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Is it worth it to keep our home?

Bought our 1100 sq. ft. house in early '06, paid $225K which was reasonable at the time. We were happy and a year later we were offered a home equity loan which we took to make some improvements and pay off our car, etc. That's when the market went to hell and now a few years later here we are bankrupt but still have the house. The value now is, according to zillow.com $150K

I know to most it'll be easy to reply "Lose the house" but in my mind I know we will never be able to afford another house and that's why I'm clinging to this one even if we're upside down and going through bankruptcy to clear the equity loan and other things while keeping the house.

Is this the biggest mistake ever?? Or is my reasoning acceptable?

1 Answer

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  • 9 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    If you can afford to make the monthly mortgage payments the best thing to do is always try to keep your house. Yes, house values have gone way down. But real estate prices always go thru cycles. If you can hold on to your house a few more years the value will start going up again. You just have to hold on,cut your expenses where ever you can and pay the mortgage every month ON TIME.

    As you know filing for bankruptcy does NOT discharge your mortgage and in most case will not discharge a home equity loan.

    NEVER take out a home equity loan (especially one that is "offered" to you) unless your house is almost paid off and you have plenty of savings. Look what happened to you when you got a home equity loan.

    If you can't pay cash for something,then don't buy it.

    Good luck.Things will get better.

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