Homeownership

XKCD  I think this may be me.  I do love power drills!

Homeownership

Double-Dipping

In my last post I noted that there are some fundamental flaws with buying a house now.  The main one is our immediate comfort (which is short-sighted, I get it).  The second is that the housing market continues to plummet.   The value of homes continue to decline.

One reason to stay in our rental, even if it is being foreclosed on, is if we buy something now, it will continue to lose value.  It is true we are nearer the bottom of the trough than before we sold our other house, but there is no end in sight.  If we buy a house now, chances are the house will be worth 10% less by 2012.  If we buy a house for 200K, it is a loss of $20,000 (I babied you and did the math).  I know that loss is for the short-term, but wouldn't I rather buy that same house for 20K less next year? YES, yes I would!  We are sacrificing housing stability for value.

The way I look at housing and jobs have changed from the way I was raised.  My grandparents and parents all had nearly the same jobs and same houses for all of their adult lives, and certainly all of my life.  I have lived in 4 states, 6 houses, and my husband has had 3 jobs, and we are in our mid-30's (I have had the same job: 2 kids, but even they are growing, and then I'll get a paying job).   Instability is the new normal.  At first all the unsettledness was scary, but you can't really scare me now.  Holding on, when things are unsettled is hard, but not scary.

That brings me to the title of the blog: Double-Dipping.  When I think of this term, I see my 9 year old nephew devouring ranch dip with one carrot.  For some reason I don't think that is what the term means for real-estate.  The news today was bad for people who use their home value as a means of provision.  Prices are going down again, or double-dipping.  Values went down a few years again, and are going down more, which seems more like a steady decline, than dipping, to me, but I don't make up the terms.

The news is good for those of us holding on, and saving money by renting until our credit gets better, or we've saved the cash to buy a house in toto.  My savings account goes up, housing prices go down.  It might not be as long as you might think if things keep going the way they are going.

Arsenic and a New Place

The story continues.  We did find a house that would be good for our family.  

Good enough. 

There are several fundamental problems with looking for a house, for us.  The main one is, the house we live in is huge, well kept, right in town, beautiful and cheap.  If we look at other houses, I just want to stay here.  It isn't an option to stay here, so mostly I'm in denial that we need to move. 

I HATE MOVING.  

Moving here, we knew we would have to move, so again, I am in denial. 

We made an offer on the good-enough-house.  It has a beautiful perennial garden, roses, clematis and daphne. It has enough room for us, a wood stove, a 2 car garage, a studio/office/workshop and is next door to my parents.  Those are all reasons to move there.  

Here are the reasons not to move there, some are very superficial, but humor me:  

• The neighbors (besides my parents) have big problems, which require visits from the sheriff. 
• The inside requires, in my opinion, updating.  There is gross carpet, and patches of wood flooring.
• There are only 2 bedrooms, and we have 2 kids, who are different genders, so we were going to have to put in a wall in the super-large second bedroom.
• The architecture isn't ideal.  It is 80's Creative, or that is my name for the style.
• Finally, there is arsenic in the water.

Some of the concessions we were making by moving/buying this house, we could live with.  Updating a house is just uncomfortable for a while, then it is over.  The inside of a house is where we live, and the outside was not terrible, just 'unique'.  We have lived in neighborhoods where the authorities visited often, and we were safe, and were happy.

The last inspection we had was the well inspection.  Of course it was the last one, after paying for all the others.  The poison in the well was a deal-breaker.  There are expensive filters we can install, and then every-other year we can spend a mortgage payment to have the filter cleaned.  I decided I didn't want to lay in bed at night wondering if my expensive filter was actually cleaning the water, and my 8 year old's bath wasn't full of rat poison/remnants from the Gold Rush.

We canceled escrow last Monday.  The only loss was the cash we spent on inspections.  It is a tiny loss, and after short-selling our other house, the magnitude of loss is irrelevant.  Escrow is like kissing a girl to see if you like her, you don't have to marry her.  

Also, escrow has nothing to do with crows.

*On a tangent, if you have never seen Arsenic and Old Lace, you should.  It is one of my favorite comedies.