[quote=bearishgurl]I just have a couple of comments on this thread. The first one (now water under the bridge), is that the OP absolutely could have bought a 1700-2200 sf home in SD County in 2011 for the price they paid for a 1300 sf home in SEH ($330K). Sure, it would have been older and most likely needed cosmetic upgrades but they spent that money anyway on the smaller, newer home they bought. And it would have been without MR and HOA dues, (which could now have proven to be a financial thorn in the OP’s side).
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You know, telling people that they could have done something back in 2011 is as useful as someone telling you, you could have bought a lot of homes in 2011 instead of staying put in Chula Vista, and your appreciation probably would have been a lot better. The point is you can’t go back in history and change things, so why bother even bringing it up? It doesn’t really help the person. Besides San Marcos is on the way up and for growth, whether you want to believe it or not.
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The second thing is that Piggs counseled the OP in error re: priority of unsecured debt, i.e. consumer/credit-card debt.
CC companies and their collectors …. (etc etc etc)
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The point was that you have more options if leave your home equity alone versus risking your home to pay off credit cards, car loans, etc first. if you pay up all your insecure loan first and then have financial problems, you have no other options on dealing with now your mortgage + HELOC. How many of those loan mods really worked???And even more so how many people expect they’ll successfully get one now…
Anyway, you are correct in one thing. If the OP really does get into that big financial problem such that they need to consider BK, they definitely should talk to an attorney, I’m not an attorney (and there’s a reason for that) in as much as neither are you, as are many others commenting on this thread.
That said, I don’t think the OP is in immediate danger if they take care of their finances with some of the constructive suggestions people offered here in reducing expenses and debt.
