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Good day all,

Our situation is this - we are located in the Central Valley of California.  We have a first mortgage that originated with Citibank but is now in the hands of Nationstar.  That first is a $283k loan at 6.65% interest only for 10 yrs then adjusts to fully amortized loan over 20 years.   Our second is a $42k viable interest HELOC with B of A.  The (Nationstar) estimated value of our home is about $125k.  This is our primary residece that we purchased in 1998 for $132k.  We are in our early 60's.

We went all the way through Nationstar's HAMP program including their APOLLO program and was denied a loan mod because our housing cost are below 31% of our gross monthly income.

We then just completed the HARP 2.0 process with Nationstar and were denied base on the LTV of our property and what they consider our inability to payback the loan (heavy credit card debit).  They said we did not get the required FMHA code 147 that was required for them to move forward on the loan.  They did say that our monthly debt to income ratio was acceptable, DTI about 30%.

The Nationstar refi rep did tell us the next step for us was to try a short sale with Nationstar.

My credit score is 671 and my wife is 740.  We have never been late on any of our house payments and are not behind.  We have not been late on any of our other monthly credit card payments.  We do however have heavy credit card debt.  I did loose a job that grossed about $150k per year to one that pays $100k per year.  My wife is absolutely not able to work.  My health insurance costs and medical bills have increased substantially last year and this year.

OK now the questions - We would like to approach Nationstar about a short sale but are stuck in neutral because of our failure with the other Nationstar/gov programs that have not worked.  We do not want to just walk away from our house but definately would like to do a short sell.

Also, there are investment buyers in our area that would be interested at buying at the current market value of the home.

Is a short sale possible with Nationstar given our situation?

How does Bank of America deal with their HELOC and how difficult are they to work with?

Is a real estate agent required for doing a short sale if there are buyers ready to approach us with an offer now?

Or should we hire an attorney (very expensive at about $3000) to handle our situation and have the attorney contact and negogiate with Nationstar and B of A?

This seems like our last ditch effort so we want to make sure it is done correctly.  We are kind of frozen with fear because of what we have been through - but financially we are headed for financial ruin if we cannot find some way to relieve this pressure.

I appologize for the length of this discussion but I wanted to make sure all the facts are on the table.  And yes, I know that we have made some bad decisions with our finances, but we also have been hit with a housing market that I never thought we would see in my life time along with a job change and medical issues.