We started this past week on a high note. Last Sunday morning our agent called. He had someone contact him to see the home, and they wanted to come by just after lunch that day. I really didn't think they were a serious buyer since they called after driving by; they didn't have their own agent. Of course, I let them see the house. We did some cleaning and cleared out to take a walk through the neighborhood and to play at the park, figuring they'd be in and out in about 20-30 minutes. Over an hour later, after circling the block several times, we finally saw our agent leave the driveway, allowing us to head home with three worn out little girls. Not much later, we were given a run-down on the potential buyers and on what seemed to be a stellar showing. Their living and financial situations as they presented them seemed perfectly suited to wait out the process of purchasing a short-sale. They wanted to return that day or the next to take a second look. In fact, about an hour later we received another call, requesting access at 5 p.m. that evening. Once again, we cleaned up and cleared out, grabbing some fast-food for dinner and letting the kids run free at yet another park. Again, it was well over an hour before our agent called with the "all clear." And again, he indicated that they were seriously interested. They wanted to take the evening to talk it over, and would get back to our agent on Monday. So we went home to wait and to start our week, finally feeling good, hopeful that we would have an offer to present to the bank this week. Monday morning came and went, with no call. Monday afternoon became Monday evening, and still nothing. Tuesday morning I e-mailed our agent to ask the status of his conversations with them. He had attempted several times to call and to text them, but they had not responded to any of his calls. So we waited some more. We've heard nothing from them all week, indicating to us that they've moved on, for one reason or another. As they won't return any phone calls, it's difficult to know exactly why, but I'd say it's a safe bet that they, like several others that have viewed the house, decided they want nothing to do with the short-sale process.
The house has been on the market for over 7 weeks, with relatively few showings. We dropped the price substantially, about $30,000, just over two weeks ago in an attempt to stimulate some more interest and to bring it more in-line with comparable properties that had closed in June (prices in our area are continuing to fall, unfortunately). Traffic definitely picked up - not hard to do, really, as we'd had only one showing in the whole month of June. Clearly, though, the fact that the house was already bargain-priced is not enough to combat the malady of being a short-sale. So we now drop a bit lower. We don't really have much more room to drop after this, I'm afraid. The house next door is also a short sale. Same floor plan, but not quite as many extras, and it has an offer pending at just $1000 less than where we now sit on the market. We're told by the potential buyers of that property (we know them) that the bank had pre-approved their offer price. However, they have heard absolutely nothing from the seller or the seller's bank in the six weeks since the offer was submitted. This is exactly the reason why so many short-sales become foreclosures: too many buyers simply refuse to deal with the long, drawn out process of waiting for the bank to even acknowledge an offer.
Now, we sit. Our current listing price is just shy of $100,000 less than what we owe. That's not just an underwater mortgage; our home value is Atlantis. It used to be grand, glorious, thriving. Then it plummeted to a depth beyond reach or repair. At some point, I suppose that it'll return, or at least stabilize. Unfortunately, my family won't have the privilege to be the proud explorers that will reap the beauty of that discovery.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
The Path to Now, Part 2
Continued from The Path to Now, Part 1...
By late 2007, we were seeing that work opportunities were going to be slim, and all signs were indicting that it would not be a temporary problem. After five years of pretty much exclusively doing new construction, subcontracting for other contractors, we started looking at the possibility of expanding our focus. We advertised and did some bidding on a couple of smallish residential remodel projects, but quickly realized that everyone and his brother were doing the same, and we could not really compete. I had already began to look for part-time work to help deflect against the smaller income that we were already seeing; however, not many local retailers were interested in hiring at all at that point - they were feeling the beginning of the pinch, too - and those that were looking were not interested in my limited availability of evenings and weekends. With two small kids, and no family close enough to help out, I was stuck. Once we saw how incredibly devastating the recession - not yet labelled that, but still - was to be for us we saw that the only chance we had to get through was for me to bring in a larger income than I could working part-time. The only problem? Child care.
We sat late into the evening one night, crunching numbers and brain storming. How long could we pay the bills if Mr. Four Walls was completely out of work? (A few months) How much would full-time child care cost for the girls? (A lot). Did we have anyone that could help us with them? (Yes). Phone calls were made, family meetings held, and shortly before Christmas it was decided that Mr. Four Walls' mother would move in with us, live rent-free, and care for the girls so I could work. She agreed to doing this for two years, and as we had no clue as to what was on the horizon, we figured that was as good as anything. We contemplated putting the house on the market right then, but didn't want to panic. Prices were already falling, there were several houses in our neighborhood already for sale, and we figured that it would be hard to break even since we'd just moved in the year before. Besides, if we found that we were too tight for very long we could list the house then. Prices were bound to stabilize soon and then we could list the house if needed, right?
I began to hunt for work in earnest, and Mr. Four Walls continued to work all of his contacts to line up work for the business. He was coming up completely empty. We made the very difficult decision to lay off our sole employee, and Mr. Four Walls kept trying to find jobs. It became pretty clear in the first part of January 2008, though, that nothing was coming our way for several months, and even then no one would commit to anything. I was going on interviews, and was also selling Pampered Chef in the evenings. One evening as I prepared to leave for a Cooking Show hosted by the wife of a friend from high school, we talked it over and decided that Mr. Four Walls should start to look for work at other companies. As an employee, not for our business. The discussion was quick, and I left for the show.
While chatting with my friend that evening, I mentioned our situation. He said his dad was working for a local design/build firm and had just been mentioning that they were looking for a carpenter. He called him right there, and Mr. Four Walls had an interview the next day. By the end of the week he was hired. It was a reasonable wage. Even so, it was a substantial decrease in income compared to what we had previously made. It became even more important for me to land something full-time. The last week of January I was offered my current position as an administrative assistant/bookkeeper, and so began my journey as a full time working mother, commuting 80 miles a day. Combined we were still making quite a bit less than we did before, but in the next few months we could see that we were going to make it work, at least for a couple for years. By then, we figured, things were bound to have improved in the housing market. We planned to then either sell the house or go back into business for ourselves, or even both.
Overall, we were feeling positive about how we were landing. It was going more smoothly than we expected having Mr. Four Walls' mom live with us. We both settled in pretty quickly with our new jobs and liked the positions and those with whom we worked. That's not to say that life was not without it's challenges, especially for me. I struggled emotionally with leaving the kids. I'd never really been away from them on a regular basis. I mourned having to give up working in Jellybean's kindergarten class, and the special time that I had with Miss Florida on Jellybean's school days, when it was just the two of us - a rarity for a second child. The girls adjusted, but they both had their struggles, too, and to this day still cry sometimes about me having to go to work.
I never wanted to be a working mom, full-time at least. I had a working mom, a wonderful mom, growing up - but I could see the struggle and how thinly she was stretched, and I wanted more for myself and for my own kids. I never had the desire to be the super-mom shown on the t.v. shows of my childhood: Family Ties, The Cosby Show, Who's the Boss. Even as a child, all I could see when I watched those funny, smart, articulate women was how much they were missing with their kids. However, finances dictated that I work, as they had dictated that my mother work (oddly enough I was five when she went to work full-time, and Amelia was five when I went to work full-time...strange...). So I prayed and sucked it up, waiting for God to step in and make it all better. I'm still waiting on that.
I'll continue to tell of The Path to Now in yet another entry.
By late 2007, we were seeing that work opportunities were going to be slim, and all signs were indicting that it would not be a temporary problem. After five years of pretty much exclusively doing new construction, subcontracting for other contractors, we started looking at the possibility of expanding our focus. We advertised and did some bidding on a couple of smallish residential remodel projects, but quickly realized that everyone and his brother were doing the same, and we could not really compete. I had already began to look for part-time work to help deflect against the smaller income that we were already seeing; however, not many local retailers were interested in hiring at all at that point - they were feeling the beginning of the pinch, too - and those that were looking were not interested in my limited availability of evenings and weekends. With two small kids, and no family close enough to help out, I was stuck. Once we saw how incredibly devastating the recession - not yet labelled that, but still - was to be for us we saw that the only chance we had to get through was for me to bring in a larger income than I could working part-time. The only problem? Child care.
We sat late into the evening one night, crunching numbers and brain storming. How long could we pay the bills if Mr. Four Walls was completely out of work? (A few months) How much would full-time child care cost for the girls? (A lot). Did we have anyone that could help us with them? (Yes). Phone calls were made, family meetings held, and shortly before Christmas it was decided that Mr. Four Walls' mother would move in with us, live rent-free, and care for the girls so I could work. She agreed to doing this for two years, and as we had no clue as to what was on the horizon, we figured that was as good as anything. We contemplated putting the house on the market right then, but didn't want to panic. Prices were already falling, there were several houses in our neighborhood already for sale, and we figured that it would be hard to break even since we'd just moved in the year before. Besides, if we found that we were too tight for very long we could list the house then. Prices were bound to stabilize soon and then we could list the house if needed, right?
I began to hunt for work in earnest, and Mr. Four Walls continued to work all of his contacts to line up work for the business. He was coming up completely empty. We made the very difficult decision to lay off our sole employee, and Mr. Four Walls kept trying to find jobs. It became pretty clear in the first part of January 2008, though, that nothing was coming our way for several months, and even then no one would commit to anything. I was going on interviews, and was also selling Pampered Chef in the evenings. One evening as I prepared to leave for a Cooking Show hosted by the wife of a friend from high school, we talked it over and decided that Mr. Four Walls should start to look for work at other companies. As an employee, not for our business. The discussion was quick, and I left for the show.
While chatting with my friend that evening, I mentioned our situation. He said his dad was working for a local design/build firm and had just been mentioning that they were looking for a carpenter. He called him right there, and Mr. Four Walls had an interview the next day. By the end of the week he was hired. It was a reasonable wage. Even so, it was a substantial decrease in income compared to what we had previously made. It became even more important for me to land something full-time. The last week of January I was offered my current position as an administrative assistant/bookkeeper, and so began my journey as a full time working mother, commuting 80 miles a day. Combined we were still making quite a bit less than we did before, but in the next few months we could see that we were going to make it work, at least for a couple for years. By then, we figured, things were bound to have improved in the housing market. We planned to then either sell the house or go back into business for ourselves, or even both.
Overall, we were feeling positive about how we were landing. It was going more smoothly than we expected having Mr. Four Walls' mom live with us. We both settled in pretty quickly with our new jobs and liked the positions and those with whom we worked. That's not to say that life was not without it's challenges, especially for me. I struggled emotionally with leaving the kids. I'd never really been away from them on a regular basis. I mourned having to give up working in Jellybean's kindergarten class, and the special time that I had with Miss Florida on Jellybean's school days, when it was just the two of us - a rarity for a second child. The girls adjusted, but they both had their struggles, too, and to this day still cry sometimes about me having to go to work.
I never wanted to be a working mom, full-time at least. I had a working mom, a wonderful mom, growing up - but I could see the struggle and how thinly she was stretched, and I wanted more for myself and for my own kids. I never had the desire to be the super-mom shown on the t.v. shows of my childhood: Family Ties, The Cosby Show, Who's the Boss. Even as a child, all I could see when I watched those funny, smart, articulate women was how much they were missing with their kids. However, finances dictated that I work, as they had dictated that my mother work (oddly enough I was five when she went to work full-time, and Amelia was five when I went to work full-time...strange...). So I prayed and sucked it up, waiting for God to step in and make it all better. I'm still waiting on that.
I'll continue to tell of The Path to Now in yet another entry.
Unanswered Prayers
After a lot of prayer and discussion with Mr. Four Walls regarding our impending lack of childcare, I asked my boss this week if I could work a "flexible" schedule; I proposed starting earlier, leaving earlier, and working a couple of Saturdays to make up the difference. Mr. Four Walls would handle the mornings, hopefully with the help of a neighbor or college student so he could get out the door at reasonable hours, and I would be home in time to get the older kids off the bus. The baby would still go to daycare (somewhere?), but would have to be there for a shorter period. My proposal didn't go so well, I'm afraid. While I haven't been officially turned down, it's not looking good for my vision of less-chaotic afternoon commutes followed by helping with homework, starting dinner before it should actually be on the table, and maybe - just maybe - getting the girls back into some activities once finances stabilize a bit more.
I suppose this post doesn't actually have to do with the house, on which there has been absolutely zero activity in the last 7 days. However, as the catalyst for me making the request was an effort to reduce childcare expenses so that once we are through this nerve-racking process we might stand a chance of being able to balance our budget, I guess that does have a bit to do with the house. Once I started writing up my proposal for how I saw my alternative schedule working and ways to remedy the potential pit-falls, it became more than a money saving move: it became a mommy-saving move. After 2 1/2 years of being gone nearly 11 hours a day for my commute and work, it's not getting any easier. In fact, adding the baby to the mix (completely unplanned, for those that aren't familiar with that story...another post for another day), this chaotic, Monday through Friday, all day, everyday schedule has about driven me batty.
But for now I have to remember that unanswered prayers are unanswered for a reason.....and accept that the bats in the belfry are getting pretty cozy.
I suppose this post doesn't actually have to do with the house, on which there has been absolutely zero activity in the last 7 days. However, as the catalyst for me making the request was an effort to reduce childcare expenses so that once we are through this nerve-racking process we might stand a chance of being able to balance our budget, I guess that does have a bit to do with the house. Once I started writing up my proposal for how I saw my alternative schedule working and ways to remedy the potential pit-falls, it became more than a money saving move: it became a mommy-saving move. After 2 1/2 years of being gone nearly 11 hours a day for my commute and work, it's not getting any easier. In fact, adding the baby to the mix (completely unplanned, for those that aren't familiar with that story...another post for another day), this chaotic, Monday through Friday, all day, everyday schedule has about driven me batty.
But for now I have to remember that unanswered prayers are unanswered for a reason.....and accept that the bats in the belfry are getting pretty cozy.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
The Path to Now, Part 1
Life was great in the summer of 2006, when we purchased this house. We had two adorable, healthy little girls, and Mr. Four Walls and I were each doing exactly what we felt we were supposed to be doing: running his framing company - him on the job-site and me doing the paperwork from home - and me being a stay-at-home-mom. I've shared in another post about selling our last house very quickly and finding this one - The One - that same day. We moved in towards the end of August 2006, and quickly settled in. The neighbors were warm and welcoming. Jellybean (our oldest) loved her new preschool, and I began to forge what have become some of my most important friendships with some of the other moms. Mr. Four Walls' framing company was booming, and we couldn't get the jobs done fast enough to move onto the next. Financially, it was an adjustment tripling our mortgage; we had less fun-money (that we should have been doing more with than having fun...), but we were having no problem making ends meet. We were even building up a fairly good emergency fund (and that has definitely come in handy over the past couple of years, even if it's gone now...). We knew when we bought this house that we were going to the outer-edge of our comfort level, budget-wise, but it was only 3 years at that point until Miss Florida (then our youngest) was to start school full-time and then I'd be freed up to work more than just part-time, on Mr. Four Walls' company or for someone else. Wise? Maybe not, but also not out of the norm for families looking for a "forever" home in a great neighborhood with a good school district.
The first signs that life was starting to change began in the spring of 2007, about 9 months after we moved in. The housing market started to slow, just a bit. Not enough to cause great worry, but we could see that we were going to have to tighten our belts a bit more to ride out what seemed at the time to be a slight slow-down in the pace that the builders were wanting us to build their houses. Not a big deal, really. Then in September 2007, the brakes started grinding, and we could tell that the winds of change were blowing. Builders were suddenly pressing pause on entire developments, and lots that had previously been "ours" to frame on were being put on the back-burner. The home builders were beginning to feel the first blow of the now-notorious "credit-crunch," and we felt it right along with them. The urgency from the builders for us to get done to move onto the next home was not there, but we were still working...for the time being.....
I'll continue "The Path to Now" in an upcoming entry.
The first signs that life was starting to change began in the spring of 2007, about 9 months after we moved in. The housing market started to slow, just a bit. Not enough to cause great worry, but we could see that we were going to have to tighten our belts a bit more to ride out what seemed at the time to be a slight slow-down in the pace that the builders were wanting us to build their houses. Not a big deal, really. Then in September 2007, the brakes started grinding, and we could tell that the winds of change were blowing. Builders were suddenly pressing pause on entire developments, and lots that had previously been "ours" to frame on were being put on the back-burner. The home builders were beginning to feel the first blow of the now-notorious "credit-crunch," and we felt it right along with them. The urgency from the builders for us to get done to move onto the next home was not there, but we were still working...for the time being.....
I'll continue "The Path to Now" in an upcoming entry.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Ring Around the Rosie...We All Fall Down
I loved to spin when I was a child. Around, and around, and around I'd twirl until that intoxicating dizziness over took me and I couldn't stand any longer, until I tumbled to the ground in a fit of breathless laughter. Growing up, our neighbor's yard was perfect for it: a large, level, grassy space that allowed several of us kids to claim our own space, stretch out our arms, and take flight. It's a memory so vivid that all I need to do is close my eyes and I'm back there, barefoot, soft grass beneath my feet, twirling, twirling, twirling in my own personal tilt-a-whirl. I can hear the other kids laughing. I can hear the dogs barking two houses down, mad that they can't come join in our fun. I can smell the freshness the summer grass, and I can hear the cars as they brake approaching the stop-light on the busy avenue a block over. I can feel the tickling of the blades of grass on my neck as I lay on the lawn, the world continuing to spin around me, watching the the wispy, summer clouds dance above me as if I were peering up into the bottom of a centrifuge, and I alone was the sole still object in a twirling, tumbling world. Sometimes we'd all join hands and play Ring-Around-the-Rosie, going faster and faster and faster until we couldn't get to the last line of the rhyme before tumbling down into a jumbled heap of knobby knees and grass-stained elbows. It was pure, innocent, untainted joy (historical meaning of the nursery rhyme aside, of course).
I sat down this evening to begin to detail more of the journey that brought us to this point of having to give up on this house. For some reason, though, that memory is so strongly on my mind. The memory of spinning, laughing, tumbling, and breathing in the evening summer air so deeply that I thought I'd burst, is now bursting out of me. Maybe it's the fact that summer has finally arrived in the Pacific Northwest after an historically cold, wet spring, or that I spent the last week playing on the banks of the Wenatchee River, taking a much-needed break away with my family and doing my best to forget about the chaos and the sadness and the noise that has so dominated my life lately. I suppose I'm simply grasping for those sweet moments to immerse myself into.
Moments like last Saturday, on our last full day of our get-away. We were walking back to the condo, electing to take the river-front trail instead of the paved paths and sidewalks through town. We came across a sliver of a beach where the swift waters of the river slowed into a gentle, calm pool. The kids could not resist and within minutes had inched themselves into the water up to their waists, fully clothed. As I sat on a log and watched Jellybean give Miss Florida a lesson in the art of making the perfect mud ball (and I mean a lesson, as she declared it to be her classroom with Miss Florida as her student, and then proceeded for 30 minutes to give the best hands-on lecture I've ever experienced) I remembered for the first time in a long time what it was like to just "be." That feeling that, even though the world is spinning seemingly out of control around you, you can be perfectly still and untouched by the gyrating chaos.
Those are the moments when I can really see and feel and hear God. They are the moments that I have to retreat to when the spinning, earthly realities of circumstance and responsibility threaten to and often succeed in throwing me to the ground. It's in these moments, dizzily sprawled out on the grass or lazily sitting on the edge of a rushing river, that I remember that the point of our childhood spinning and Ring-Around-the-Rosie-ing is to fall down. We realize from a very young age - and begin to forget some point in adolescence - that we can't keep spinning forever, no matter how much fun it is at first, and we find joy and relief and such beauty in the falling and landing.
I've always been so afraid of failure and of tripping up, of falling, that I have a hard time stopping my twirling, or worse yet, even starting to spin in the first place. I've realized now that we've been spinning and spinning and spinning, long past when it was fun, or exciting, or healthy, and we need to fall down to have a chance to recognize the joy and relief of being still. Even more, just knowing that I'm finally falling, falling down, even if I haven't felt the sweet cradle of the summery lawn beneath me yet, brings it's own relief.
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