone Harbor, a plot on which there had never been a house. For a while I tried to move an old cottage onto the lot, but cottages were few and far between and the lot had two beautiful trees that would need to go in the face of a house, even a small cottage, being dropped on site.

My next idea was to hire an architect to re-interpret and design for me a riff on a Craftsman bungalow I’d rented for several years, a real charmer with porches and gables and knee walls. The architect and a very capable builder were hired and we were good to go – until I lost my high-paying job of eleven years. Sitting at home stewing and reading newspapers, I tried to figure out what to do next in my life. While perusing the classifieds in a local paper I saw an auction ad – it included two barns that were to be dismantled and moved in order to clear the land. I went to the auction preview toying with the notion of buying one of the barns, dismantling it and moving it to my lot on the bay. My architect and builder were called in to review and endorse this idea; instead they politely pointed out the barns were termite-ridden and if I really wanted a barn, they could build something designed to withstand salt water and bay front weather.

A barn was sketched on a cocktail napkin, turned over to the architect for engineering plans and off we went. As the house took shape, I developed a concept that evolved with the construction: somewhere there was a “big house” owned by a moderately well-to-do family living in the 50s and 60s, and as they improved the big house, the cast-offs were relegated to the barn. Things like a cast iron skirted tub from the 20s, a GE monitor-top refrigerator from the 30s and a Chambers range from the 40s. Each of these components and many more vintage features were integrated into the home, with a master carpenter on-premises for over a year. I went to San Francisco for another big job, flying home on weekends to supervise construction of my beautiful barn, leaving post-it notes and books filled with barn details and other inspiration scattered amongst the construction. The house was completed in May, 2000 to critical acclaim. It is not reflective of the McMansion style of building overtaking Avalon and Stone Harbor.

The house was featured as the cover story in the September-October 2001 issue of Coastal Living magazine. It was also featured in The Avalon Garden Club Tour of Homes in September 2001.  

In 2006, the house was included in the book Island Living by Linda Leigh Paul. Island Living was published by Universe Publishing, a Division of Rizzoli International Publications, Inc. 

In July, 2008, the house was part of the Jewels of the Island Avalon Yacht Club Auxiliary 12th Annual House Tour and Luncheon.

The footprint of my home is 19.5 ft. x 30.0 ft. The house sits on pilings 11 ft. above ground atop a 360 degree deck. The first floor features a galley kitchen, an open living/dining area and the bathroom. The second floor consists of two bedrooms.

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