Not that this is news to me... for as long as I've known the man he has dreamt of owning his own property and shaping it into something fantastic.
We once owned a house, in fact.
A house with 'potential' in an economically-depressed area that we thought might gentrify pretty nicely over the course of ten years.
When we moved there in 2004 we had a life plan; and our house had its own niche in that plan.
We would live there for five years. Fix it up. Get married and travel the world a bit. And then, when we were ready - we'd start our family and look for a new home. We'd keep this first house as a rental property.
In our plan, the house would someday pay for itself thanks to renters... while we invested our increased joint income into a second home located somewhere more suitable for raising a family.
Seven months after moving into our house, however, my favorite guy and I discovered that sometimes when you're busy making plans... you actually make babies.
Surprise! We were pregnant!
Just not in the right location.
We spent seven more months in that house while my pregnancy progressed. With every passing day I grew larger and more unwieldy. Things about the house and the neighborhood that I had barely noticed before began to drive me up the wall.
For example?
Mold. We had a lot of black and pink mold in that house... in the walls, in the bathroom. My allergies went nuts while I was pregnant. I could barely breathe half of the time. I sneezed all the time and felt miserable.
Neighbors. A man lived across the street who was literally schizophrenic. When he took his meds he was docile and quiet, always waiting across the street from our front door for the special bus to come and take him to his facility. When he forgot the meds, he was full of rage and threatening comments. Many of them were sexual, and directed at me - a large, pregnant blimp. More on this later.
Crime. Suddenly I became more aware of the drug and gang-related activity in our immediate area. I began to take note of who hung out in front of the federally subsidized housing near our house. I began to cringe when the 'ghetto-bird' (AKA police helicopter) would hover over our neighborhood nightly. I found it a lot more stressful to park down the street in the dark late at night, too pregnant to walk or run swiftly.
Schools. There were no good schools anywhere near us. Not anywhere. The schools in our neighborhood were undesirable for any child. Including ours.
~ And Then One Day ~
When I was seven months pregnant and enormous - looking something like a giant panda (as a dear friend of mine likes to say) - we had an event.
I had grown to dread walking out of my front door in the morning, hoping that the schizophrenic neighbor would not be standing there staring at me. I used to peek out through the side of the window just to make sure he wasn't there. Sometimes I walked all the way around the block from the alley side, just to avoid him.
On this day though, my truck was parked directly in front of my house... so there was no escaping it - I would need to leave through the front door.
Opening it gingerly, I looked across the street and cringed. The middle-aged man - who was at least six foot two inches, very muscular and strong - was sitting on the sidewalk right across from my front door with a bottle of liquor in a brown paper bag in his hand.
He began to call out to me. I fumbled my keys.
"I SEE YOU!!!!!!!!!!" he called.
Ignoring him, I shut the door and grasped my satchel.
"I LIKE THAT DRESS YOU'RE WEARING. THAT'S A NICCCCCCCCCCCCE DRESS... YOU LOOK HOTTTTT."
Poker-faced I walked down the stairs toward my car.
"I LIKE IT WHEN YOU WEAR YOUR SANDALS," he whistled. "YOU LOOK SEXY IN SANDALS."
(If I hadn't already known the man was actually insane, I would have definitely known it at that moment. At 7 months pregnant in a long maternity dress and flat sensible shoes, I looked anything but attractive.)
"I KNOW YOU HEAR ME. ANSWER ME. ANSWER ME.
I KNOW YOU HEAR ME, YOU BITCH."
He smashed his bottle in the bag against the side of the curb. Glass tinkled to the ground.
"F*^$ YOU, YOU F^$%ing BITCH!"
Grasping my keys harder, I jumped into my car as fast as I could, locked the door and started the motor.
I pulled the car away from the curb and drove as fast as I could. Only when I got to the stoplight four blocks away did I finally exhale and then realized how hard I was trembling.
I drove and drove until all I could feel was my unborn son kicking in my belly and all I could think about was protecting him at all costs.
When at last I stopped driving, I looked up to see that I had driven home to the house where I grew up. I had driven to my parents' house, 30 minutes away.
"I'm never going back there," I shuddered as I told my mom and dad what had happened. "I will not bring a little child into that home."
True to my word (and much to my husband's chagrin) I didn't.
* * *
In the end, everything worked out better than we could have hoped though.
Our home sold at a small profit, despite the fact that we'd lived there for less than 18 months. We banked the profit and became renters.
Not long after, the real estate bubble burst and that house plummeted in value.
My husband began to thank me for prompting us to sell when we did. He thanked me a lot.
Renting was great!
As renters, we gained flexibility... spontaneity. We saved money. We moved around to suit our needs. We moved a lot!
Since we sold our first house, we've moved approximately every two years. Mainly these moves have met the growing needs of our rapidly expanding family - as we added not one but two more children to our brood in a short span of time. We needed more space - more bedrooms!
We've also moved for better schools, and to find our 'perfect fit' in the neighborhoods where we could see ourselves staying for the long haul.
At last ~ nine months ago ~ my honey and I found it. Everything we'd been looking for...
The right neighborhood. The right schools. The right place to raise our three children. It's been downright dreamy.
We've been here for close to a year now and my husband and I agree that we've found the spot where we want to stay for the next 30+ years. We've found the community we hope to grow old in, together.
* * *
The unwanted attention from that schizophrenic man feels like lifetimes ago... and I've come to a place where I now feel gratitude (rather than fear) when I think of him. His provocation got us out of that house a year before the bottom fell out of the housing market.
And get this ~ that house is now worth (according to Zillow.Com) $143,400.00 LESS than we paid for it seven years ago. It has depreciated in value by almost 31%.
That schizophrenic man turned out to be an angel in disguise who saved my husband and me from tremendous financial hardship. We would've been stuck in that house forever... instead we got free and actually gained from the experience!
* * *
Seven years and three children later.
We've looped back and arrived again at the real estate crossroads.
We're older now and smarter. We've got more Real Life under our belts.
The economy has been lousy and the market is full of people trying to unload their houses before they lose their shirts.
For a couple thinking about buying, the time may be ripe.
Do we buy? Do we keep renting?
If we buy, when is the moment? Is NOW that moment? Interest rates are at a historical low. Do we gamble that they aren't going to get any lower?
I keep asking myself if home ownership is the right place to invest our money. Owning your own home used to symbolize fulfilling the American Dream... but could it be that the American Dream is changing?
- Is the new dream to have a safe retirement and pension plan, secure from Ponzi schemes?
- Is the new dream to rent a reasonably priced home and save the rest of any 'mortgage' nest egg for retirement?
- Is the new dream to save your finances for health care costs and long-term care insurance?
- Is the new dream simply to have a stable job?
Is the new dream just to survive?
Pew Research Center just published an analysis stating that Americans aged 35 and younger are 47 times less wealthy than our counterparts in their mid-60s. Have I mentioned that I'm 35?
Also, according to their article, this huge wealth disparity can be traced directly to housing:
"Housing has been the main driver of these divergent wealth trends. Rising home equity has been the linchpin of the higher wealth of older households in 2009 compared with their counterparts in 1984. Declining home equity has been one factor in the lower wealth held by young households in 2009 compared with their counterparts in 1984."
As of tonight Zillow.Com is reporting that "U.S. ‘Underwater’ Homeowners Increase to 28.6%"
So, there you have it - our dilemma.
Are we going to be part of the group that buys low and gains tremendous equity over the next 30 years? When we are 65, will we be 47x wealthier than our youthful peers?
Or do we risk joining the vast number of young households who purchased at the wrong time and have now lost everything as their homes are worth far less than they paid for them? If we buy now, are we diving headfirst into a swimming pool with no water?
Henry David Thoreau once wrote:
"Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them."
It's a lot to think about.
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