bankruptcy or forclosure?

[larryb]

Hello Folks, below is my situation. I am not sure what to do so I thought I would get some opinions and suggestions before meeting with an attorney.

Also, I hope this is the correct forum to post.

Heres my story,

1) I have (4) rental homes plus my own homestead

rental home (a) has no mortgage, 10 k in equity and is currently rented for 600 per month

rental home (b) has 30 k mortgage (negative equity) un habitable payment is 500 per month with taxes

rental home (c) has 35 k mortgage (currtently in lawsuit due to fire) house is a loss

rental home (d) has 60k mortgage, value is about 30k in this market, currently not rented. mortgage payment of 700 per month

personal homestead has 87k mortgage, its worth about 120k in todays market

I have 10k in credit card debt (was used for girlfriends car, low interest and she makes the payment on the card though)

Lastly, I just lost my job and I cant sustain these monthly payments on the rental homes. Ive been keeping up on payments for a long time but do to the job loss I wont be able to keep paying on all of them for much longer.

What would be the best course of action to get out of this mess?

LB

[larryb]

Oh, I wanted to mention that I want to keep my homestead house out of all of this.

[indy]

Just remember that when you forclose you may get sued or 1099d, and then you will have to pay taxes on that unless you can prove you are insolvent. Filing for Bk is a way to protect your self from all of that.

In one way Forclosure or Bk is kinda the same thing except with BK you are protected and you might be able to wipe out that 10k.

You can pretty much count on all your rentals being gone unless you can exempt the equity in them.

But you may have to use the exemption for your homestead or they can take that too.

Depending on what state you are in and what your exemptions are.

set up a few free consults with a BK or you may even want to talk with a real estate laywer to get the best course of action. all of my properties are underwater so i am letting them all go gotta love that California market.

[larryb]

Does it make any difference that each rental property is in seperate llc's?
Obviously I would like to keep the paid off rental property that is still generating income.

My goal would be to get rid of properties, b,c,and d

Also I am in Michigan