Sold the house in Florida today — and barely for a huge amount less than we owed on it! I may still be jobless, but I’m not quite as pathetic anymore. In fact, I see this as an early indicator that the economy is about to surge into a new Golden Age.
And while it was disappointing to have to write a big check to sell our house, I feel that the peace of mind of non-home ownership is worth it.
So, for all those struggling right now, know that good times are just around the corner. It is America.
Congratulations! This gives me hope, I have a job interview tomorrow.
I take it the bank was not interested in allowing you to short sale the house….
[The way I figure, we agreed to a certain sized loan, so that’s what we pay back. -Ed.]
“It is America.”
YES, WE SHALL!
YES, WE SHALL!
YES, WE SHALL!
That’s terrific! Hopefully our house is next. Why is it that when I read your post I started to hear a scratchy depression-era recording of the Casa Loma Orchestra playing “Happy Days are Here Again”. By the way, that song was recorded by the band on 10/29/29.
So, for all those struggling right now, know that good times are just around the corner. It is America.
Absolutely. Back in 1993, I had volunteered for a lay-off at my employer (they pretty much offered to pay me for the next nine months if I would just go away, which sounded like a pretty good deal to me), and I was working on a contract basis at a local firm, which shut down for the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. That meant that I was legally unemployed that week, so I went to the local unemployment office to file a claim, and ran into a former co-worker. He wanted to know what I thought about the local economy. My response was, “It’ll come back. Soon. There’s just too much entrepreneurial activity around here for things to stay like this. I don’t know what it will be that brings it back, but I know that it will come back.”
A few years later, I and everybody else knew what it was that brought it back. It was a thing called the world-wide web.
I took my first economics class nearly forty years ago, but the resilience of an economy based on free markets still amazes me.
Just think of the big check as a non-investment in your non-future.
Yay! Frank’s out from under!
D’ja find gainful employment in your chosen field yet, or did you decide to sell crap on Ebay like the rest of us who don’t want to live in smogland?
Cheer up. Many of us are a lot older than you and have never owned a house.
[One thing I’ve found from being jobless and financially stressed is that I’ve lived a pretty cushy life and should count my blessings. -Ed.]
I feel ya brother.
At the closing for the last house I sold in Florida, I had to write a check for 3 grand….
[If only… -Ed.]
My wife and I bought our fist home in Waterloo Iowa for 36,600 and sold it 15 years later. We had moved to Minneapolis and had rented it for 5 years. The market had gone south and we got 15,500 for the house and as a final kick in the balls we got to pay capital gains tax because we had been depreciating the house as rental property! Selling was a huge load off! Glad to hear you did the same Frank!
Eep. I think I’d be crying if I had to sell my place for less than I paid for it. I guess it pays to live in the Baltimore-Washington corridor, where prices are only able to move in one direction. It’s like the elusive unipolar magnet or something.