I Lost My House: How My Dream Turned Into a Nightmare

I couldn't believe the day had finally arrived. After 44 years of renting, my family and I were finally buying a home. Me, of all people, owning a piece of the American dream. I felt about 20-feet tall that day, full of pride and accomplishment. Little did I know that 6 years later my dream would become a nightmare, and my world would come crashing down.

My Realtor was the most helpful person I had ever met. He walked me through all of the financial and legal aspects of buying my home. I later realized that he also made three thousand dollars on my transaction. So did the Realtor of the seller. They also were living their American dream.

Moving in day had finally arrived, and we anxiously waited for the final OK to move on in. It took us about 4 minutes to arrive at our new home, built in 1880 by the way. Our mortgage, with real estate taxes and insurance included, was only $779 a month. Not bad, very doable. But we didn't anticipate the struggle we were about to go through. It started with our first water and sewer bill, which was 3 times the amount we had estimated. My first experience as a new home owner dealing with a town water department was not pleasant. After they came in and pointed out my leaky faucets, running toilet, etc; I thanked them and quietly wondered how I was going to pay for those repairs.

Months passed, and we struggled with all of the homeowner hidden expenses, such as rubbish removal, oil payment plans, and buying all of the tools I never had to own before. We quickly realized that we may have already been over our heads, but we loved the place. I used to proclaim that I indeed, was king of the world, every time I mowed my own lawn. My wife knew that I enjoyed every second of being a home owner. I would never give that up.

Just when we thought we were doing fine, our first mortgage payment was sent in late. They wouldn't throw a fit, right? After all, they were a big, multi-million dollar bank, why would they worry about a late payment or two? One thing led to another, and by end of year one I got the "Pay us, or else" phone call. We managed to scape together enough to pay, but after begging and borrowing from everyone in the world, I wasn't 20 feet tall anymore. We cursed our mortgage company over and over, and then the phone calls began. I think every refinance company in the U.S had my name and number, and I was dumbfounded that they all wanted to talk to me. It seems I now had equity in my home, and I could use it.

For the next 3 years i used my house like a gigantic piggy bank. It was easy, just sign away, and get thousands of dollars in my pocket. I had never had more than $100.00 in my bank account, so thousands seemed very nice. We made ourselves feel better, and less guilty, about taking the "free" money and using it to fix up the old house. After all, the more work I did to it, as I was told, the more it would be worth. What a fun game this was! I had money in my pocket, my house looked better every day, and nothing was going to stop me now. I even had a bank lend me $25,000.00, with just a couple of phone calls! I couldn't get a single credit card in my name, but who needed one with all of the money being thrown at me?

Then the wild ride finally came to an end. My 2 mortgages came up to around $1,900.00 a month. We got into trouble with late payments, and the nice, friendly people who were happy to lend me the money got mean. I was out of work for 3 months with a health problem, and the decline came quickly. The only way out was to refinance one more time. Not only was the first mortgage company OK with that, they were even going to let me get enough money for a new roof. That was mandatory by the way, but I didn't mind. The nice 2nd bank said no to that, and for the first time they were quick to tell me that they were some kind of HUD bank, and the government would be very mad at me if I defaulted. When I asked them how anyone would win if they didn't approve my final loan, the answer was simple. They really didn't care.

Not only was my American dream of owning a home shattered to bits, but my government was mad at me too! My family and I moved out of our dream house, and got an apartment. I was devastated, to say the least That was 13 months ago. To this day, my home sits exactly how I left it, empty and cold. We ended up moving in with some friends of ours, and 6 months later, they lost that home too. I'm not sure how many cold, empty houses there are in my county, but it all seems a little silly to me. Maybe we all could have paid the foreclosure places rent to stay right where we were to begin with. So much for my big piggy bank!!