Oddball Update

The title of this post is the only word I need. I mean, there’s nothing more that needs to be said.

Those of you who know Apple and I probably know that we’ve been going through hell in the last few months. Over a year ago, we signed a contract to build a brand spanking new home here in the local area. Since then, the real estate market suddenly and violently went to shit. And not only that, but after seeming to level off for a few months during the summer, now it is going through the floor all over again. The figures I just saw this morning are nothing short of jaw-dropping.

Because we signed on our new home during the market’s high point, and were relying on equity in our current home to finance the move, we got shafted. Ever since, we’ve been trying to get our current home sold so we could get the deal done. Unfortunately, the equity all but disappeared. After losing literally $200,000 in value over the last 18 months or so, and realizing that even with all of our combined jobs and 7-days-per-week schedules we still couldn’t afford to move anymore, we decided it was time to get control of our lives back.

I have to credit my parents here for really making us see the light. We were in so deep, answering to so many people in such small amounts of time, we couldn’t even afford to pay attention. After being forced to step back and really, really examine what we were doing, we realized that even forfeiting the down payment on our new home was nothing compared to the financial hell we’d endure if we actually went through with the move.

So we sucked it up and went in to the builder’s office, told ‘em the story and said, basically, they could either cut us a $200,000 discount or wave goodbye. The builder was shocked, but we weren’t capitulating — after all, we were telling God’s honest truth. I wasn’t trying to screw them or extort money from them, I just gave them the facts. So, being unable (unwilling, is more like) to acknowledge the same brand of reality that I did, the builder offered to put our new home up for sale as a “spec property” (already customized and ready for sale) in the hopes that someone else would buy it in the next 6 months. Within that time, if someone buys the house, we get at least some of our deposit back. If no one does, we forfeit the deposit but are charged nothing additional. Since we were already more than prepared to lose the deposit, we decided that sounded perfectly acceptable.

Throughout these next 6 months, the builder is hoping that some miracle will happen and we’ll still be able to go through with the sale. In essence, if the market comes back and we’re able to sell our home for the money we need. Personally, I think they’re dreaming — the only thing I think is going to happen in the next 6 months is that the market might finally find the bottom! Our builder is a somewhat young, rather “boutique” builder which still hasn’t come face to face with the grim reality we’ve now seen for ourselves. Once they do, I think they’ll finally be getting the picture — but until then, they’re still listing new homes at early-2005 prices, and quietly ignoring the fact that no one is buying them.

As for Apple and I, we’re going to consolidate our bills into one nice, fixed-rate mortgage and sit pretty until the market returns. While our homebuilder hopes that will be before the end of this year’s snowbird season, in reality it’s probably going to be closer to 2008 or 2009. No matter; in the meantime we’ll actually have the discretionary income to do things like visit our family in Thailand, buy things for ourselves, improve our current home and start visiting other areas of the country where we may want to live once we finally decide the time is right for us to sell our home. Sugar Land, Texas is looking mighty fine, and we’re thinking that an exploratory trip to the central Texas area is warranted within the next couple of months! We even just paid off Apple’s car, nearly two years before the end of the loan term, so in reality we are doing quite well.

No matter what, the important thing is that now we’ve got our lives back, we’ve taken our punishment and we’ve learned a wealth of real-life lessons in the process. And perhaps best of all, we can sleep at night.

Categorized as Life