OUR REAL ESTATE STORY
We bought our first house (with mom and dad’s help of course) in 2009, deep in the recession. We sold it in 2012, when it was deeper in recession.
Buying was competitive then as it is now. It was the kind of market where if your offer was accepted the first time and it wasn’t even your dream house, you go with it. Well this house had problems (aka repairs and updates) but had a million dollar view. It was our first house as a family, we hosted a few holidays in the short time we had it. When the repairs became too much plus with the rodent issues (living on a mountain came with it), we gave up! We wanted to move back to a part of a city that was walkable and near amenities.
We didn’t know anything about real estate then just that we also knew we didn’t want to foreclose because that was a huge trend at the time. With the help of our awesome realtor, we entered a short sale so that we could look for new housing (to rent) without having to make mortgage payments at the same time. We got a wonderful rental in the best neighborhood ever and moved forward with a 3 year lockout from applying for a new loan to buy another house.
Why do we share this story? One reason: we wish we did it differently! We wish we knew other options. We did get dinged and lost a lot of money. We would now have done it this way: pull the funds and make the most immediate repairs and rent the house while we went off renting someone else’s. This could have made the most sense for us.
But we were young, we were workers of corporate America living off a paycheck to pay bills, and not thinking long term. We regret this, but also felt blessed that we were able to move to a great rental and settled for a while, our children grew up with amazing memories and saved up again to buy. If only we of today came to us in 2012 and told us what we know now. Our personal redemption is to talk to someone else who might be in the same situation as we were then. This is our real estate story and it is very personal, and we are here to listen if you might relate.
Egan and Rio
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