are you upside down on your house?

[asmom]

How much of a down payment did you have when you bought?

Right if you bought in 1998 and paid off 13 years it should be half paid off right? Halfway through the mortgage? And you bought before the rise in prices?

We didn't. We have a VA loan. Currrent estimate is about 30% less than purchase price, that's 55% down from the peak which occurred about 7 years after we bought. Our zip code was one of the top foreclosure zip codes in the nation, yippee.

At least we can swing the mortgage on only one paycheck. In fact, monthly payments are down to about 7% of our combined income so that reduces the sting quite a bit.

[photo]

I own 100% of my house, which has more than doubled since its purchase over 20 years ago.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Right if you bought in 1998 and paid off 13 years it should be half paid off right? Halfway through the mortgage? And you bought before the rise in prices?

[disneysteve]

We are upside down. We bought in 1998 well before the peak. We never missed a payment, had a fixed rate from the beginning, have not borrowed against our home.

How much of a down payment did you have when you bought?

[asmom]

We are upside down. We bought in 1998 well before the peak. We never missed a payment, had a fixed rate from the beginning, have not borrowed against our home. Yet, we are upside down because everyone else did the exact opposite of what we did. Therefore when they lost their homes, values plummeted including ours. That's the way it goes. 13 years in and this! At least home prices appear to have stabilized and a couple of homes in our neighborhood have actually sold in the past few months so that's a positive. We will probably be right side up again in about 3 years. We weren't planning on going anywhere anyway.

[Petunia 100]

this forum is probably a bad place to conduct this poll, what would the numbers be it i were to hang out in front of walmart?

Agreed. If you hung out anywhere in my town and asked this same question, you would get very different results. Home prices in my town have fallen 70% from the peak in 3rd quarter 2006.

[97guns]

this forum is probably a bad place to conduct this poll, what would the numbers be it i were to hang out in front of walmart?

[feh]

just curious, out of a dozen or so people i know that own houses a good 1/2 of them are upside down on them and the sad part is that 3 of them have been in their houses for over 25 years. they used their house like an ATM when it was peaking when they should be cruising to retirement right now.

Our neighbors did the same thing - bought their home in '92. Walked away from it last year. I can only assume they had multiple mortgages. It's inconceivable to me that somebody could be upside down on a house after 20 years.

We bought our current home in '07 for cash.

[Snodog]

Bought our home in 1997, paid $60,000 and put $4,000 down. We currently owe $35,000 and home is worth $145,000.

[JuniorTT]

We bought in 2004 for about $296k with about 10% down. Made pretty aggressive payments along the way and finally paid it off in full this August. I think the current value is around $265k. So we're way in the black but I sometimes wonder about co-workers and neighbors.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Bought $575k, got cash back from seller about $15k for repairs, put down 20%, owe $410k on it, could sell for $549k easily probably what we bought it for or more. Prices where we live are high because of school district.

[Ima saver]

I bought my first house when I was 21. I paid it off when I was 32. I have built two houses since then, paying cash for both of them. My house is valued at about $500,000, I live on two acres with 500 feet of creek frontage. I have never even had an ATM card and neither has my husband.

[PRICEPLUS]

Never looked at home as an ATM. Out of debt, out of danger. Paid in full s the mortgage goes.

[MonkeyMama]

To clarify - we bought for about $300k in 2001, put $70k down, and owe $200k today. Home is probably worth $250k.

I wanted to clarify that I think it is a miracle that we are not upside down - LOTS of foreign investors swooping in to buy foreclosed homes. So though the foreclosure rate is very high here, home prices have held pretty steady for a very long time, through it all. I realize I could very easily be upside down on my home, even not partaking in all of the extreme fiscal irresponsibility that was so common in my city.

[Petunia 100]

I am very upside down. I bought a foreclosure in 2007 for 231,400 with 20% down, plus I immediately put money into the house. Cosmetic repairs, painting, new flooring, new light fixtures, new wooden baseboards, new wooden shelves in closets, general clean-up. When I refinanced in March 2008 (for a lower interest rate) my house appraised at 250k. Now Zillow estimates it is worth 122k. I believe that is more or less accurate. I owe 180k.

I may refinance again under the new HARP rules, if the loan terms are attractive.