Need advice-owe more than house is worth and want to sell

**karen4books** · 01-06-2011, 09:30 AM

I want to sell my condo and buy a bigger place because I am engaged and my place is really too small. However, I owe $149000 on the mortgage and unfortunately the last condo in my complex sold for $135000 in Oct. and it had a garage-which mine
doesn't. Also there was a foreclosure next to me that sold in April for
$125000. So you can see my problem-I'm under water. I would like to
have a bigger home so I am therefore trying to find creative solutions
to make it happen.That's why I looked into house swapping or trying to
find someone who is having trouble selling their home and wants to
downsize. Does anyone have any advice for me? Do I just need to sit tight and wait for house prices to go up?
Karen

**markbrian** · 01-06-2011, 10:07 AM

What would it rent for? Would the rent cover the payment and other expenses? Can you refinance?

**Chrisopher Moltisanti** · 01-06-2011, 12:22 PM

Exactly, rent it out.
Hire a management company to handle the tenants and collect the rent if you can't.
Or wait the five years for prices to go up.

-CM

**lbartowski** · 01-06-2011, 02:55 PM

1. Get approved for an additional loan for a new home (either on your own, or with your fiance. Must be approved to carry both loans at once), move into your new home, then either rent out or short sell your current home.

2. Get your fiance approved on their own for a mortgage. Move and and short sell or rent your current house.

3. Short sell and rent for 3-5 years. Then buy.

**OClife** · 01-06-2011, 04:29 PM

Rent it out. Work hard to find a rentor, hire management companies to help, craigslist.. anything. Hopefully cover your costs and keep it as an asset or future asset..

It's the only way to make that investment successful quickly IMO. Short selling can help but may not work out for you in the end.

**Greg** · 01-07-2011, 11:07 AM

Another option to consider.

Talk to some lenders and look at some houses to see what the 2 of you can afford together.

Then either keep the condo and rent it out or take out a personal loan for $30-40,000 to cover the loss on your condo and sell the condo at a loss using the loan to make up the difference. See if you can afford the small loan payments added onto to the new house payments.

A short sale will ruin your credit.

**realestategirl** · 01-08-2011, 09:54 PM

That would depend on how soon you need to relocate. Waiting for a buyer could take forever as condo's are not as in demand as houses and Short sales have a tricky approval process. If you are short in time, renting it out or doing a house trade is a good option.

**Yballe55** · 01-10-2011, 10:06 PM

That's a big problem. Since you don't want to decrease the price of your condo, maybe try to contact buyers which are in different places so that they don't know how your neighbor sold its house in lower than you expected.

**flatfeemls** · 01-11-2011, 09:21 AM

You can try an MLS listing company to list your home for a flat fee. That might help you save the 10K. Here is a link that has a lot of different flat fee companies that might be able to help.

They list all of the local brokers who are willing to sell your house at 0 % commission.

**Jonathan Radford** · 01-19-2011, 06:21 AM

The answer to your question will depend on many different factors, including: how immediately you need to move, your financial capacity, and the amount of time/effort you are willing to dedicate to this. If you have the ability, I would recommend renting it out, as it will likely be the alternative that is most friendly to your finances.