Foreclosure to Whom it May Concern: I

Foreclosure To Whom it May Concern: I purchased the properties located at properties 9 Bromley, Ferguson, MO 63137 and 4810 Lockwig, St. Louis, MO 63033 in 2004, believing that they represented wise investments for my family and I. For approximately one year, both properties were occupied by rent-paying tenants and were maintained with my own labor, enabling me to save on costs and thus increasing the value of these homes as investment properties.

Late in 2005, however, a confluence of circumstances led me to the conclusion that selling these properties would actually be in the best financial interests of my family and I. It was at this time that I learned I would be heading to Iraq at some point in the near future, making it impossible for me to continue personally overseeing the maintenance of my properties; it was also at this time that the tenants in both homes suddenly vacated.

Rather than profitable and promising investment opportunities, these properties had suddenly become liabilities. The tenants had left extensive damage in both homes that was not covered by their security deposits, and my training and preparations for my departure to Iraq required a great deal of time and out of area travel making it impossible for me to take care of the damages myself in a cost- and time-efficient manner.

This made finding tenants for the properties impossible, and the prospect of maintaining three mortgages (including the mortgage on my family's residence) while out of the country for an extended period also did not seem like an ideal situation, therefore I decided it would be best to fix the properties as much as possible and place them on the market for sale before I departed for Iraq.

Unfortunately, securing a loan to cover the cost of the repairs that I wanted to accomplish proved incredibly difficult given the amount of my existing mortgage payments. I was unable to receive a traditional home improvement loan from a bank, yet I knew that would not be able to easily sell my investment properties without significant repairs.

Ultimately, I chose to take out a higher-interest loan from a non0bank lender, made the necessary repairs, and had the properties put on the market at a price that had been agreed upon by myself and my realtor as both fair and high enough to allow me to repay all debts associated with the properties. The properties were on the market for months without much interest despite several price drops, however, and I had become unable to make my mortgage payments. The mortgages mounting.