Friday, May 28, 2010

That will teach me to be responsible

My place has been on the market for three months and while there have been repeat showings, no offers have come forth. There hasn't even been a showing since mid-April. I did lower my asking price, but now that the Tax Credit has expired, I really don't expect any thing to come of it. We did get positive feed back from all the agents and potential buyers.


One lady said it was down to my place -- a two bedroom with no parking -- and a one bedroom with a parking spot in Andersonville. She opted for the parking spot, which makes sense. The general rule of thumb is that it's easier to resell a two bedroom than a one bedroom. However, parking triumps an extra bed, especially in a trendier neighborhood like Andersonville.

The thing is, my place originally offered parking. However, to afford the seller's market of 2003, I had to give up the parking spot to get the seller to lower his asking price enough so that I could afford it. At the time my income from the No-Name Software Company could only cover so much, especially since I was still paying off my g-school student loan.  Could I have gotten a loan to cover the full asking price? Probably, but I opted to be in what turned out to be the minority and only buy as much home as I could afford.

So I did the popular 80/15/5 loan where you put 5% down and got a Home Equity Line of Credit for the other 15% to avoid paying PI. Over the years I dilligently worked toward paying off the HELOC loan who's rate followed prime. Between selling off stock options and using my tax refunds, I managed to get a $30+K loan down to about $5K over six years.

And my reward for being a good citizen and home owner: I now have a home that isn't worth what I paid for it, and I apparently cannot sell it becuase I wasn't selfish enough to overspend for parking six years ago. It isn't all bad. I was able to at least refinance last December and got rid of the worthless HELOC (when the housing market busted, Chase thanked me by freezing my line of credit so I couldn't use it.)

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