Looks Like I'll Have To Sell The House

[Grogan]

Well, this house isn't being sold to an end buyer, but a houseflipper. They know that junk is going to be removed one way or another. You probably don't have to fret too much about that deadline.

[Grogan]

So good luck with the realty agents. That's tomorrow (Wednesday), right?

[Zema Bus]

Thanks, that was last week that the realtor came by. This morning I had a Zoom meeting with the guy at Revive and with the realtor. I'm waiting for the Revive guy to email me a rundown of their options based on the realtor's findings. He discussed it in the meeting but I need to see it in text form. The realtor doesn't think it will need very much done to it before putting it on the market and he has some options of his own, including not using Revive at all, though there are a few little things it could use. It's not sounding like I would get enough upfront from Revive to move out plus pay for a temp rental, so the realtor suggested the option of a HELOC (Home Equity Line Of Credit) to pull enough $ out of my equity to move out and get a rental until the house sells, which he feels would happen within 30 days since that's how quickly houses are selling in this area, and there is the potential for a bidding war that could drive up the final selling price. He has a loan agent he works with, I'll be talking with her. Renting in-between houses isn't what I want to do but I may not have a lot of choice in that. I'm not keen on a HELOC either, but it may be the only way. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have the rundown from Revive and then in the coming week make a final decision on how to proceed.

[Grogan]

Oh... I guess next wednesday already passed, last wednesday lol

Yeah, that would suck and would really feel counter productive to have to jump through hoops and move into a rental, but all you can do is all you can do.

[Zema Bus]

There may be some hope. I corresponded with the loan agent via email today, she mentioned one option to avoid renting in-between is a bridge loan. That's only for real estate purchases so I'd probably still need some amount of funding for the move itself plus any other expenses. I'll have a 15 min phone discussion with her tomorrow before work (probably a conversation that could just as easily be done via email but they always want to get on the phone).

[Grogan]

Hopefully you can work something out. I would imagine it would be either difficult to find, or expensive for a short term rental too.

[Zema Bus]

I talked to the loan officer on the phone today. It turns out you can't have both a bridge loan and a HLOC at the same time. A bridge loan would be better for this but it would put all of my equity in the new house, not leaving me with some to use for moving expenses. A HLOC can be used for both a down payment (limited in size, but I could recast the new mortgage if need be after the old house sells) and for any other needs. So that may be the option I'll need to go with. It would solve the problem of potentially running out of money and becoming delinquent with my current mortgage before the house sells. They think it will sell in a few weeks once listed, but it will take 30 - 45 days to get the funding, so probably around early to mid July.

[Grogan]

Jeeze, that's such a tight situation. Every move requires the previous step to work out, with very little cushion. You've got direction at least though. I'd probably just end up keeping it going as long as I could and let it all fail. Like what happens to most people who are foolish with money.

[Zema Bus]

Yeah I'll be so glad when this is all over with and I'm back to stability without all this looming uncertainty.

[Grogan]

I shouldn't make jokes, but this email just came... the answer to all your problems. It just happened to come, right while I was thinking about you. 4 copies of it, no less (on an old ISP email address I pay to keep that doesn't have very good spam filtering)

Subject: PAYMENT!
Date: Sat, 01 Jun 2024 10:06:16 -0700
User-Agent: Roundcube Webmail/1.3.17

Greetings, I hope this email finds you well, I'm Mr John Gandolfo, Vice
President of the World Bank IFC group.

I'm contacting you regarding the 2.5 million Us Dollars
(US$2.5,000,000.00) on your name as one of the selected grant winners.
Kindly contact World bank IFC Group on the information below to receive
your Funds.

Maybe if I forward this to you they won't know it isn't really me!

[Zema Bus]

lol!

[Zema Bus]

Well it turned out that with HELOC's they require holding it for a minimum of 6 months, which obviously wouldn't work for me. So that just leaves the bridge loan option, which can only be used for real estate. So then I was brainstorming ways to ensure I'd have enough to cover moving expenses and any other unforeseen expenses, and I suddenly had an epiphany, I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier, the solution has been sitting in my wallet the whole time - credit cards! Why not just use the credit I already have? I've never considered using credit cards in this way, I always have them set to pay the balance each month. But I have a couple cards with a high limit, I could temporarily set them to pay only the minimum, use it to pay the moving expenses, then as soon as the house sells (likely in less than a month per my realtor) switch the cards back to paying the monthly balances again. I'll be completing the bridge loan application this weekend. I think I may end up in Southeast AZ, a small town called Rio Rico, I found lower priced homes, it's nice and rural but about 45 mins south of Tucson for anything I might need to go there for. It's also at a higher elevation, 3,481′, so it'll be cooler there than in most of AZ where it stays well over 100 F during the summer. Sounds like it does snow there in the winter but not a huge amount. I found 3 ISP's in the area, two with fiber, one cable, plus a satellite ISP. I'll have to verify the specific availability at any house I consider. Another benefit to that area is no light pollution at night, the night sky is said to be fantastic. It'll be a 7 hour drive moving there.

[Grogan]

This is the first time using this forum on my phone. I had a hard time logging in not knowing if I was using the wrong password or fucking up lol

I am in London with Dad, driving him for a laser eye procedure.

Yes, fly now pay later works. Because you are a homeowner and your payment behaviour, you would have plenty of credit to fall back on. You might as well use it to your advantage. High interest is the price, though.

I am glad you have a way out.

[Zema Bus]

Thanks Grogan. At first I thought you meant the other London

[Grogan]

I think everywhere probably has a London (it's about 2.5 hours from here, 3'ish depending on traffic).

You know, like London, California

P.S. No, I don't fly anymore. My arms get too tired.

[Zema Bus]

I completed the loan application today, it was an online application. While gathering documents I discovered that my checking account had dipped kind of low, and I was concerned that I might not even make it to the point where I could sell the house. So I transferred over my savings, restoring my checking account balance to a safe amount (still low for me) and I went through my CC accounts to find that the statement balances of all of them combined are nearly half of what it was for one card a month ago. That was after I cut a lot of things. They should be even lower next month. So I should be OK for another month at least. Hope I can hold out until the house finally sells. And hope the loan application goes through, that's going to determine when I can move and I need to be out of the house so that I can sell it. Not a fun time.

[Grogan]

Yeah, fuck, that's a lot of shit that has to work out. Oh well, you have enough credit to fall back on.

I looked at some pictures of Rio Rico Arizona. It doesn't look like there's much there (hence affordable) but it looks like a nice area with rolling hills and greenery at certain times of the year. The town itself looks laid out like one big trailer park though

It sounds like you'll be OK for communications though (fiber and cable... the satellite is not really viable because contrary to what people say about it, latency matters)

[Zema Bus]

Yeah, it's technically more an unincorporated area than an actual town. That raises a few concerns about services, like the reliability of water and power (at least until I have solar). Fire risk is a concern too with all that vegetation, and fire control. So while it's still on the table I'm now also looking in New Mexico, I found that there's a lot of cheap properties there. My dad was from New Mexico, he grew up in Albuquerque.

[Grogan]

Ahh you should a took that left toin and stayed in Albuquerque?

[Zema Bus]

I was looking at a fire risk map of AZ, and surprisingly Rio Rico is in a fairly low fire risk zone. Zooming in there is one tiny spot of high risk and some with moderate risk but the majority of that region is low risk. Then go an hour's drive north to Tucson and the entire city of Tucson is in an extreme fire risk zone. Another area I had found that has potential as a place to go is about an hour east of Tucson (Benson), and that's in a low fire risk zone as well. I didn't expect that with all that vegetation.

[Grogan]

Low fire risk zone, an hour from the city... that's sounding like a good location.

We wouldn't have to think about fire danger zones when buying a house around here. Your biggest danger of living near a woods is mosquitos

P.S. Arizona would be just as sunny as California (if not even more so?) If you ever get solar again, that would still be good. That's something that isn't as practical around here. It still works, even on cloudy days, but not as "worth it" as you had.

[Zema Bus]

Yeah that's the plan, I'll be installing solar again as soon as I can

I'm pre-approved for a bridge loan, but because of the closing costs I don't think that's going to work given the current state of my bank account. With a bridge loan I'd have to pay closing costs twice - first for the bridge loan itself, and then when I use it to purchase the new house I'd have to pay closing costs for it. And I have another big fat mortgage payment on the old house coming up in a couple weeks. I have a Zoom meeting with the lender next week to discuss the details. I'm thinking of switching it to just a regular mortgage once the old house sells, which means I'm back to looking at temporarily renting. I just spent an hour going through rental listings, it wasn't good. All of the ones I saw required proof of a prior rental history, and a zillion other rules. And all of them required a minimum 1 year lease. No, I may not even need it for a full month. So maybe Airbnb would be a better option after all, they seem to be more flexible. There would be the hassle of also having to rent a storage unit for my stuff. But many of the moving companies also have a temp storage option for this very purpose (people moving but in-between houses). So that might be what I'll do.

[Grogan]

Yes, it's hard to rent now and I'd imagine it would be harder where you live. Nobody would ever rent to me now because I've been such a dark horse for the last 25 years and if you show a wad of cash for first and last month's rent, it'll just make them even more suspicious. By dark horse, I mean that there isn't much of a paper trail for my existence, and there wouldn't be a landlord still alive that could vouch for me.

I'm a fairly cynical person, but this is starting to sound like a shittier deal for you as realities unfold. Bridge loan, living off credit cards (both high interest), rent/lodgings, storage... these are all going to kill you in the ass.

Are you actually going to get the best selling price for your house, going through these houseflippers? (I know what they've promised you after they fix it up and sell it, but it may not amount to a big hill of beans, as it's not determined yet and I'd be surprised if they will be completely genuine. I'd probably expect they have this all figured out, these companies don't get rich by paying their profits out to you. They are taking advantage of people's desperation)

I guess what I'm asking is, are you REALLY in this big of a rush to sell your home. You might actually do better than the initial houseflipper purchasing price listing it yourself or with a realtor. It's already looking like you are going to be wasting considerable money on rent or other lodgings that could just as easily be continued mortgage payments until you get a good offer? (and more mortgage payments means more equity, right?)

I don't know much about this (and you have to do what you have to do), so take it with a grain of salt, but it just seems to me you are being led into doing something hasty here. (and yeah, I'm one to talk... fool meets money)

[Zema Bus]

Yeah I dropped the Revive company after discussing it with the realtor, so I'm just going to list it in the normal way to get more $ from selling. I don't want to be still living here during showings though (plus having to maintain it in showroom condition while living in it), that would be sheer hell. It won't end well if I don't do something within the next 2 months or so.

[Grogan]

Ohhh that, yes, I hadn't thought of it. I should have too, because I'm going to be facing that within a few years and I get reminded of it daily because of all the junk I have.

I'm glad you dropped those houseflippers though.

[Zema Bus]

I spent the day going through more stuff, figuring out what to keep and what to get rid of. I found some old Epox motherboard manuals, I used to buy those boards 20 years ago. I have a lot of old college textbooks, although I kind of hate to get rid of them I haven't looked at any of them in the 17 years I've lived in this house, and collectively these weigh a lot and take up some space. I brought them all with me when I moved out of my parent's house and there they've sat. I'll at least keep a few of them.

[Grogan]

You just can't keep all that weight. I got rid of a BIG plastic tote (full of books, it would hurt two people's backs lol) full of text books. I doubt I'll ever go through Chemistry text books etc. again in my lifetime.

[Zema Bus]

Oh yeah, a full year's worth of general chemistry text books I won't mind letting go of, along with an organic chemistry text book.

[Zema Bus]

I may have thought of a solution to this predicament. If I were to get a small personal loan it would cover the closing costs as well as any other expenses without having to incur a CC balance (moving expenses), and I wouldn't have to deal with the drawbacks of renting in-between. I'd likely only need it for one month and I'd pay it off as soon as the house sells. So it would only cost me one month of interest. If I couldn't get one from the same lender then I could easily get one elsewhere, like at my credit union (I used them for my truck loan years ago). That would remove a ton of stress and worry. Then I'd just have the general stress of moving, which is stressful enough. It might be a little convoluted but in the end it should work.

[Grogan]

I hope it's not too difficult to get that (shouldn't be, in light of what the loan is for) but that sounds a lot better.