Rebuilding after short-sale/foreclosure

[Anonymous]

We purchased a home in 2007 and I ended up losing my job in 2010.  I found a new job but had to move accross the country for it.  We aren't able to afford housing in both places so we have tried to get a short sale on the home (financed through MetLife).  At this point we have had three offers on the home and the lender has turned down all but the most recent and I'm not hopeful for it either.  The foreclosure process is rolling and an auction date is set for early June.

As of now, we have late payments of 30, 60, 90, 120, and 150 on our credit report simply due to the lender not accepting offers we had in on the house and, of course, our score has plummetted.  Other than this incident, we have never missed or been late on a payment in our 10 years of credit history and we don't have a high debt-to-credit ratio for our revolving accounts.  Prior to all of this we had scores near 800.  Can anyone tell me what we should expect for repair time and if there is any way to speed up the process?  I've read about goodwill letters, but do they work for removing foreclosures/short-sales from reports?  I'm open to any suggestions as to how to repair our score the fastest.

Thanks in advance.

JPWhite

[Hopelives2]

Many people have hardship reason for foreclosure right now. 

Unfortunately, I know of exactly ... 0 ... people who have had mortgage lates taken off their record post foreclosure.  The reason for the late is you did not pay the mortgage not because the mortgage company did not accept a short sale (which affects your credit like a foreclosure, actually).

I would encourage you to continue paying rent/mortgage where you are now.  I would also strongly encourage you to find an attorney in the state of the home and find out what repercussions there are re: foreclosure.  Some states allow for the mortgage company to come after you for the difference between what they sold it for and what you owe... which means you have to file bankruptcy to get that cleared.

My state, thankfully, does not allow that to happen.  If bank takes home, bank sucks it up.

Be thankful you are not around to watch your former neighbors become nosey Nellies about your financial affairs and the loss of that home.  You get to keep your pride.  Some of us were not so lucky.

(I was the former VP of internal audit of a publicly held company who told the CFO to restate the financial statements to the SEC and was summarily fired and then found out the courts do not uphold the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 whistleblower protection for executives and was then blackballed in this small town).