Day 82: Reported

Credit Score: 653

Phone calls: 12

Emails: 3

Paper: 12

Just like at a restaurant, someone goes to the bathroom and the food arrives. I go out of town for a few days, and finally get reported to the credit agencies on Day 77. I now have 131 on-time payments and 132 total payments on my entire credit report. So perhaps I've only been reported for being 30 days late, not 90 like I technically am. It was a nice, big, 60-point wallop either way.

I've also been upgraded to non-automated voicemails. I got my first real person calling recently. We also got our first in-person paper delivery a while ago, but I neglected to mention. There was a small envelope on our door knob one day with a template paper for leaving messages. Blank lines to fill in subject, phone number, and the receiver's name. It was odd to get a hand-written message on the door telling me to call "the bank" concerning "your mortgage". Awkward... They know where I live!

Day 69: Power of Information!

Credit Score: 710
Phone calls: 11
Emails: 2
Paper: 8

The Seattle Weekly news article about us was published today! You can find it here. Cory and I met with Nina Shapiro a few weeks ago when our lawyer mentioned she was looking for people to talk to about strategic defaults. I was cautioned by pretty much everyone that I shouldn't put any more "out there", that talking about defaulting on a blog was already tempting fate enough. Be it wise or not, I like to share when I've found something particularly difficult in hopes that other people won't have to deal with the same issues as me. Any exposure does raise my risk of getting sued by the bank, but that just sounds so unlikely.

Fun that we're even the story opener. :) Nice talking with you, Nina!

I did actually make some progress in non-newsworthy ways over the last couple days. I was confused back in April when my credit score dropped because I really had been expecting 90 days before getting reported, plus the bank had only just threatened to report me. Additionally, Credit Karma continued to say that I was 100% on-time for all my payments. I didn't really know what was up, but went with it.

I finally bothered to investigate more, and found this chart on Credit Karma:

My credit score dip was due to opening the new line of credit with the credit union! It took a full four weeks between my credit score rising for getting more lines of credit (and a higher credit limit) and the score dropping for reducing the average age of those lines. Odd. Opening the card was to improve credit in the long run, and I knew that having a company verify my credit would dip it a bit, but I hadn't factored in that a new card would so significantly drop the average age of my accounts. Of course it would, looking back now.

It means I've got a little more credit score excitement to look forward to now. My next free credit report will by July 1, if I follow my self-enforced rationing, so I'm actually looking forward to my score dropping sooner than later, so I can see it in my credit report sooner than later.

We've also now gotten the "we want to help, send us all your information" three full times. - It feels eerily similar to "Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated." to me. - I don't particularly care to send them all my financials, but they seem to think that I'm not sending it because I don't speak English. The latest packet came with a Spanish version as well. :)

Day 65: More Warnings

Credit Score: 710
Phone calls: 10
Emails: 2
Paper mail: 7

This month, I officially hit 4 years in the condo! That's not exactly a good thing. It marks the time we've all been in this housing crisis, really. I bought the condo just after prices started dropping and everyone was saying it was a good time to buy. This week in the news, they're actually saying prices are now as low as they're going to go, and they may start rising as early as next year. That foreclosures will be lessened as the banks start clearing out their backlogs. And that rent is the highest it's been in a long time. This is when I choose to default... I'm so clever.

At least I'm officially three missed payments in now. March, April, May. I figure my credit score will drop again mid-May when I pass the third grace period for payment.

No real progress since the last update, though. Actually, it's probably a little negative progress. We got another letter in the mail saying we have 30 days to resolve the past due payments or they'll send the notice of default. Which means at least 30 more days before we get the notice.

If I were in a situation where I didn't want to lose the condo, I guess I'd appreciate seeing that they're in no hurry to give notice. And it'd be nice to know that your timeline just got bumped out 30 days. But I'm not. It's just more delay, more time in the process, and more likely to cost me tens of thousands in taxes.

Better than 100 thousand selling it though. I've got to keep telling myself that.

Maybe this will go down in Schrodinger family history as Jane's 20,000 dollar mistake. :)