[slowbutspeeding]

Hello, I am currently working with my mortgage company - First Franklin - to modify the terms of my loan. I have a $190,000 loan at 8.5%.

Here's the situation: A year ago my co-borrower lost her job and she is now earning a little over half of her previous salary. I started to lose work hours in late July and by mid August I was working only 3 or 4 days per week until finally I was laid off in October. I was only out of work for a month before I found a new job, but I wasn't earning near what I had been. Luckily by mid December I was called back to my first job and rehired (at 30-35 hours per week).

I decided to keep both jobs to help with the mounting bills. The summer months were financially very hard on us (unexpected auto repairs, high gas prices, high a/c bills) and we started to fall behind on bills by August.

We requested help in early December and submitted all the required paperwork. We have worked out a pre-modification payment arrangement with our mortgage where we are required to pay $1,900.00 per month for the next 3 months. We have already made the first payment.

I spoke with the loan modifier today to ask what he thought the modification might be and he said it looks like the new payments will be between $1,900 and $2,000! I told him that it didn't make sense that a modified loan would increase our monthly payment. My logic is how are we expected to pay $1,900 when we couldn't manage $1,770?

Apparently, because I've had a second job for 3 months, we can now afford the higher payment. I explained to him that the second job is only temporary, as I can not physically handle two full time jobs for very much longer. I explained that the job is only to get over this financial slump and help get the mortgage current. But he said while I have this second job, those are the figures he has to work with.

Is this normal? Do we have any other options? We have been in this home for 10 years and have put tens of thousands of dollars worth of upgrades and additions into this home and we don't want to lose it.

Any advice and information greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading.