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New Post 1/20/2008 8:25 PM
  rundeep
324 posts
3rd Level Poster


Hmmmmm. 

Here's the good news: that cabin's not walking away anytime soon. Limited number of takers for somesuch, and skittish lenders. So you have some more time to think.

Does selling your house get you there? (And I told you, buy some crap particleboard and paint it and you won't lose a dime). How big's the gap? Could you legitimately work as a "consultant" for your existing job at a set price or get a similar part-time job there enough to qualify you for a smaller mortgage? (ironically, you are the reason that subprime mortgages were first invented -- to provide people whose income might be sufficient but not steady an opportunity to own a home. The idea was that you could pay in different intervals at different rates. Because it wasn't 12 even payments, and that was harder to package, you'd be subprime).

Don't sell the piano, I think. That's something you'd regret later. (I saw that movie and all. Even with the finger missing, it was bad.)  And I just choke on cashing in 401ks for anyone over 40.  But then, I lack imagination.

Is there anything you could do for the next few months to make enough extra to fill the gap? Tend bar at a strip joint? Play the piano at a brothel? Strip at a nursing home? (they confuse the $5s for $1s).

Finally, and perhaps less palatably, you could borrow the money from family. Doesn't have to be on love and faith return either. You could give them a proper mortgage interest, or a few of your acres for a nearby homestead. (Actually, I see you in a family business somehow.  Maybe they run the B&B, and you're the crazy farmer they tell the tourists to stay away from?) But if you sell everything you own and end up with only the house, what're you going to do to live? If you really want to farm you need to clear the woods, buy seed and equipment. Better factor in that cost as well.

This is so the right thing to do.  Life's all about doors closing and windows opening.  (By the way, I never believed "things happen for a reason."  I believe that things happen and that it's our job as humans to make it reasonable. You will.)

 

 

 
New Post 1/21/2008 11:50 AM
  switters
311 posts
3rd Level Poster




Re: Hmmmmm. 
There's a gap, one I can't span by myself. Mom's none-too-subtlely offered to help, but I really am trying to avoid that.

I'd need the 401K to make this even remotely possible. Ideally I'd love to leave the stocks alone. I'm still ahead as of today, but tomorrow is promising to be a really really really really really bad day on the market.

I don't know what to do. I'd hate to let this opportunity get away from me. But you're right. One thing on my side is that very few people would want to buy a place out in the middle of nowhere with no heat/air that was designed for open living in Central Ohio (unless you're my mom who'd use it as a retreat), but many many people in The Ham would love to buy a fixer-upper in a really good neighborhood (for Birmingham city) at a bargain price. It's just a matter of finding the middle ground on both deals.

Kingsolver writes of her and her husband's last trip to Italy when they did something called "agritourismo" or some such. You go to something like a bed&breakfast, stay a couple days, help out on the family farm, and eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, every ingredient of which was grown, produced and fabricated on that farm, whether it's the beef or the wine or the olive oil. You guys should do that next time you go.

My mom's little secret family dream has been, since her dad died, that her kids run an organic farm. I think this is one reason she's so jazzed about the idea. The cabin was built in 1992 and the folks who built it were trying to get a perennial growing business, well, growing. Now they have to move out of state. It's a unique place, for better or worse. Better for me, worse for others.

But Friday evening sent me back down the abyss when I thought, "I don't deserve a place this nice." I'd settle for a trailer on a few acres at this point. But that's where I am right now.

My piano needs to be played. It isn't right now. It's trapped wealth.

Not only does it feel right. It feels inevitable. But if you know me at all, you know the hardest thing for me to do is take that first step. Drives my oldest brother crazy.
 
New Post 1/22/2008 6:18 AM
  rundeep
324 posts
3rd Level Poster


Mom's offering help 

to get you closer and to live out a dream you share. I don't think you should reject that kind of gift of love out of hand. If you feel guilty about it vis a vis your siblings, you could either structure a note to pay her back, or put her name on the deed. In either event there'd be an interest to her (or her estate) in which they could share.

 
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