Real Estate Investing

One of my best friends is facing foreclosure.  There…  I said it.  *Mary’s husband had surgery and his recovery took longer than expected.  When he returned to his job, he was forced to quit.  Now they struggle.   

Mary has been looking for a new job and had a second interview today.  She said the benefits would be great, but as long as the salary is enough for them to make their mortgage payment, she’ll take it.  Mary has already talked to her mother-in-law about babysitting her 1-year old and 7-year old.  If it gets too hectic, the 7-year old will be able to go with her father on his service calls since he’s self-employed now.

Meanwhile, they received their first notice this week that foreclosure proceedings are beginning.  They called their lender who enthusiastically told them he could help with a possible refinancing.  When he learned of their current salary (her job searching, him struggling to start a new business), he called back and said no help was available.

Mary’s story is just one of thousands and thousands of people facing the same situation.  In fact, in early June the Associated Press reported that foreclosures are reaching record levels.   

Nearly 1 percent, or roughly 447,723 loans, fell into foreclosure during the January-to-March period, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday in its quarterly snapshot of the mortgage market. That surpassed the previous high of 0.83 percent over the last three months in 2007.

Yesterday another friend told me the sheriff pulled up to the house behind her.  A few hours later, I drove by and quietly took this photo:

This is the face of foreclosure.  The family was instructed to remove their belongings immediately.  They complied.  How could they not with the deputy sheriff standing there making sure they did.  Ivy wrote about this family.  And another that she ran into at the gas station later that night.

The man came up to me and said, “Could you possibly help us out? We were evicted today and we have nowhere to go.” I wanted to help, but had no cash on me. I told him “Sadly, no.” and he thanked me for my time and walked away.

The sad part of this was, these people were not my neighbors that had been evicted earlier that day. So there’s at least 2 families from my town out on the streets with nowhere to go. My heart breaks for them, yet I have to tamp down the hard, judgmental part of my heart that asks, “Why didn’t they make arrangements? It’s not like they didn’t know this was coming.”

How many of us know someone about to lose their home?  How long will this trend continue?  I’m afraid to ask.

*Mary is not my friend’s real name, though she is a real person. 

I could pop open a can of peaches any time - day or night - and devour every last bite of the succulent fruit.  There’s only one thing better than canned peaches and that’s fresh peaches.  An agent brought in a bag of newly harvested peaches this afternoon and I now blame him for my sticky keyboard.

Although this site is all about real estate: buying, selling, decorating, loans, inspections, market news, etc., we sometimes need to be reminded that for the most part real estate is about HOME.  It is a buyers’ market, but the buyer is looking to be home.  The seller is marketing their home. 

That roof over our head is the place we raise our children, play with our pets, invite family and friends over to make memories.  One of my best memories from childhood was sneaking into my Mom’s garden as a kid to eat vegetables right off the vine.  I was forbidden to eat the tomatoes because they were a very important canning ingredient to get through the winter.  With six kids on a military salary, every tomato counted.  So I would tiptoe to the side of the garden where the green peppers were and munch on them.  I avoided the corn and green beans because of worms.  Geeyuck.

Right now, gardens are beginning to thrive for all those green thumbs who have their own gardens this year.  And gardeners are a proud bunch who like to show pictures!

This is an urban garden by Cooking in Cleveland.  Although she doesn’t live in a house, she has managed to have a garden on the roof of her apartment and it looks wonderful!

Top Veg shows how to put out runner/stick bean plants.

The fava beans are almost ripe in Skippy’s Vegetable Garden.

Amy at the MotherLoad already has a tomato!

I feel like digging in some dirt, getting it under my nails, running water.  But I may wait for my neighbor around the corner to set up their table of free vegetables when they have too many.  These are the joys of home ownership.  And the joys of a good neighbor!

There was an incident in my neighborhood yesterday evening.  A neighbor telephoned because two enormous pigs showed up in her backyard and she was trying to find the owner.  After much ado about the future pork chops, the owner was located and the pigs made it home without being barbequed.

Whether your neighbors drive you crazy because their roosters crow in the wee hours of the morning before daylight, their cats leave muddy footprints all over your car, mean dogs roaming in a pack, or their dog barks all night every night, that’s still not as bad as other neighbors.

After more than 10 years of complaining to the police, members of the city council, and the actual noise-maker, neighbors finally called the local television station’s “That’s Messed Up” segment to see if anything could be done.  The reporter said on his site, 

Almost on cue, through jittery camera work, pointing toward the source of his consternation, you hear the cacophonous thunder of a high octane engine. At first it roars, then it consumes more fuel and the accelerator forces open the hungry carburetor. The thunder intensifies into rapid pulses, shrieking sonic booms, like an platoon of M-16’s firing indiscriminately. If there was a DB meter pointed at the tree line, it would have burst.

The neighbor would not back down in order to restore the peace, however the news finally got the attention of the Metro Codes office which issued him a citation for having an unlicensed car in the driveway.

I’m so lucky that our neighbors have been mostly decent, hard-working, respectful people, but if they were bad I’d probably just go talk to them first before doing something more drastic.  How do you handle bad neighbors?