The past several months have, as every reader here knows, been intensely stressful for me as I search for new housing. Long stretches of lack of sleep and improper diet have left me vulnerable to illness, and I knew that it was just a matter of time before I took ill, and of course, I have. My lungs seem to be a particularly vulnerable part of my body, I suspect owing to a youthful bout of untreated pneumonia in my 20s. So I find myself hacking, wheezing and coughing and feeling perfectly miserable, which is impacting my ability to continue preparing to move out of here probably sometime in the next 6 to 8 weeks or so. I've managed to do a fair amount of downsizing and cleaning, but there's still more to go yet. However, now that I find myself ailing, it's tough to muster the energy to get going doing what needs to be done. Not knowing where I am going, since my failure to find new housing has left me having no idea what's next or where I am going after this, it's hard to know what all will have to be packed away in storage and what I can actually take with me wherever I end up. Either way, the entire apartment will need to be packed up, lock, stock and barrel: the living room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom and all of their respective contents. Even in downsized mode, that's still going to be a fair amount of stuff to carry out of here. And even though I do not have to, my plan is to leave this place clean. So I have been doing a great deal of vacuuming up of a lot of accumulated dirt and dust. The landlord never bothered to service our furnaces or clean our ducts, so the registers are constantly blowing out tons of dirt and dust every year. One winter I bought velcro strips and air conditioner filters and put them in front of the registers with hopes of at least trying to filter out some of the dirt blowing out of them. It sort of worked but I still had a fair amount of dust in this place. Not quite sure where it has come from, but the dustiness of this place has long been an ongoing battle against which I sometimes felt as if I was losing. I often thought about springing for having the ducts cleaned and the furnace serviced myself and then billing the landlord for the cost, but never bothered to do that. I should have, actually. That's a health and safety thing that should be done on a yearly basis. Well, at least my apartment is now cleaner than it has been in many a year and I am very happy that this is the case. I just wish that I could stay here now that it's cleaner of dirt and clutter and feels nicer to live in as well. Never again am I going to let that sort of thing happen. Ever.
I've hoped and prayed that some good soul would step forward and buy my home to save it and then move it to the next street over to a very large vacant lot on which it would fit perfectly. This house has had over $100,000 in improvements done to it over the years, including vinyl siding, double pane replacement windows, new or renovated kitchens and bathrooms in each apartment and other things. It would not need much in the way of fixing up. About all I would do would be to change the basement entrance from steps going down to it on the back of the house, which causes the basement to flood every time it rains as a cascade of water goes down the steps, under the door and into the basement, to a new back door on the south side of the house that lets downstairs tenants into their kitchen. What I would do would be to put a stairwell down to the basement from that back door, put a locking door on the stairs that go up to the kitchen downstairs so that those tenants can maintain their privacy and then on the new foundation, seal off the current basement entryway. The basement would then stay bone dry and everyone would be able to access it from the back door. That would not be a costly change to make in the house. There are some minor cosmetic things that need to be done to my apartment, but they aren't pressing needs at the moment and have been lived with long enough to let them go a while longer. The house could probably be bought for $1 and yes, it would cost money to move the house and maybe the current owner might be talked into paying for the actual physical cost of the move around the block. The empty lot belongs to the University, whom with the City would have to be agreeable to sell it, but since that lot has no real strategic value to either entity, there's no reason for either party to really want it that badly. It's far enough into the residential part of the street that a commercial development there would not be welcome by the neighbors. There just seems no reason to tear down a house that has had so much money and work put into it that it's one of the nicest houses in the neighborhood, and over 100 years old at that. I'd love to stay in my beloved home if I at all could, should some kind benefactor step forward and be willing to save my home. It would make a fine set of apartments for older folks like me to have affordable and walkable housing that is currently in very short supply at the moment. Well, I can continue to hope and to pray that some reader out there sees this house for what it is, an excellent investment property worth more than what it would cost to save and move it. It could generate somewhere in the neighborhood of $25-$27,000 a year in rental income, not bad if you ask me. That would make someone a nice little retirement stash.
I wish I had the money to do this myself, but I don't think that I will ever be in the kind of income bracket necessary to own real estate, sadly. So that option is right out. Right now, I just want a return to the security of a place to call HOME. Right now, I do not feel like I have that and I fear that I never again will, and that prospect absolutely terrifies me. What has always kept me grounded and feeling safe is the fact that I have always had this place to call my home. Sure, I rent it, but it has always felt like MINE, my home. Maybe if fortune should ever favor me, I can buy myself a small two bedroom home or something, but as I grow older, the prospect of having to spend the next 30 years paying down a mortgage does not seem the best idea. I am, after all, about to turn 56, and I don't want to spend my retirement years paying a house mortgage. On the other hand, if I did buy and it accrued some value, I could sell it when I felt that I could no longer live in it or even consider renting it out and have some money on which to live, so in that sense, a house could be a nice little retirement income someday. The biggest concerns would be major house repairs like plumbing, electrical, heating, roof, etc. I can in no way afford that stuff and renting means that you don't have to. But the down side of rent is that you are basically throwing your money away and you have no equity in your home. I've lived here long enough to where, had I bought a home when I first started working, it would be nearly paid off by now. But I've never made the kind of money necessary to buy real estate, so I have been forced to rent my entire adult life. Sucks, but there you have it. Renters are subject to the capricious whims of their landlords and I find myself feeling very leery lately and not wanting to trust a single soul out there who is renting property. My inner voice says, yeah, but what if I get settled in and they eventually decide to sell? Thoughts like those keep me up nights worrying about renting from someone else, that and the fact that every landlord in town now does comprehensive background and credit checking and that makes me nervous giving that kind of personal information to a potential landlord. There are just certain things that I don't want them to know about me. I am an intensely private person who feels that certain things are none of anybody's business but my own. I mean, I understand why they might want to do that, you know, to protect their property and all that, but still......I've never had to subject myself to that kind of scrutiny before and I really don't want to, either. My answer to some of those very personal questions they want to know about you is, "Nunya bizness".
I guess I fear people misusing that kind of personal information and don't want anyone so doing. Without knowing some of these people, who they are and what they are all about, I'm not happy giving intensely private details about my life to a perfect stranger. As far as I am concerned, all they should need to know about me is, do I smoke? (No) Have pets? (No) Have a job that pays me enough income to pay the rent? (Yes), Current income? ($28,000/yr. take home pay) How long on the job? (30 years) Am I a partier? (No) Have a car and need parking? (Yes) Quiet and reliable? (Yes) Length of last residency? (28½ years) Why did you leave? (house being torn down for development). Age? (55, 56 next month) Marital status? (Single, never married, no kids or husband in the picture). And that's about all that anybody should need to know, some very basic details about me and that's it. All that other stuff I consider excessive and unnecessary prying. If a tenant moves in and does not work out for a landlord, all they need to is to evict them, plain and simple. But I guess in a college town, levels of trust between tenants and landlords is fairly low, so even someone like me who is a quiet middle aged single person is subject to the same kind of intense scrutiny that a 19 year old college kid is. I just don't much like it and wish that I would not have to bare that many details about things that I would rather not divulge (how much is your monthly car payment? Through which bank? How long have you paid on your car? How much longer do you have to go before your car is paid off? What is your current credit rating? What bank do you currently use? What credit cards to you have? What are the balances on each one of them, and how much do you pay on them each month? What accounts do you have through your bank? What are your current balances in each account? How long have you been with this bank? What is your current debt to income ratio? How much do you owe in debt, and to whom? - and more questions like these that I consider excessive prying, although I can understand, in the current financial environment, why landlords are nervous about taking on renters, since many folks who used to own homes are now forced to rent and owe a ton of money on things). O, privacy, where art thou? There are some things that I just don't feel are necessary to divulge to strangers whose intents I can't ascertain. Sometimes it's just better to err on the side of caution and steer clear of landlords who want too much information and that has the potential to fall into the wrong hands. Better safe than sorry, I always say.
5 comments:
Oh for goodness sake. At this rate you're going to be nursing your cold while sleeping in your car.
Instead of waiting for some white knight who'll never come along, why don't you buy the house yourself?
As long as you have a good credit record, you can qualify for a mortgage. Since it would be owner-occupied, you could probably get it for 5% down.
If you really think that the only cost is the lot, and you can convince the current owner to pay the moving costs, a 20 year mortgage would probably have lower payments than rent elsewhere.
Don't forget that you could rent out the other apartments for income. That alone would probably pay the mortgage and you could live there for free. Just make sure the city will let you keep it a multifamily house after the move.
Don't say it's impossible until you talk to a few banks. Try the local lenders, like Kent Credit Union and Hometown Bank. They're friendly.
PS - those questions are standard when renting these days. You won't be able to avoid them. You can expect a credit check too. It's not that much less than what you have to give the bank to get a mortgage.
Landlords are trying to avoid deadbeats. Evictions are not "plain and simple," they require legal action, and they can be expensive. Often an evicted tenant will deliberately trash the place, too, leading to still more expense. Then the landlord has to advertise the place, or pay an agency to find a new tenant.
There are not many laws to protect your privacy in the US. In most cases, business can ask whatever they want of you. Of course, you can refuse to answer and maintain your privacy, if you don't mind them not doing business with you.
I would happily buy the house, but it is valued at $155,000, far more than I could ever afford. Then there would be the cost of moving it to another lot. The one I have in mind is owned by Kent State University and is valued at $52,000. Now you're talking well over $200,000. Add to that the cost of moving the house to said lot, which would cost $100,000. Now you're talking well over $300,000. On my income, that would be nigh unto impossible. Even if I could buy the house for $1, there is still the cost of purchasing land and paying for the move, and I seriously doubt that the current owner would spring for that, given estimates that I have been given by a local architect. I'd have to pay for all of the permits, the foundation, utilities and more once the house was moved. By the time you add all that up, it's just far more than I could ever afford on my income.
Someone who makes more than I do could easily afford it. For me to afford the cost of land, permits, foundation, utilities, etc., well, given that we're talking somewhere in the neighborhood of probably, I am guessing, close to $100,000, well, if I wanted to spend that much on a house, I could get a pretty nice house for that amount. And anyway, even if I could convince the banks to loan me the money to pay for all of this, there is still the matter of whether or not the vacant lot on the next street over would even be available. It's entirely possible that the University may not want to sell it, and even if they do, owing to it being public property, it would have to go on the auction block. It would not be able to just be sold outright to someone who wanted it. Public property must be auctioned owing to laws and such that dictate the way public property must be sold. With time winding down before the house must be vacated, if the University wanted to auction off the land for the house to be relocated there, they'd have to get on it mighty quickly. I doubt if the house could even be stored there pending a land auction.
Either way, you're talking far more money than I have, and on my income, I don't think there's a bank out there that would loan to me the kind of money that we're talking this whole thing would cost. I'm enough of a realist to know what these things cost. I've learned a lot recently about that sort of thing, trust me. It's going to take someone with a lot more money than I have to spare in order to pull this thing off.
The standard rule for residential investment property is that the monthly rental should be at least 1% of the property's value. They are looking for at least a 7% return per year after expenses.
So if an investor would have to pay $300k to save your house, they would want to see at least $3,000 in gross rental income per month.
If it doesn't produce at least that much, forget it. Nobody is going to buy it.
There are plenty of other houses that will produce good cash flow, so why would an investor go to the trouble to move this one?
If it were a historically significant house, there might be grants available to pay some of the costs to save it. But from your pictures, it's just an ordinary city house, nothing special.
If the current owner doesn't care whether it is saved, then your cause is lost. Especially if he has already reached an agreement with the company that wants the land. Once they have the deed, it will be completely hopeless.
In sum, it is 99.9% likely your house is going to be torn down, whether you are out of it or not.
Better find another place to live, before you come home someday to find a pile of rubble where your home was that morning.
Actually, it would not cost $300,000 to move the house. It could be purchased for $1 and at the absolute maximum, it might cost $100,000, with purchase of land, foundation, utilities, etc. The land I have in mind is just around the corner, not several miles away or anything, so utility movement would be minimal.
Even spending $100,000 would be too much for me, though. I have already been researching buying a home and it seems that there are tons of hidden costs to so doing that could considerably add to the cost of a mortgage if you don't have enough money to make a 20% down payment on one, which I do not. So home ownership for me remains a very distant, and probably impossible, dream.
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