My House.
I like my house. While the last couple years have seen Kildeer eggs in our driveway, this year we have traded up for painter turtle eggs in the front yard. This morning, looking out our front window I see a ruby-throated hummingbird sipping on the flowers I planted. Canada geese are wrangling their chicks in the wetland, and the Sandhill cranes have had a fly over twice so far this year. It's a bird-watcher's dream as I can honestly say I've never seen so many varieties of songbirds anywhere. Mr. Skunk has made an appearance two mornings this week, and the woodchucks skulk about every once in a while as well. My irises are in full display, the peonies are ready to pop, the delphiniums are peaking out and the day lilies are waiting for their time. It's three acres of Michigan paradise. And in the middle of it sits our beautiful house.
Yet what is also painfully evident in our front yard is the "For Sale" sign that has been thusfar ignored. Now, John and I are fairly responsible people. He didn't buy more house than he could afford, doesn't have a crazy mortgage, and we've certainly always paid our taxes and house payment on time. Yet we find ourselves stuck in a mess not of our own creating. Detroit metro is inundated with foreclosures, and as the irresponsible and those who were duped by greedy lenders lose their homes, we see our home value decline. $70,000 in the last two years to be exact. While we certainly never expected to get out everything we've put into the house (after all we've only been here three years), we did not expect to be upside-down on a mortgage with no buyers in sight. We're already asking less than what we owe, and it looks like we'll have to drop the price again... Thankfully John has good enough credit to get the personal loan that will allow us to do this. But they'll only lend us so much... Who would have dreamed that people would be taking out loans to SELL their house a few years ago??? Not us.
So where does this leave us? Waiting for a buyer who may not exist. And the longer we wait, the more money we lose. And the longer John has to stay here--after all, I can't afford to pay for this house on my resident's salary. All of this just compounds when I think that he may still have to be up here when I go into labor around the first of the year. I never wanted to be a single mom, glorified as they seem to be in this country.
I love my house, but I think it will be a long, long time before I love another house. Unfortunately, we can't afford to buy another paradise.
Yet what is also painfully evident in our front yard is the "For Sale" sign that has been thusfar ignored. Now, John and I are fairly responsible people. He didn't buy more house than he could afford, doesn't have a crazy mortgage, and we've certainly always paid our taxes and house payment on time. Yet we find ourselves stuck in a mess not of our own creating. Detroit metro is inundated with foreclosures, and as the irresponsible and those who were duped by greedy lenders lose their homes, we see our home value decline. $70,000 in the last two years to be exact. While we certainly never expected to get out everything we've put into the house (after all we've only been here three years), we did not expect to be upside-down on a mortgage with no buyers in sight. We're already asking less than what we owe, and it looks like we'll have to drop the price again... Thankfully John has good enough credit to get the personal loan that will allow us to do this. But they'll only lend us so much... Who would have dreamed that people would be taking out loans to SELL their house a few years ago??? Not us.
So where does this leave us? Waiting for a buyer who may not exist. And the longer we wait, the more money we lose. And the longer John has to stay here--after all, I can't afford to pay for this house on my resident's salary. All of this just compounds when I think that he may still have to be up here when I go into labor around the first of the year. I never wanted to be a single mom, glorified as they seem to be in this country.
I love my house, but I think it will be a long, long time before I love another house. Unfortunately, we can't afford to buy another paradise.