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Carver Communications - Index

Carver Communications - 6.1.09 - Index

June 1, 2009 REAL ESTATE NEWSLINE 7
By Cathey Meyer
First Time
In averting the obvious, there will be
no discussion of mammal-related-flu-like
symptoms in this space. If you have sanitized
your hands, sneezed into your elbow,
decorated your face mask to coordinate
with your shoes and avoided public gatherings
(mostly the ‘excused’ church absence)
then you do not need further comment on
the state of our public health or lack there
of. Get a flu shot!
Today we will be revisiting the
experience of the first-time homebuyer.
Yes, according to my government stimulus
instructions, after the purchase of five previous
homes, I now qualify as a FIRST
TIME HOMEBUYER until December 1,
2009. After that date, I may still be a first
time homebuyer, but my stimulus incentive
will expire. Not one to pass on 8G’s from
my favorite IRS auditor, I proudly wear the
first time homebuyer label. With stars in
my eyes and the hopes of borrowed money
in my pocket, I skipped into the world of
residential shopping with the hardest working
REALTOR in town. For the record, all
REALTORS are the
hardest working
REALTOR in town,
so just assume you
are my hardest working
REALTOR because your commission
will be the same as my REALTOR: $0.00.
In my dreams, I imagined I could
actually afford to pay $637 per square foot
to reside in the downtown neighborhood I
have come to call home (and homeless)
over the past six years. As my REALTORalready-been-bilked-of-income
pointed
out, the farther you move from the River,
the more affordable the home. My Realtor
hooked me up with a mortgage magician to
determine exactly how far from the River I
needed to consider. After my prequalification
“chat”, it was determined my ‘downtown
specialist’ would refer me to another
REALTOR in Poth, Texas. Seems the days
of mortgage magic have passed and the
fantasy of qualifying for properties beyond
your income are now considered wishful
thinking of life in the good ol’ mortgage
fraud days.
Not to be deterred, I figured out
how to claim the identity of an unsuspecting
blond (which isn’t hard since they are
born that way) and found me an identity
which qualified me for the mortgage letter
that allowed me to return to the arms of my
downtown specialist. Unfortunately, in my
own state of blond, I actually used my own
social security number (criminal deviancy
takes some practice) but somehow,
between the two blonds, we “ratioed the
skew” and managed to qualify for the
lower end of existing downtown properties.
In the process of shopping for my newfirst-time
home, I learned many new terms
not in my real estate vocabulary prior to the
economic downturn of 2009. The first
term is ‘ratioed skew’ which involved numbers
so I did not bother to learn much about
the term.
Having lived in a confined space
not requiring yard work, I wanted to continue
the tradition of fitting too much stuff
into the smallest possible space. Turns out,
I did not have to worry about choices as
there are only so many available spaces
that afforded me my “ratio-skew” of
income to poverty. Fortunately, the first
place we concrete-kicked was the winner.
I fell in love with an unfinished fourth floor
closet (aka Downtown Loft) in the rehab of
an existing structure in a warm and loving
historic neighborhood. Not only was I
going be a homeowner, but I would be a
‘green’ homeowner as the whipper-snapper
sharp developers had a long time vision of
reuse, recycle and resell.
Sadly for me, my government
lender did not share the vision of the whipper-snapper
sharp developers and their
attempt to build green and improve the
blight in a local historical neighborhood.
However, as an upstanding citizen with
excellent credit, one mortgage loan company
agreed to lend me some money at the
less than bargain interest rate of 10.7% on
a balloon note. I might be a first time
buyer, but this was not my first time buying
and even my blondness detected a less than
genuine desire for that lender to part with
their borrowed money. Turns out, they did
not have to complete the paper work trail
as the Big Brother of lending decided this
property was too under-developed for people
to be spending someone else’s hard
earned money to purchase. I was now 0 for
1 in the batter’s cage of buying.
As space runs out here, I am lacking
column space to conclude my first-time
buying adventure of space lacking lodging
downtown. We are in search of square
footage that will accommodate my mortgage,
but as of press time my Realtor is
frantically showing me spaces in places I
never imagined I would live. In the spirit
of home buying rebates, I am lowering my
expectations, eliminating my wish list and
compromising my definition of what
defines livable space. I am still a reliable
renter, but am retaining visions of mortgage
misery in the summer months. For
the record, the new down payment requirement
now has me considering the purchase
of a nice luxury vehicle in which to live . .
. at least I can drive it to an acceptable zip
cope for mailing purposes.