refinance my mortgage

I’m trying to decide if I should work toward paying down the principal, or save up to refinance. Seems strange that those two things conflict so much with each other. But they do. The right answer seems to be save up, but it feels so wrong. I’ve always learned to put money toward the highest interest rate, and doing so would pay down my mortgage for sure. But! And underwater refi is going to cost many thousands and I need to be able to pay that. But! if I pay it down, it might not be underwater anymore and then I could just sell the thing. But, even if it’s not underwater, a refi could still require 10% down, which is still many thousands of dollars….

So frustrating. God damn house.

I went to a mortgage counseling info session tonight. Most depressing thing I’ve done in ages, on many many levels.

For me, the good news is that nothing has changed. I didn’t think I had any options right now, and I was correct. I’m in the same boat and have to just keep chugging along with the original plan and hope the market starts to recover. But now I have a renewed sense of mission, because now I know that a foreclosure is even worse than I’d thought.

HAMP, HARP, 2MP…

I almost quality for these! I miss out on each one but just a single eligibility requirement, not even the same requirements, they’re all different. So frustrating!

I’m meeting with a housing councilor in 2 weeks to look at options.

Another round of number crunching and I’m not as close to this as I’d thought. Maybe I just walk…

According to zillow, my house has gained $2000 in value in the last month! That’s almost a year of payments! And 2 years closer to refinancing! 2016!

This is a long term goal for me. Majorly long term. But I’m coming to surprising optimism.

I’m running scenarios and found out that:
IF the housing market stays exactly the same and doesn’t go up or down, and IF I can save $300 per month (which is possible if my move goes through and finances don’t change significantly), then I’ll be able to put down enough to refinance in 2018. WOW! That is such a huge relief! So much better than the impending 2020 foreclosure! And then I get excited because surely the market has to go up at least a little bit in that time (but I’m not banking on it), and surely I’ll slowly start making more money again (again, history has not been kind to me in this area either). Maybe it will only be 6 or 7 years!

Yes, those are my optimistic and happy thoughts. This is the good news and better than I’d been thinking was possible.

I got my assessment yesterday.

It was exactly what I expected, but still painful to see on an official document.

Feeling hopeless.