What was I saying about my Write?
It may be back but suddenly life is very VERY busy. Most of these things were still around before, was I just ignoring them all? Or balancing better?
Balance. I think that may be a post-in-the-making for the Roundtable.
One of the problems with being inspired to write is that I am having a really hard time writing about nothing. If there isn’t depth it feels worthless. I know that’s silly - this blog was meant to be a living history of my adoption and later parenting experiences. It doesn’t always have to be deep.
So here’s something fun: yesterday a big ole SUV pulled into my driveway and two classy women with clipboards and pens came to my door. I was in my pajamas, the baby was naked. The house was a little messy. It was not the best time for visitors. I considered not answering the door at all but I did. This is the conversation that followed:
“Hi, we’ve come to walk through your house.”
?????
“We are realtors, is this 111 John Doe Road?”
?????
I tell them “This house isn’t on the market.”
“Hmmm. I have the MLS print out right here. With a picture of your house. Are you SURE this house is not on the market? I don’t see a sign.”
I tell them “Yes, we’ve lived here a year and just extended our lease 2 years. I’m quite sure this house is not for sale” but really I am panicking. Because it is all there is black and white - that IS our house on an MLS listing from THIS WEEK.
I send them away and look up the MLS and sure as day, there it is! To say that I panicked is probably an understatement. I FREAKED!
The house is being sold, silently, as an investment. Our own lease is secure and is part of the terms of sale. The listing stated that the property is occupied and we should not be disturbed and also listed our lease terms as part of the terms of sale. So obviously this idiot agent made a huge categorical mistake by knocking on my door but damn, it scared me to think that right when we are FINALLY unpacking we might have our house sold out from under us.
I could go on and on all day about the benefits of leasing over home ownership. I think so many people consider leasing to be the Poor Person’s Home Ownership and are surprised to hear that we lease by choice as do many people in my neighborhood. We have a large beautiful home in a beautiful neighborhood in one of the top communities in Texas. We could have afforded to buy a house here - in fact the homes here are significantly less expensive per sq foot than the houses in Michigan. But why would we do that? Our landscaping is provided for us, our pool maintenance is provided for us. When something breaks (like the entire furnace, the pool filter, the roof, the garage door opener, the electric wiring and various other major and minor issues we have had in just the last year) we don’t have to stress it at all. We don’t have to deal with contractors or worry about what it will cost to fix. We sit back and it is *handled*. It feels like The Rich Life with all these *people* who *work* for us! haha. Add in the lack of concern over property taxes (a big deal here in Texas) and it is one huge weight off our shoulders to lease.
I have owned two homes and aside from the large LARGE (incredibly large) sums of money I have lost in the sale of both homes, the other downfalls for me are gigantic. There is not a single aspect of property ownership that appeals to me. And since the only true perk would be the investment angle and some top economists have since declared that home ownership is no longer considered an investment at all, I truly wish to never own again. I have also leased two homes and both experiences were BY FAR more positive than my home ownership experiences. And when the lease was up? I could just move on if I wanted. Or not! I didn’t have to sell or negotiate a buy. I just chose a new place like I might choose a new car and moved right on in. Oh glorious lease!! How I love thee!!
For a minute I thought my Love of the Lease had forsaken me. I freaked that, at very least, we might end up with a new property management company who sucked. But then I remembered that after we signed our last mortgage, it was immediately sold and then resold again. There is little assurance, even through home ownership, that who you CHOOSE to work with will be who you get to work with the entire time. I guess this is no different. Our lease is being sold like our mortgage, before it, was sold. We weren’t supposed to even know so hopefully it wont affect us at all.
Sometimes we consider whether we will build again when our lease here is up. And then we laugh becuase building is also SO not the awesome thing I think people (who have never built) think it is. It is hard work and a lot of oversight. And it is insanely expensive to pay for all of the little things (lawn, fence, pool, paint besides builders paint, landscaping, mature trees, window treatments, etc etc) that come, for free, with a house that’s been around for awhile. Of course the trade-off is that it is very hard to find The Perfect Home if you don’t build it yourself. There are MANY aspects of this home that I do not love, it will never be the wonderful house we left in Michigan. But it will always be lower maintenance, more enjoyable, less expensive and subsequently it will feel more like home and less like a burden.
March 13th, 2008 at 11:42 am
OMG - I would have been pretty darn cheezed off! At least your lease is secure. We rent too - our last house sale experience was a NIGHTMARE experience so we’re waiting until we’ve good and emigrated before we buy again. For now I too love the ease with which things get done, plus we now pay less for this house than we would if it was mortgaged, because we’d pay nearly double if we’d bought it in this area!
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March 13th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Ok - leasing. Currently am selling/buying and briefly considered leasing, but what primarily stops me is the mortgage interest deduction. I need to be able to deduct my mortgage interest, in order not to just take it right up the @$$ on taxes . . . leasing is deductible, to my knowledge. Is this an issue for you at all? Just wondering, as we have moved 3 times in 5 years, and took over $40K to our last closing (as the seller), so I am all for leasing . . .I just am not totally sold yet.
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March 13th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Is there anything worse that having people ring your doorbell when you are totally NOT ready for company??
I agree that homeownership SUCKS sometimes. I hate being responsible for everything. It’s scary and it can be down right expensive. And I also agree that buying a home is not necessarily economically better than leasing. Especially considering things like 100% financing, interest-only mortgages and the fact that people don’t seem to stay in their houses very long these days. (whatever happened to 20% down and living in a house forever?
) It’s a big risk when people don’t put anything down, pay interest only and just assume they’ll quickly acquire a good chunk of equity by appreciation alone. I won’t even get into closing costs and realtor fees to sell a house. We’ve sold 2 homes before…one we came out OK on, the other, not so much (and yes, we had put money down, paid more than interest and had a low rate…yet we still had to pay out of pocket to sell it).
We have been in our current house for 3 years and thanks to some fairly inexpensive cosmetic updates we have been able to up the value in a short amount of time. I don’t know how long we’ll live here, but I refuse to buy a new house unless I can put a sizeable chunk of money down on it. I don’t like the idea of homeownership if I literally don’t OWN any of it.
Wow, this sort of got long. But my analytical hubby with an economics degree has spent the last 11 years “schooling” me on how to be a tightwad. ha ha
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March 13th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
OK, re-reading my comment I hope that didn’t come across as snotty or anti-leasing. I’m not at all…I’m just pro wise investing, whichever way one chooses.
I hate how hard it is to convey messages through text…
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March 13th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
I love how you put it Rachel - you don’t own your house if you don’t OWN some of your house. Another piece of the equation is that people aren’t staying in the same job for 20 years ~ retirement anymore so there is a lot more mobility attached to that that used to not really exist as much.
Most people I know who are homeowners have little equity in their homes at all and those who do are in such depressed areas of the country that it doesnt matter. My last house was on the market for 6 months and had less viewings than months it was listed and one offer for $100,000 less than the asking price. I am not even exaggerating.
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March 13th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Oh and no Rachel I totally agree that a house CAN be an investment but it takes a LOT of knowledge and a good market and a good economy and good credit (low interest rates) and money down and several years in the area and some luck and who amongst us has all of those things at once?!? I think the thing I”m so opposed to is that old-fashioned concept that home ownership = investing. It did used to be this way but all of those things you outlined make it not so anymore but it seems like society is just now figuring this out thanks to insane foreclosure rates and lots of press about skeevy mortgage lending practices. Too little too late for a lot of us!!
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March 13th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
I would let anyone who would like lease this house - and I could go and lease one I like better! I love how you describe the process and you have me convinced!
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March 13th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
we were lucky that we inherited a LARGE sum of money, so buying made more sense to us because we could get the payment much lower than rent!! we also turned around and sold it 18mon. later, in CA and made a HUGE amount of money!!! we did this a couple times, but now the market’s gone south.
but in a lot cases, it may be better to rent. my husband’s family never had money to buy, but they rented in a great area by the beach, and all their kids got to go to great schools & surf everyday, even though they lived in an apartment for 30yrs!!
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March 14th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Just a quick response to an earlier comment: “I need to be able to deduct my mortgage interest, in order not to just take it right up the @$$ on taxes . . . leasing is deductible, to my knowledge.”
I think you need to look at the WHOLE picture. In order to deduct your mortgage interest, and receive a percentage of it back in return, you have to PAY it first. AFAIK, you don’t get it all back. It may seem like a benefit at tax time, but over the course of the year, you lost money on that deal.
If you add up the full mortgage P&I, plus all of the maintenance and upkeep costs associated with being a home owner, and compare it to leasing a similar house, in most cases I think that the math will work out in favor of leasing- even after calculating the loss of the mortgage interest deduction.
That doesn’t even account for the headache of trying to prepare a house to sell, listing it, showing it, closing costs, losing money on the house when you sell it, being stuck and unable to move until / unless you sell it, etc., etc.
For me, Buying = indentured servitude to mortgage lender and being chained to one location indefinitely. Leasing = freedom
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