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Burning down the house…

democrats did this!

This is the first time in my life I have been squished between those giant lumbering retards, The Government and The Market. I’ve lived in the same house for twenty years, had the same job for twenty five. No kids or student loans. However angry it made me in the abstract, government never really touched my life, beyond the steady slow drain of taxation…and that itch between my shoulderblades when I have to deal with an impertinent bureaucrat. The market’s ups and downs were, for me, largely theoretical. Sure, my 401K took some serious hits over the years, but doing the mental math, Zeno’s arrow will hit me in the ass before retirement does.

But now, after years of planning for this overseas move, the final step — selling my house — comes right in the teeth of this shit-storm. Ohhhhh, NOW I feel the flying fist of government incompetence, alllll the way up to my duodenum.

I was back and forth on the phone with my real estate agent last night. Good news! The last guy who looked at my house loved it so much, he offered me $12,000 less than my minimum break-even-and-walk-away-with-nothing price. Erm…no. Six thousand less? I don’t think so. Three thousand, and she waives a thousand of her fee…?

She said — I be not a-shitting of thee — “I just hate to see us get this close to a deal without closing it.”

Yes, I took it. After I sell my car, my guns (oh <sob> my guns! My beautiful guns!), siphon the oil out of the tank in the basement and cash in my unused vacation time, I might just be able to limp into Heathrow with my cat and my fambly heirlooms.

Government has just stolen sixty thousand dollars from me. Let’s be clear about this: THE DEMOCRATS STOLE $60,000 FROM ME. Yeah, I know…all that fucked up impenetrable financial bundling on Wall Street, all the house flipping by yuppies…the final economic cause of death was complex and fairly bipartisan.

But the underlying AIDS that destroyed the market’s immune system was Fannie Mae. It was created by Democrats explicitly to make dodgy loans, its quasi-governmental status bent the market out of shape and forced other lenders (without government muscle behind them) to make dodgy loans of their own, it was HUGE, it was corrupt to the core, and Democrats fought any and every attempt to do anything about it.

Since 2001, Bush tried dozens of times to rein in Fannie Mae. McCain predicted this collapse in 2005 and sponsored a bill that would bring it under control. Shot down by huffy Democrats. Every time.

The Democrats OWN this crisis, the Republicans tried hard to stop it, and Bush and McCain refuse to hang it around their necks. Just so we can pass a bipartisan bill that props up greedy assholes and screws people who didn’t act like idiots. Republicans should totally PWN on this issue, and Obama got the polling boost.

You could light cigarettes off my forehead today.

Okay, you know what? Screw this spreading the blame around thing. I hereby adopt-a-pol. Barack Obama got $126,349 out of Fannie Mae employees and I want my half. Your stupid crisis pinched $60,000 I can’t afford to lose…sixty grand in carefully nurtured home equity. Three decades of frugal living and good decision-making. All my slack, all my seed money.

GIVE IT ME! I WANT MY MONEY BACK, YOU BASTARD!

Comments


Comment from wendyworn
Time: September 25, 2008, 2:45 pm

very sorry stoaty. That really sucks.

But you can take some consolation that you will be in England when the civil unrest and martial law happens here in the grand ol’ U.S. of A. From the rumors, I hear they are going to pass the bailout.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 25, 2008, 2:51 pm

Yes. I’ll be safely protected by shari’a law.

I’m gonna look great in a burqa. Well, I’m going to look like every other woman on the planet, but that has to have an upside.


Comment from Allen
Time: September 25, 2008, 3:05 pm

What drives me batty on this is to be lectured by those pinheads on whose fault it is. I swear they’re all a bunch of sociopaths. Lie like hell first, tell a different lie the next time, and then say “we’re looking out for the American people.”

Stop looking out for me! Anymore looking out for, and getting hit by a bus is an attractive alternative. I read an LA Times article yesterday, I think, about how a number of the loans were to illegal immigrants. Jeebus, illegal immigrants, “here have a tasty Freddie Mac loan.”


Comment from apotheosis
Time: September 25, 2008, 3:18 pm

I wish I had some words of consolation.

“That sucks” just doesn’t really say it.


Comment from porknbean
Time: September 25, 2008, 3:20 pm

I am so sorry weasel for this mess.

he offered me $12,000 less than my minimum break-even-and-walk-away-with-nothing price.

Is that, as is? Will he get to replace the boiler?


Comment from doubleplusundead
Time: September 25, 2008, 3:21 pm

Ouch, rough all around. Is the housing market really bad in RI?


Comment from Lissa
Time: September 25, 2008, 3:22 pm

Ohhhh, so sad!!!! 🙁

Umm, umm, silver lining, silver lining . . . not only will you have idiot politicians to blog-roast, you’ll have Archbishops as well! (Iowahawk’s always a good, cheering read)

Oh, and tasty delicious accents. MMMM pretty accents . . .


Comment from porknbean
Time: September 25, 2008, 3:32 pm

Is the housing market really bad in RI?

I think it is stalled everywhere. People are waiting. Those getting offers can’t move or sit on two mortgages until the people wanting their house, are able to sell theirs.
There are three houses in my neighborhood that have been up for sale for over a year…(and probably about 6 houses put up in the past year). Two are being rented out now, the other the guy just wanted too much and it’s rather dull. The area is very nice middle class that gets a lot of folks that move around frequently due to their jobs.

Weasel just needs to get herself to Badger House sooner than later.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 25, 2008, 3:37 pm

Oh, no PnB…all of this is predicated on me sinking another $5K into the boiler. I took a day off work today and did some <gasp> math. Since I last sat down and did this, I’ve paid off enough of the principle on my mortgage and equity loan to make up the difference in the boiler…but it’s going to be a squeaker.

I was counting on walking away with enough cash to set myself up on the other side. You know: computer, my own copy of Photoshop, lighting. I have to rebuy everything electrical. I’ll be unemployed — and legally unemployable until I get the visas sorted (which is another thing — the visas will costs thousands before I’m done). I had really hoped to be a net financial plus for Uncle B from the get-go.

On the flip side…don’t feel too sorry for me. The reason I’m in such a gosh-darned hurry is that we bought a fabulous house in a wonderful place. I’m going to pitch my alarm clock out the window forever. I have to bring in some money, but not nearly as much as I get as a cubicle-monkey.

It’s a wonderful thing. I always knew it was going to be a horrible journey to get there.


Comment from Pupster
Time: September 25, 2008, 3:55 pm

Fuck it. Pop goes the champagne, Weasel!

There are worse things to get used to than being a kept Stoat; staring at the same damn cubicle wall for another 25 years for one.

I think you’d have some success with an on-line original S. Weasel art / blog-prop auction. Maybe enough to keep you in Val-U-Rite until the house closing.

You got any buyers for those firearms?


Comment from Enas Yorl
Time: September 25, 2008, 3:56 pm

Gee, sorry for your loss Weasel. 🙁 Truly that does suck. Personally, my home’s value is now $50,000 less than when I bought it a couple years ago, so I feel your pain. Fortunately I can wait for home prices to go back up again. I wish I’d listened to my better sense and waited before getting my first house, but everyone kept telling me that I was a fool for doing so. What’s the old saying? “None of us is as stupid as all of us.” Stupid “everyone”.


Comment from Allen
Time: September 25, 2008, 4:03 pm

Weasel, what do you have in the way of guns?


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 25, 2008, 4:12 pm

Nothing spectacular, Allen. I’ve got a few silly, cheap plinkers: an old top-break .22, a Makarov in S&W .40…stuff like that.

I have three that are dear to me: a .22 rifle that belonged to my grandfather, that I’ve stashed with my dad. An S&W 686 snubby in .357 magnum, that’s been my bedside gun for years. It’s no big, just an old friend. And the first handgun I ever bought is an old S&W .38…very much like a five-screw. I’ve never been able to ID it exactly, but it has a lanyard ring, which probably means it was part of a dress uniform. It looks like it’s never been fired (though it has; I’ve certainly used it).

Those last two I had planned to wrap securely and bury on my property in Tennessee, but I never got the chance to take them down. I’ve gone back and forth on whether to sell them or leave them with a friend…just in case they were ever wanted.


Comment from Lemur King
Time: September 25, 2008, 4:30 pm

Yep, that burqua is going to do wonders for covering up the nasty bruises from the beating you have taken. Very sorry me mustelid friend.

I can’t imagine GB would be too very understanding of your right to keep and bear arms. Oh they don’t have that, do they?

Even taking a nasty hit like you have, there is something to being able to finally say “Yep, I’m damaged, but it is over – no more stress accompanied by endless waiting to make some kind of forward progress – and – I can put this whole sordid ****-******* behind me.” (if you can figure out what lies behind the asterisks, you probably won’t be offended because you’ve heard it all)


Comment from porknbean
Time: September 25, 2008, 4:33 pm

Hmm…a kept weasel…drawering all sorts of things in Badger garden…with a furry, er..furrin, guy.

I agree, it is a wonderful thing.


Comment from Dave in Texas
Time: September 25, 2008, 4:58 pm

$12,000 less than your break even walk away and you still gotta do the boiler?

faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack.

I’m sorry kid.


Comment from Allen
Time: September 25, 2008, 5:01 pm

The Makarov sounds interesting. It piques my sense of irony. What kind of shape is it in? If I ever have to shoot a bear it would be kind of interesting doing it with a gun made by the real Bear.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 25, 2008, 5:02 pm

Oh, no, DiT. I am a master bargainer. Now I’m only down $3K plus the boiler. Soooper Genius, me.

My cousin worked for the oil industry in Oklahoma in the ’80s when it collapsed. When she closed on her house sale, she had to sit down and write a check for $20K.

I keep reminding myself that. Sometimes, things just suck and you have to rub dirt in it and get back in the game.


Comment from Dave in Texas
Time: September 25, 2008, 5:05 pm

Only job I ever got laid off from was an oil company in the mid 80s. Eldest baby girl was a week old.

I spent the next 5 years with a defense contractor until peace broke out. We had a saying back then, “Peace is hell”.

The last 17 here though have been pretty good to me.

I admire your tenacity.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 25, 2008, 5:10 pm

Oh, our local market was flooded with them for a while, Allen. They’re super cheap — I think I paid $130. I love them, because they’re so darned Soviet. They’re based on the Walther PPK (I think), but they’re so gosh-darned pared down, they only have 27 moving parts.

For all that, it’s pretty accurate. Mine has “made in Russia” written on the grips in English, so you know whose market it was made for.

I’m going to take all the plinkers back to the shop I bought them from and sell them on consignment.


Comment from Allen
Time: September 25, 2008, 5:21 pm

Well if you want to sell it to me let me know.

I heard on the radio they cut a bailout deal. This should be tasty. On the bright side, I caught part of John Gibson’s radio show the other day. He had a Joe Biden Gaffe-a-thon. Funny as hell.


Comment from Dawn
Time: September 25, 2008, 5:27 pm

Congratulations! Happy Happy house selling day.

Sorta…


Comment from Gnus
Time: September 25, 2008, 5:35 pm

I was hopin’ to say, Hurray! Somehow commiseration just isn’t the same. Sorry, Sweasel.

At least it’s done.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 25, 2008, 5:49 pm

Well, the guy’s coming for one last look-see Saturday morning, so nobody’s signed anything yet. And I have an unbelievably unpleasant buttload of things to do before I get there — visa applications for me AND the cat, arranging the mover, all that shite.

But if it goes off as it looks like it will, I’ll be in Badger House by Christmas. And that, believe me, is Very Good News, Indeed.


Comment from Pupster
Time: September 25, 2008, 5:58 pm

I’d like to be
Across the sea
In the Weasel-Badger garden
In the shade

They’d let me in
And give me Gin
As a minion I would surely
Have it made

I’d ask my friends
With DVR TV’s
To record
The NFL for me

I’d like to be
Across the sea
Chasing sheep and barking madly
Cross the glades


Comment from Jessica
Time: September 25, 2008, 6:58 pm

Well, sucks about the money and the house, but I am very glad that you will FINALLY be starting that new life of yours in that freaking adorable cottage.

And, you will post wedding photos – right?


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: September 25, 2008, 7:16 pm

It’s not like that with mustelids, Jessica.

What happens is you bite one another. If after 24 hours you haven’t keeled-over with rabies, it’s OK.

Anyone seen my copy of ‘Stoat Keeping For Beginners’?


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 25, 2008, 7:19 pm

Awww…Jessica. Sorry about your party. Hey, if this goes through, you’ve got to give me a guided tour of the Cape before I go, huh? I’ve only been on the Cape once, and that was a thousand years ago.


Comment from Allen
Time: September 25, 2008, 7:30 pm

My laboratory cat didn’t make it. Yeah, I had a cat in my lab. He was solid black, (it’s a lab, what color cat would you want?)

He was out of sorts on Monday, so I took him to the vet. A friend brought him to me from an abandoned wild litter so he had health problems from the get go. I had to make the decision.

So long Stinky, I’ll miss you. Yes his name was Stinky, that cat had some serious gas.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 25, 2008, 7:35 pm

Oh, shit, Allen. I’m really sorry. I didn’t know you had a laboratory, let alone one with a cat in it. That’s some fucked up ranch you got there.

When I was hanging out at the Providence Animal Shelter, they had several lovely black cats. The Kitteh Man told me they had an especially hard time adopting out black cats because people were superstitious. That really shocked me — when I was a student, black cats were much sought after. Particularly the all-black ones without a white hair.

Au revoir, Stinky! Get yourself another lab cat, Allen. A laboratory is just not a home without a cat.


Comment from Hound Of Doom
Time: September 25, 2008, 7:43 pm

Weas, if you hate the politicos here, you’ll go berzerk in the UK. I think the pols took away the guns for their own protection, as some of their laws would get them sniped the first time they went back to their districts here.

At least you’ll get the latest episodes of ‘Top Gear’ on the BBC.

And you can get the Adobe master collection for cheap, somehow. At least that’s what I’ve heard.

And this wall street deal? Methinks that Washington sees this as a way to get more yummy, gooey, power.

Stay safe!


Comment from Allen
Time: September 25, 2008, 7:55 pm

Thanks Weasel. He was way cool, I’d be thinking about something, he’d jump up… head bump. Ah ha!


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 25, 2008, 7:58 pm

I know, Hound. I know. I’ve been ‘commuting’ to the UK since ’97. I plan to stay plugged in to US politics, not least because British politics makes me even crazier.

Uncle B watches Top Gear, but I won’t. Clarkson can kiss my ass. Dunno if you’ve ever read any of his anti-American tirades, but they are vile. And he spends time over here, so he shouldn’t be so stubbornly, imperviously ignorant about America.

Where we are in England, on the South coast, the insanity has not touched. It’s lovely and unspoiled and Uncle B and I will need to spend the rest of our lives doing what little we can to keep it that way.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 25, 2008, 8:02 pm

Allen, I had a cat that just loved being near me. It made him complete. (Flattering? Oh my god!). I’d be working away, and he’d be snoozing at my feet, and every once in a while he’d open an eye, reach up and give me a poke with his paw. A little hi there, ‘member me? gesture. Oof! I adored that shabby beast.


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: September 25, 2008, 8:03 pm

Sorry to hear about Stinky, Allen 🙁

‘Stroo what they say about black cats, though. I had one run right in front of the Badgermobile on Sunday. I thought at the time, ‘Hmm.. wonder if what they say is true?’

Next thing I knew, someone was mailing me a stoat.

You can’t buck tradition.


Comment from Allen
Time: September 25, 2008, 8:29 pm

S’ok. Oh dear, a ladyfriend of mine has a black cat. Saddle up ride over, what the heck I’m a stoopid redneck. Cheers y’all.


Comment from apotheosis
Time: September 25, 2008, 9:46 pm

Cat gas is the worst. It’s like it’s genetically tailored to be unapologetically evil, demanding the immediate eye-watering attention from everyone in the blast radius. Very cat-like.

On the other hand, I just learned from Ace’s site that the once-adorable innocently wide-eyed Anne Hathaway is publicly gushing about the unspeakable things she does with her hinders. So cat gas is a welcome and somehow appropriate segue.


Comment from bad cat robot
Time: September 25, 2008, 10:02 pm

When I went to the shelter to get my Emergency Backup Cat, I had to carefully consider age so the Senior Ranking Cat would not get so bent out of shape she broke. Which meant that I had to go past a cage full of kittens, all black, who stuck out a veritable sea of little paws as I walked by. Had to be mopped up with a sponge, I did.

But they had a cat of precisely the right age, *also* black, and he was persuaded to come home with me. So it ended well.


Comment from Dave in Texas
Time: September 25, 2008, 10:18 pm

You have a plan for happy. And a goal within reach. And you’re willing to give it all for that.

I’m misty now. God bless goob.


Comment from qrstuv
Time: September 25, 2008, 10:53 pm

I’ve been thinking about you on and off today, wondering what you were gonna do. Words fail me.


Comment from Mrs. Peel
Time: September 25, 2008, 11:01 pm

I’m sorry you lost all that wealth, Weas. But I’m very happy that you are finally almost on your way to Badger House.

I heard once that shelters won’t let black cats go anytime in October, because Satanists might want to sacrifice them for Halloween. I totally believed that the first time I heard it, but the more I think about it, the more ridiculous it sounds. Especially in this (extremely Christian) area.


Comment from memomachine
Time: September 25, 2008, 11:31 pm

Hmmm.

Are you going to continue with doing artwork?


Comment from Pavel
Time: September 25, 2008, 11:46 pm

Frequent lurker, first time poster.

Ask your broker to approach your mortgage company about a short sale. They do them here (in CO) all the time, if my sister-in-law hotshot broker is to be believed. Basically the mortgage company agrees to a small reduction in the amount of the mortgage so you don’t have to write a check at closing. The broker needs to present it as, “I need you guys to do this to make the deal happen.” At which point the mortgagee is all uh-oh.

Lest you think of this as somehow cheating, remember that most mortgagees are perfectly happy to trade off the high risk in this market for a small writedown. The risk reduction has economic value to them, so it’s really just a trade.


Comment from stutzx
Time: September 25, 2008, 11:53 pm

Hope you keep blogging in my old stomping ground.

I think it was my time at boarding school in the UK that made me a red, white and blue conservative. Gird your loins for all the anti-American crap.


Comment from LemurKing
Time: September 26, 2008, 12:10 am

bad cat robot, an “emergency backup cat” sure makes me picture a cat’s tail plugged into an uninterruptable power supply.

Sorry to hear about Stinky, Allen. I’m thinking we need to find the words to the song “Smelly Cat” from the Friends tv show.


Comment from Allen
Time: September 26, 2008, 12:19 am

Sweet, sweet saddle. One of me neighbors is a saddle maker, since he retired from his day job. He made me a horn bag (stop it, it goes over the horn of a western saddle.)

It’s got a built in holster under the flap. I also scored a one leather piece holster for the pistola. Well of course I rode the horse over to pick up saddle accessories. Sniff, sniff, ppppfffffttt, the way of the horse.


Comment from LemurKing
Time: September 26, 2008, 1:32 am

Allen… my mind never went there until you brought it up.

But it was damn funny.


Comment from highpockets
Time: September 26, 2008, 2:24 am

I have to rebuy everything electrical.

When I lived in Germany, I purchased a transformer which allowed use of US electronics. I am not talking about a small socket unit. Big one, sit it in a corner.

They are not cheap, but you do not have to replace everything.

Worked great for two years no problems.


Comment from Dawn
Time: September 26, 2008, 2:59 am

Sorry for your loss, Allen. I hope you find love again.

I went to Sonic for a tasty beverage so that I could stay up late and finish a project. They put three cherries in my drink. Did you hear that? THREE cherries! Things are definately looking up!


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 26, 2008, 4:33 am

I’m not actually losing money on the mortgage itself, Pavel. I mean, I won’t be writing a check at closing. I won’t be in the red until I pay the legal fees, real estate agent and (especially) the moving costs, which are going to be dire.

Of course I’m going to do artwork, memomachine. In fact, I may take a shot at being a fine artist…finally, after all these years. I can pretty much invent what I want to do for a living, as long as it’s freelance and the hours are flexible (to match Uncle B). And it brings in a little scratch.

I don’t expect the blog will change all that much. I’ll stay addicted to American politics (I’m a citizen and a property-holder still and I’ve gotten all my news via the internet for years). I’m sure there will be stuff about England. And pickles and bunnies and lambs and shit, since I will be the farmer’s wife.

Charlotte was a feral kitten I trapped with a squirrel trap. Damn near dead of starvation by the time I snagged her. I spent her whole kittenhood stuffing her full of food. Rich food. Her gas was dire. Audible farts, most unusual for a cat. She’s still pretty stinky. Her gas is like tortilla chips and diesel fuel…thin, acrid farts that make you blink.


Comment from memomachine
Time: September 26, 2008, 9:53 am

Hmmmm.

@ S. Weasel

“Of course I’m going to do artwork, memomachine.”

The reason I’m asking is because I deal with websites, presentations and other nonsensical nonsense. So if something comes up where graphics are needed then I wanted to check and see if you’re still planning on working in that market.

Me I generally do the programming of those things, UI and backend, but I truly and awfully suck at graphics. My role in graphics is to usually create placeholder graphics to keep the design together and then someone else does the actual final graphics work.

No guarantees of course. Some people already have a relationship with “their” graphics artist. But if stuff comes up I’d like to have someone in the rolodex available that isn’t “my cousin” who “is really great with a mouse” and “can paint-by-numbers like a champion”.

And yes. That actually came up in a contract job with Comcast (the cable company).

Life for a web programmer is hell folks. Pure unadulterated hell.


Comment from memomachine
Time: September 26, 2008, 9:59 am

Hmmm.

Have you guys considered giving the cat(s) antibiotics and then re-inoculate the gastrointestinal system with some yogurt?


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 26, 2008, 10:08 am

Ohhhh…gotcha. Thanks for thinking of me. Well, I can’t work in any way from the time I hit Britain until I get the appropriate work visa, which is likely to be a few months. I probably will end up doing some web design — I’ve done a fair amount of it in the past — but I’m headed back in the direction of traditional illustration by preference.

I realized something a few years ago. When I was thirty, I used to think, “yay! We got a new software package for me to play with!” and now I think, “shit! I have to learn another new software package?” That’s when it dawned on me I probably don’t want to chase technology into my twilight years.

But I’ll deliver nude singing balloon-o-grams, if that’s what it takes to earn my keep.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 26, 2008, 10:48 am

…and if you knew how difficult it is to get hold of nude, singing balloons, you’d know how desperate I am…


Comment from Allen
Time: September 26, 2008, 11:17 am

I was wondering about that, the nude singing balloons that is. But, I thought it might have been just my disconnect.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 26, 2008, 11:19 am

Sooo, Allen, BCR says you guys met up in Vegas. How was the event?


Comment from Allen
Time: September 26, 2008, 11:35 am

It was a lot of fun. Hey, did you see the pics? That’s me in the white hat, the tall goofy dude. BCR and I were cracking up about some of your work Weasel. Did you feel your ears burning as we talked about you?

It was really interesting to talk with some of the bloggers that you’ve been reading for some time.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 26, 2008, 11:45 am

You’re the lanky dude in the white hat? Cool. None of the pictures are labeled, so I had no idea who was who (not that I’m blaming anybody. I hate my picture escaping onto the ‘net).


Comment from Allen
Time: September 26, 2008, 11:54 am

Yeah, that’s my summer hat. On the right is Greyhawk, and on the left is Grim from Blackfive. Grim has his own separate blog as well, Grim’s Hall

I had way too many cigars on that little roadtrip. But what the hell it’s Vegas. You know what they say, “What happens in Vegas, hopefully doesn’t follow you home to humiliate the hell out of you.” Or, something like that.


Comment from Hector Owen
Time: September 26, 2008, 6:33 pm

Thanks for that from a fan in Newport. Linked it. Best wishes on the move.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 26, 2008, 6:37 pm

Newport! Beautiful newport. I’m going to quit town with a glovebox full of bridge tokens, if I’m not careful…


Comment from Hector Owen
Time: September 26, 2008, 6:48 pm

Sell them fast if you can; the bridge will be going to EZ-Pass as fast as can be done. By New Year’s, they say, for sure.


Comment from Blake
Time: October 2, 2008, 7:13 pm

I don’t get how you could live in the same place for 20 years and not have more equity. Shouldn’t you be, uh, equitized about 25-40%, in that range? If the price just stayed the same? (And you didn’t refinance.)

Granted, I tend to have a distorted view out here in SoCal. I could look at it like $250K was stolen from me, but that $250K was funny money anyway. I expect to “lose” another $100-$150K before it’s all over.


Comment from Blake
Time: October 2, 2008, 7:14 pm

And I live in a hovel.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: October 2, 2008, 7:26 pm

I bought at the top of the biggest real estate spike Rhode Island has ever seen (houses were undervalued but went up — no shit — 50% in the year before I bought). There was (of course) a crash soon afterward, so I was in negative equity for a decade. Since which I refinanced twice to cover basic but large maintenance expenses (like the roof), I took out an equity loan and…I will do a couple thou better than break-even after I pay off the real estate agent, the fees and the movers. And sell my car and guns and shit.

So it’s far worse than my hopes but far better than my fears.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: October 2, 2008, 7:31 pm

It got so hot here the year I bought, if a house was listed at $100K, you’d offer $110K to keep some scumbag from buying it out from under you (which happened to me on my first attempt to buy a house). It was thoroughly nuts.

My sellers were assholes. I got in WAY over my head (I was able to buy a house I couldn’t afford because I had scraped together a better-than-average down payment) and I was in the shit for years.

The day I closed on the house, I bought myself a little celebratory bottle of Jack Daniel’s, pulled into the driveway of my house (my house!), got out of the car…and dropped the whisky. It shattered into a zillion wet pieces.

I really resent the lack of subtlety in modern metaphors.

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