some girls wander by mistake.

laptop dry, open, on.
mac geniuses say it may only last a couple days through a couple months, but...i at least have time to recover my data (unless something happens, like, now).

bought another laptop which makes me very very unhappy in a consumerist/superficial/first-world/i-can't-have-nice-things kind of way. they discontinued the black macbook, so i had to either upgrade to a new titanium one, or downgrade to a white "end of life" model that was half the price. guess which option i took.

there is, of course, the part of me that feels stupid (like the other one will dry out and work perfectly) for buying another computer. then there's the precautionary part of me that's glad i'll have a plan b.

ode to non-homeownership: 1 week of freedom, from out from underneath.

one week ago today i left new orleans, receiving word via email and voicemail that everything was taken care of, that my house had closed. the closing process was the spoiled icing on a bitter cake: a house that was vacant for 11 months, and for sale for 9 months. still, i was very relieved. i had left florida because i wanted to, and needed to, but knew that the house situation would be the one thing always working against me and my comfort, happiness, security in my new city and state.

now it's done. officially, done. over. it doesn't even seem real, that a $XXXX.XX chunk will not be auto-pay'd out of my checking account. that the updates from my realtor about things (feedback on showings, trespassers, water leak, yard maintenance) won't happen. that i won't have months of uncertainty that spring forth feelings of denial and depression. i won't have to wonder what would happen if it never sold (move back? foreclose?), or if i lost my job (bankruptcy?).

all that said, the offer nor the closing were particularly fun. i accepted my first and only offer out of desperation, because i had grown weary of the waiting game and the undue stress of such a huge financial burden. the offer meant not only losing 100% of the equity (a paid-off second mortgage, proceeds from the sale of my first house), selling for less than i bought for, but also paying closing costs and the buyer's down payment (because of a specific type of loan qualification--they "didn't have a lot of money"). it's precisely as bad as it sounds, unless you know nothing about real estate transactions, in which case: it's probably worse than you can imagine.

part of why i am writing this is because the economy, housing market, recession...all of these things are weighing on everyone right now. everyone has a different level of how they are involved or affected. i think it's important for people to learn what i learned from my experience, which is why i'm writing this in a public post. there are so many news articles out there like this or this, which make me feel like i have no right to even complain. what dark times we're in. and money...god, what a horrible, horrible thing (but necessary evil?) in the first place.

so, here's the skinny.

i bought--and sold--at the worst possible time in history. lots of us did. had i known then what i know now, i would've sold my first house (the oviedo house, bought around 2003 and sold 2006), banked all that cash, and taken 3 years off to travel the world. but i didn't. i did what a lot of intelligent people do in the face of the prospect of making money: they risk more/longer. and like this subject line, in the wise words of kenny rogers: "you gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em." but few people knew exactly what was going to happen (even addressing the "bubbling bursting" didn't have such large scale projections of loss until they were paired with the bad loans, the recession/economy, the job market...everything sort of sunk with it.) so like a lot of other people, i invested that money in another house (the downtown house, which i started calling the albatross, bought december 2005), buying for an inflated price i could only afford thanks to my first house sale.

but here's the thing: our parents (nor our grandparents, and so on) didn't buy houses expecting to turn a profit in 2-6 years: they bought them to pay down loans, to earn equity, to eventual own a piece of property after 20-30 years, or improve on that investment by trading upwards. but in my first house, i made big money fast. then i lost it, because the market can't support that kind of inflation. the bubble burst. those greedy enough to try to exploit that time in history are suffering far worse now (losing 20-100k+ on sometimes multiple properties). so while my situation suck(ed), i can't help but feel like we're talking about far more money than a person under 35 should reasonably have/need. money that only existed due to a kink in the system that increased the demand for houses, and provided bad loans to people to get them in. i mean, it obviously sucked to "have" and "lose" money so quickly. but real estate is meant to be a low-risk invenstment with long-term results; this housing crisis proved to be high-risk in a (too?) short amount of time.

i lost money because i wanted out. that is my toll for the freedom of luxury of walking away after only owning property for 5 years, during a financial crisis to boot. sticking it out another 5, 10 years might have seen a reduction in my losses, but that was 5-10 years i didn't want to wait. perhaps this is my penance for that impatience.

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i am sick of people who have no experience with this scale of a financial transaction, or who are financially dependent, vocalizing an opinion on my (and other people's) situation(s). if you have never owned AND sold a property, you probably do not have the tools to fully understand. amidst a recession, and a dark year for me personally, i received advice and heard-it-through-the-grapevine opinions from people who all were experts on my situation. not exactly beneficial or easy to hear when you're already...struggling. most vocalized various pieces of advice (some helpful, but not always) or criticism for my "bad decisions," or "irresponsibility." others just thought i should/should've foreclosed.

it crossed my mind, i'll admit. but every time i researched the subject, it became clear that while my immediate situation would be (somewhat) resolved, the years to follow would be immensely more stressful and trying. marred with bad credit, i'd struggle to find rental properties; i'd have to pay what i could (or have the rest taken or repossessed); i'd continue paying at a terrible rate for a long time. the loan wouldn't just magically disappear; my life would be hell.

it is what is is. i am walking out with nothing--having nothing, owing nothing, owning nothing. but i'm also walking away with my credit in tact. and that has made this year--this really incredibly hard-as-hell year--worth it. i am at my ground zero, but really? that's ok. it is what it is.

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a lot of people also don't fully understand who is being "helped" by government involvement, bail-outs, special terms for "hardship cases," etc. if you do not fall behind on bills in any large way, you do not get help, because it is clear you do not need help. so, for any sort of rate reduction, payment plan, or assistance, you have to be past-due on your mortgage. for people like me (and others that i know in my same situation), busting your ass, making huge alterations to your budget, working extra jobs/freelance projects, being frugal/poor to make sure everything gets paid...well, everything's getting paid, there is no help allotted for you. i called my mortgage company twice to see if there was anything they could do: a refinance option that would change my (admittedly bad, interest-only) loan would only see my monthly payment go up. tempting, but um, no thanks? another homeowner i know couldn't qualify for a better loan (% rate) which would reduce their payments, because their debt-to-income ratio was too high to qualify for it. that is, a better loan that is less-money-per-month (when the more expensive one was being paid). it's insanity.

and yet on the flipside, here's who is getting a "break" so to speak. an acquaintance of mine who moved from FL to CA last year, left his house behind and stopped paying the payments. he had gotten a second mortgage to do renovations, and blew through the rest of it. since the house wouldn't sell for enough to support that second mortgage amount, he'd end up coming out selling his house, paying to close (like me!), but still owing a second mortgage monthly payment. so, he walked. months later he gets a call from his mortgage company, offering to reduce his interest rate to almost nothing, cutting his monthly payment down to something around $600/month. while i understand it, from the loan company's standpoint (some money is better than none, and they don't want him to foreclose because they'll never see any of it), but essentially: he is being rewarded by the system. he is the model the government is using as to who is in "need," and while he is in need, lots of other americans are too, but with no relief or assistance available to them, no legislation to support those situations.

the entire thing makes me sick to my stomach.

at any rate, i'm relieved-beyond-words to be done with the entire cycle. will i ever own again? god, it is nearly impossible for me to see myself doing so. at least no time soon. i don't want to be tied down to anything again for a long, long while. i want that luxury to pick up and go when i want to--a different neighborhood, stuff-in-storage to live abroad, moving away from portland if/when the time is right. i don't ever want to have to hinder what i want to do because of something so large and all encompassing, that it's almost soul-crushing. i can't imagine not having come to portland, just because of stupid money. i am immensely happy here. but these kinds of things hold people back all over. i'm just glad i got through mine with minimal scaring, and that i'm free to start over.

with that, i'll leave you with this, which is pretty much what my heart-and-soul-and-checkbook have been singing for a week now (the A/V is not in sync, i know):