After abandoning my underwater home over a year ago, I still struggle to come to terms with the bit of my soul I left behind. by Bill Gee
(centrist)
Friday, May 20, 2011
My wife has intentionally blotted the place out of her mind. My son was too young to remember anything more than vague impressions from photographs of his first birthday party. Unfortunately for me, I remember everything. Every detail, every corner, every screw, every blade of grass. For seven years the house that I called "my place" was both my joy and my eventual financial ruin that I had to ultimately give up to the elements of fate.
I knew I shouldn't have done it, but I drove past the place the other day just to see how the old homestead was holding up. I wanted to see how the tree I planted in honor of my son's birth was doing. I wanted to see whether the roof I'd repaired in my haste to leave was holding up. I wanted to see whether the security company hired by CitiMortgage had been successful in making the place looked lived-in enough so as to not depress the home values in the neighborhood any more than they already were.
Sold On the Lie
I had purchased the house back in mid-2002 right at the eve of the housing boom. My realtor found the place while wandering the neighborhood for us. There was an estate sale going on and the house was not even on the market yet. The little old lady who owned the place had recently passed away and her adult children were anxious to unload it. Every room in the house needed a facelift, but it had good bones. Despite the fact that I had just learned prior to closing that I'd lost my teaching job, my realtor advised me to keep that fact to myself and I was approved for my mortgage loan.
Like I said, the house needed a lot of work and I got to it right away. I was already quite the "handyman" and I learned quickly about the things I didn't alrealy know how to do. The house had three bedrooms, so I took on two tenants and immediately started to renovate the place one room at a time. Each room needed to be "torn to the studs" so that I could upgrade the insulation and the electrical work, install new windows, upgrade the plumbing, and rework the landscaping. Each year we lived in the house I took on another room until all I had left was the roof, the pantry and the kitchen to do.
Funding these projects was difficult, but not impossible. Our combined salaries took care of 70% of the bills and the rent from my tenants covered the cost of the renovations. With the equity shooting up all the time, I refinanced the house two times. The first time was to fund more projects and pay off old debt, the second time to lock in a lower fixed interest rate.
In late 2007 my wife got pregnant. My two tenants moved out, and my wife became too sick to work. Then the cost of oil shot through the roof and the housing bubble broke. The bills started to pile up fast and there was very little we could do to make ends meet. The roof was about to fail and with a newborn baby in the house we didn't have the time or the money to get the job done. I barely had time to keep the lawn mowed and the hedges trimmed.
To make matters worse, the neighborhood started to deteriorate rapidly. One by one the houses on the block were being put up for sale or their owners simply walked away.
We knew that we needed to get out of our situation so we put the house up for sale in September 2009 and we moved into my parents house the following month. In three months we had to lower the price by $50,000 just to keep up with the declining home values in the neighborhood. Due to my foolish refinancing at the height of the boom, the house was officially underwater, and when we finally had our first genuine bid, CitiMortgage rejected it as too low.
Left to the Elements
Rather than letting the house go into foreclosure, our lender offered a program called a Deed-in-Lieu, which basically means that in exchange for signing the deed to the house over to the lender, they would not pursue a foreclosure proceeding. Unfortunately, the process of the DIL is a lengthy one that was further complicated by my declaration of bankruptcy later that year. During that time, CitiGroup declared the property officially abandoned and turned over the responsibility for security and maintenance to a subcontractor who was responsible for hundreds of similar properties in the region. Since the power, gas and water were disconnected, the house was broken into at least three times. Amenities that we left behind in order to attract potential buyers such as an outdoor bistro set, attractive hardware and window treatments were stolen. The roof above the pantry eventually failed and mold started taking root in the kitchen and the rest of the house.
On my recent "drive by" of the place, I saw that the tree I planted for my son was dead. I also saw the screens on the porch were all torn to shreds and the hedges were so overgrown that it was impossible to come through the front door. At least one window was broken and boarded up. It appears that the security company kept the lawn mowed, but that was all they did. In short, the house looked abandoned and was quickly falling prey to Mother Nature. The irony is that CitiGroup will be lucky to get half my best offer for the place at this point, and the person who ends up buying it will likely need to spend at least $50K just to make the place habitable.
The Illusion of Home as Place
When I think about all the time and money and love I put into this house I have to remind myself that a home is not just about a place, but the people who are in it. Unfortunately, I think we were all sold on the idea that a home was just as much about place so much so that we mistakenly placed too much of our self worth in the possession and maintenance of our small piece of the American Dream.
I promised myself that I would never own real estate again but I think I'm lying to myself again. Much the same way that the death of a beloved pet makes you believe that you would never want to put yourself through the grief and the trauma of loving another animal again, there is joy and love in living in a space that you helped to create with your own hands that cannot be replaced by renting.
Whether you like it or not, there's a piece of your soul in that wood-framed structure, and it breaks your heart when the greed of bankers and investors rob you of that part of your soul. What makes it harder is when you were led to believe that the investment you made was worth the sacrifices you made in order to get it.
Was it worth it? I don't know. I'll let you know when I own my next place.
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do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates.
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