Jennifer P. from Los Angeles, California recently passed on her story to the Panel:

To make a long story short, I've had an extreme hardship the past year and a half.  It started with a loss of my job, then my Grandfather who lived in Northern California had heart, spine and stomach surgery (and serious problems with his caregiver) and I needed to travel up North and help.  Just before this - almost 2 years ago - I had a major amount of money in equity in my house.  Because I wasn't working I decided to do a HELOC loan on my house as a very temporary solution.  Shortly after I did the HELOC loan I decided to take a safer route instead of drawing from the HELOC… I decided to sell my house to get the cash out…  I put my house back on the market to try to sell.  It was not selling so I kept reducing the price.  I used my HELOC money to pay my mortgage.  I used my IRA money to pay my mortgage.  I now know this was not a good idea, but it was not apparent that the housing market would crash this hard when I was in the middle of this, and I didn't have good advice.  I tried for months and months to sell my house, but it was becoming underwater.  I had to do the work myself without a realtor because I could not afford the commission, and the realtors did not want to spend money marketing the house.

I had tried to get my lender to work with me for months to refinance down to a reasonable interest rate (my HELOC was 9.75%), but they would not. I finally had no more HELOC or IRA and had to stop paying my mortgage.  It ruined my credit.  I immediately tried to contact my lender again.  After several months and several times trying they agreed to modify my loans.  I have been in the middle of a modification for months and months now…  I have had to spend so much time dealing with this that it has become almost a full time job. When you're in this situation you just keep thinking…ok, if I can just get through this next little while the market will pick back up again…no one had any idea the extent of the problem…so you just keep holding on…but it doesn't get better, it just keeps getting worse.

I would like to keep my house.  I have lost everything in an attempt to keep it.  My home is so underwater I don't know if it's worth it…  I am currently trying to get back up on my feet, and I could pay a reasonable mortgage if they will work with me and adjust the mortgage to something that makes sense for both of us.