House Issues
I hate houses. You buy one and you think "Hey, what I great idea! I own my own land, my own house, and a piece of the American dream!" Then you realize that you're wrong. You don't actually own your house, you see - you rent it from the government for whatever taxes* they think is sufficient to make some kind of profit off of your new spot on the Earth. And that's not all, oh no. Mother Nature has to stick her big nose into the equation, too. Stupid law of entropy. Constantly mowing and trimming and sweeping and washing and painting and... after a few years you've got to start fixing stuff that wasn't, for some reason, designed to last forever.
Think you're done? Oh, the naivety.** Because after all the blood, sweat, and tears you put into making your house a home, you get a fracking job that's too far away to make financial sense, and you have to move. That's when the REAL fun begins: You have to coordinate selling your current home with finding a new one. Now, if the economy's trucking along with everyone thinking that they can buy a house today and sell it for a profit tomorrow even if the house just got hit by hurricane Katrina, you're probably ok. But in the economy that follows such stupidity, nobody can get approved for a loan, so you're stuck lease/purchasing your home to someone you've never met so that you can stop paying $18/day in gasoline just to drive your sorry ass to work and back. And the builders who've been constructing new homes realized half way through that they wouldn't be able to sell their house for a while, so they poured shallow to save money and cut a few other corners to lower their front end costs and now the rear porch is cracking and the ducts leak and the dry wall looks like my 5-month old son put it up, and the builder thinks that just because you have to move out of your house quickly he's got you over a barrel and doesn't come down on his price so you go from "I own a house!" to "Yeah, I'm renting again" in no time.
And you stop and think to yourself "Why did I go through all that crap? Wouldn't it have just been easier if I'd been renting all these years and put the money I'd have saved in upgrading, maintenance, and lower monthly payments into an interest bearing savings account, and this whole moving thing would have happened a year or so ago without any stress?" And you answer honestly "Yes, yes it would have. Crap. I'm an idiot."
* I do understand why taxes exist and I'm actually a proponent of them - it's how the government pays for the services it provides. That said, paying taxes still sucks.
** The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines naivety as a noun. Thanks assholes.
Think you're done? Oh, the naivety.** Because after all the blood, sweat, and tears you put into making your house a home, you get a fracking job that's too far away to make financial sense, and you have to move. That's when the REAL fun begins: You have to coordinate selling your current home with finding a new one. Now, if the economy's trucking along with everyone thinking that they can buy a house today and sell it for a profit tomorrow even if the house just got hit by hurricane Katrina, you're probably ok. But in the economy that follows such stupidity, nobody can get approved for a loan, so you're stuck lease/purchasing your home to someone you've never met so that you can stop paying $18/day in gasoline just to drive your sorry ass to work and back. And the builders who've been constructing new homes realized half way through that they wouldn't be able to sell their house for a while, so they poured shallow to save money and cut a few other corners to lower their front end costs and now the rear porch is cracking and the ducts leak and the dry wall looks like my 5-month old son put it up, and the builder thinks that just because you have to move out of your house quickly he's got you over a barrel and doesn't come down on his price so you go from "I own a house!" to "Yeah, I'm renting again" in no time.
And you stop and think to yourself "Why did I go through all that crap? Wouldn't it have just been easier if I'd been renting all these years and put the money I'd have saved in upgrading, maintenance, and lower monthly payments into an interest bearing savings account, and this whole moving thing would have happened a year or so ago without any stress?" And you answer honestly "Yes, yes it would have. Crap. I'm an idiot."
* I do understand why taxes exist and I'm actually a proponent of them - it's how the government pays for the services it provides. That said, paying taxes still sucks.
** The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines naivety as a noun. Thanks assholes.