Breaking Up is Hard to Do

My pal Rachel at CitiMortgage, who was no longer my agent and supposedly had nothing to do with my loan mod anymore, sent me a letter saying I had been rejected for a HAMP loan modification because of Excessive Forbearance.  (see Jerky Jargon & the Secret Meanings to learn about Excessive Forbearance)

I’m quoting the reject letter here:

“We are unable to offer you a Home Affordable Modification because we are unable to create an affordable payment equal to 31 % of your reported monthly gross income without changing the terms of your loan beyond the requirements of the program.”

The key words are, “BEYOND THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE PROGRAM.”

In other words, the bank could choose to be nice and give me a loan mod, but they aren’t REQUIRED to do so. It’s their decision. And if they think it might not serve their investors well to give me a loan mod, they don’t have to.

Hey greedy investors, guess what?

It’s like the old song, “The knee bone’s connected to the thigh bone… the thigh bone’s connected to the hip bone…”

Freddie Mac loan modification policies are connected to my ability to spend money…my ability to spend money is connected to jobs and consumerism in America…

If I got a loan modification, I would have an extra $700 in discretionary income every month. I could afford to buy a new refrigerator, and then the appliance store could afford to get more inventory and hire more sales people.

I could afford to hire a painter to paint my peeling house, and then the painter could afford to buy his girlfriend a slutty pair of high heels that he’s so fond of.

I could save up for a facelift, and then the plastic surgeon might decide I don’t look so bad after all and take me out on an expensive date. Or maybe not…

You get my drift. Freddie Mac and its refusal to give loan modifications is killing jobs in this country. If only eight percent of the people who apply for loan mods get them, then 92 percent are holed up in their homes, trying to fight off foreclosure. They’re squeezing every dime they have and diving under the couch cushions, looking for spare change they can offer to the lawyer they’ll have to pay for the foreclosure proceedings.

Trust me, I know a thing or two about penny-pinching. At one point in this process, when I was still trying to keep up with my mortgage payments, I resolved I wouldn’t buy any groceries for a month; I would simply live off the food I had lurking on hard-to-reach kitchen cupboards and the bottom rack of my refrigerator door.

I became a frugal foodie, and invented such delicacies as the Bacon Crumble Swirl: Take old bacon bits, sprinkle them on a stale potato chip and drizzle with Log Cabin syrup. It makes a great late night snack and also satisfies three of the four food groups so necessary for people fighting off foreclosure: sweet, salt, fat and 86-proof.

But I digress.

I called Aisha to see what was up with the letter from Rachel. I thought Rachel and I had broken up long ago.

Aisha didn’t answer the phone so I talked to someone else in her department.

“It’s just a form letter, automatically generated,” said the Aisha clone.

“Then may I please speak to Rachel? I have questions about this ten-page letter,” I asked, very politely. I gave her Rachel’s phone number and extension, to be helpful.

“I’ve never heard of Rachel. I don’t know of this phone number. Are you sure the letter was sent on CitiMortgage letterhead?” she asked.

“I am positive. I have spoken with Rachel, but it’s been awhile. We’re not going steady anymore, we’ve sort of drifted apart... You know how it goes. So can you transfer me?”

“No. It doesn’t matter anyway, it’s an automated letter. You have not been rejected. Your loan mod request is still at Freddie Mac. We are still waiting for their approval.”

I felt encouraged that she said they were waiting “for approval.” It made it sound like they had some inside knowledge that I’d be approved this time.

The Aisha clone told me to ignore Rachel’s form letter, which I didn’t do. It was the most thorough letter I’d ever gotten from CitiMortgage, and I figured it had at least some valuable morsels of information somewhere in the wordy, technical pages.

As I read it, I discovered they had incorrectly listed my monthly income as being $1,000 less per month than I had reported. Mistake Number One.

It also said I owed $24,000 on my mortgage than I really did owe. Mistake Number Two.

It also said my house was worth $59,000 less than Zillow.com says it’s worth. Mistake Number Three.

The letter said I had 30 days from the date of the letter to correct the errors and request an appraisal for my home if I thought their calculated value was incorrect. Of course, I had to pay for the appraisal up front.

I’m going to call Rachel soon, to see if I can straighten any of this out, and to see if it really matters anymore.

It’s like the breaking-up process with a lover. It’s probably over, and you know it, but you can’t help yourself. You ask the soon-to-be ex, “But what if I’d talked to you more over breakfast? Would that have helped? If I’d cooked your mother’s lasagna recipe more often, would you have been happier?”

It’s a pointless exercise in “Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda,” and it serves no purpose except perhaps, to learn what you should do in the future with your next mate, to keep that person happy. I hope my next mate at CitiMortgage appreciates all my efforts to make him or her happy so they’ll give me the damn loan modification.