[Ohio Boy]

New to this board and first I thought I would ask an important mortgage question as it has me currently stumped in my credit repair progress.
Situation is this, current residence, 27 months on time payments
owe 140k, last appraised at 167k
Investment property, currently owe 60k and appraised at 105k.
Mid score is 605 ( Started at 400 a year ago )
Renters moved out and left the house a shambles and will need approx 6 k to fix it up to even rent it.
Tried refi and with no current rent coming in lender says no because of ITD ratio would be too high with no rent coming in.

Tried refi on my home lender said FHA would be the way to go but I have 2 3 year old CO still showing and they want them paid before any loan would happen.

Without getting that rent it takes a ton of my cash flow right out and dont know where to turn next.
Renter has nothing to go get, attorney told me it would not be worth pursuing as he has nothing in his name currently.
Cannot sell the investment property because it was a part of a family estate purchase that I promised not to sell until FIL passed, he lives in one section of the house and pays no rent to me.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

* What a nice site, full of info I wish I would have found a year ago.

[Hedwig]

Thanks for the compliment. Hope you stick around.

Do you have a credit card that you can get a low-rate balance transfer on? Make sure it's paid off before you do the BT, and you don't use it for anything else until it's paid (payments are applied to lowest rate first, so anything else on the card is really racking up interest). You can usually get the BT made out to you and put in your bank account. Then use that money to pay for the repairs.

I don't usually suggest using a credit card for something like this, but it may be a good option considering your situation.

Another avenue to pursue is your local credit union. They may be willing to make a personal loan for the amount, especially if you have some savings with them.

Is your car paid off and fairly new? If so, maybe you could get a loan against the car.

Just a few suggestions. If they don't work I'll try to come up with some more.

[Ohio Boy]

Thank you. I don't have enough open amounts in CCs "yet" to that. Still in rebuilding mode with several new or newer cards with 1500 being my best card so far.
Credit Union I use requires 630 mid with no baddies showing to do any PLOC. Maybe there are others who would like at it or maybe a HELOC of some type. Car is not old enough to have that much equity.
Very confused on what to do, I checked this persons history and they had no problems ever, now I am in a huge pinch without the cash flow and afraid it will reverse all the work I have done on credit repair if I cannot get it rented soon.
I do appreciate the tips. i am up late trying to find something I can do as I cannot sleep thinking my journey to this point will be all for not if I cannot get something done. I know I should have never allowed myself to get to the point I couldnt handle bills with no renter but it was a family issue thing and I went ahead and bought the property so the FIL would have a place to live as other family members were willing to send him to a care facility and I wouldnt allow it.

[Hedwig]

If the other family members were willing to send him to a care facility, perhaps they have enough free cash for a loan.

Ask them, tell them you'll sign a promissory note so that it's legal and they can take action if you don't pay it back, but ask them if you can put off starting the payments for several months to get a renter in.

One other thing I thought of. Can you advertise or try to find a tenant willing to do some of the work? Maybe they could pay you the rent, then you pay them for the work they did, but they can live there while they're doing it.

Can you get rid of the charge off? Have they contacted you? If so, did you DV and have they provided validation?

[Ohio Boy]

No help from family members, all they wanted is to send him off and take the property and his items and sell them for cash. One of those familys.
I did think of this and had one lined up to get 6 months free rent if he repaired the items to my specs, but then when I asked him to sign a contract he backed out saying he was not going to commit to 6 months being done with the property so I didnt pursue that anymore.
Charge off is Dell and they are not going anywhere. They are one tuff cookie to get rid of. Still in SOL by 2 months so I am afraid to make them even more agressive.

[Hedwig]

How much of the work can you do yourself?

Can you buy some supplies with your credit and do the labor yourself? That would help a lot.

[Ohio Boy]

Sure, I have already done some of the work and can do more, but the damages to the walls/doors and plumbing add up to more then my available.
I really appreciate you taking your time to offer help. My only options may be trying to find someone to do a line of credit on my own home or a credit union. I just dont see any CU given 6k credit on 605 scores. Do you?

[Ohio Boy]

Do you have any CU suggestions?
I looked up other locals and have none I can join here, the rave is Penfed, Patelco, NASA etc but I do not know if I could get them to help me or not.

[Hedwig]

I don't know much about the requirements for the national CUs. I'm a member of PenFed but haven't gotten a loan from them for a while.

Maybe someone else will jump in and offer some suggestions. I can't think of much more.

Have you tried to get increases on your credit limits?

Can you get a second job and use the money to pay for the repairs (or pay off your cc, maybe you'll get line increases and use the cc to pay for repairs)?

I had quite a few cc when I hit bad times, so I was able to survive (badly) on credit--of course, making my situation worse. The only thing that saved me was I had a lot of equity in my house. I ended up refinancing to a sub-prime loan for a year, using the money to pay off bills, and then keeping everything current for a year. Then I could refinance to another loan, which was FHA. But I didn't have any chargeoffs.

[Pale Rider]

No insurance on the property?

It would probably be difficult to find, but have you thought of trying to find a contractor that would take payments, or possibly do it under a contract as Hedwig suggested. I know most usually don't work that way, but maybe someone you know, or a company starting out who needs the business. You would probably need to give them some very favorable terms to get the deal done.

[Ohio Boy]

Yes, I have insurance that covers the usual theft, fire, storms etc but did not have the clause covering renter damage.

The contractor I sopke with was willing to do all the work but the contract idea scared him away, guess its all for the better because if the contract scared him made me feel he wouldnt have completed the work anyway.

I spoke with a loan company today and they said all they could do is refi the first on the investment but since it is not currently occupied by a paying renter they are tossing 11% at me.

I appreciate all the tips, I just cannot come up with anything. Need to crazy type creative financing I guess to get this done.

I realize put myself in a poor spot trying to help an in law and need to find a way out without hurting he FIL in any way. Very tough situation to be in.

[Hedwig]

I refied my house at 11% when I was having my credit problems. However, they told me if I kept everything paid on time for a year I could refi.

Did the loan company say you could get a lower rate when it was occupied?

Try a mortgage broker. They work with many companies and may be able to find you something.

What about a HELOC on the home you occupy? That way you wouldn't mess with the mortgages you have and you could pay it off fairly quickly when you get a renter.

Any other sources of income you could come up with? Either you or your wife getting another job somewhere?

[Ohio Boy]

I just got off the phone with City Financial. They no longer do HELOC loans but do 2nds etc.
I explained to her the situation, the scores, Dell etc and she said they base decisions on everything not just FICO score. They pull EQ which is not my best score but my best report with only Dell showing.

She told me that the most important item would be the equity in my personal home that would weigh heavily on a decision.

Has anyone used Citi for this type of loan and how do you do with them? I know it would be a higher rate then a second mortgage but she said if its a go they can close in a matter of 10-12 days.

With the CC being maxed of course I am thinking it will kill the deal. What do you guys think?

It's a shot.

[Pale Rider]

Originally Posted by Ohio Boy

Yes, I have insurance that covers the usual theft, fire, storms etc but did not have the clause covering renter damage.

Double check to see if there is anything covering vandalism. Some of these policies have that coverage, and it shouldn't matter who caused the damage.

[Hedwig]

I don't think the maxed card will necessarily kill the deal if you explain the situation. It sounds like they do manual underwriting, which may be good in your case.

How much are you looking to borrow?

It looks like you have about $27K equity in the primary house, and a lot of equity in the rental house. But prices have dropped. What do you think your house will appraise for now?

You may pay a higher rate, but if you can get the money you can always try to refi later. I've never dealt with Citi Financial, so hopefully somone else will jump in.

[Hedwig]

PR has a good angle, too. Even if insurance only covered part of it, that would be a help.

[Ohio Boy]

The attorney spoke to me about this and he told me that I would have had to file charges against the renter and would have had to file the complaint when it happened to get the insurance to pay the cost.

Nice info guys, I really appreciate it.

The damage is unreal, we had to take all of the plumbing from the second floor to the basement out to find the clog, we found a tiny stuffed animal was the problem but it had already ruined all the carpet in the LR below and he never told me about it. Let alone it ran down the walls ruining the drywall and flooring below the carpet in one area.

Guess that is what I get for being a rookie landlord. Will know what to do next time. Periodic checks coming to make sure this wont happen again.

[Hedwig]

Before you rent ag