Expert: Ray Beggs - 5/5/2007

Question
Hello, my questions is should my husband and I keep our townhouse or take a short sale and sale it? We are first time home buyers and we bought our first home in 05 a townhouse. We lived in it for only 8 months and than my husband got orders he's in the military. It really didn't leave us with much time to sale it or really put a lot of time into the home. We're paying rent where we live now and paying a mortgage, we do have reliable tenants in there now, but it doesn't cover most of the expense. It's hard on us financially and we want to sale it, but in order to do that they say we should do a short sale, but we have good credit and haven't been late. We are upside down when it comes to the house. We can't refi because there is no equity because of the down fall of the market. And our interest only loan changes next year and were trying to take control before it's to late.What to do, what would you suggest? Our home is SoCal.

Answer
Hi La Tanya,

First off, thank you to your and husband for serving in the armed forces. In my opinion, I would try to get the home sold. If you're going negative every month AND you've got an interest rate change coming next year, I don't see the situation getting any better in the near future. One thing that you can do is to ask your Realtor to take a break on the commission and also negotiate with all of the companies, when the house is in escrow, to give you a discount on their fees. After all, you just paid all of these fees in 2005.

Best of luck to you,


Ray