Sun 6-14-20
Subj: The Long and
Winding Road
CHAPTER ONE
It’s
been 14 months almost to the day since my last blog entry. And it’s been four weeks almost to the day
since I closed on this condo and became a proud homeowner for the first time in
my life. I’ve neglected this blog far too long and really need to start doing
more regular entries. But you’ll excuse
me this past year as I have been rather intensely preoccupied with this whole
notion of finding a place to live. In a way, though, this journey is still not
at an end. As recently as yesterday, I received still more documents to sign,
more forms to fill out, more paperwork to review. But I should be at the 99% mark anyway and
will report on status thus far.
To be
more precise, this long and winding road to obtain a little security in my
living situation actually began nearly two years ago -- August 2018 – when the owners of my rental
house in Keego Harbor, people who had owned the house for 15 years and had
declared on multiple occasions during the seven years I rented there that this
was a permanent investment and they had no plans to ever use the property as
anything other than a rental investment – but then in August 2018 had grown
weary of 15 years of being landlords and put the house on the market.
But they
were sneaky about it. They didn’t want to take a chance on me looking for
another place and vacating before they found a buyer (and thus be out the
rental income) so they didn’t tell me.
They had come by in August to photograph the place under the guise of
doing it for the insurance company but, in October, I checked Zillow (as I
occasionally do just to see what’s out there) and found the house listed with
all the photos they had taken and with the original listing date as August. I
was displeased that they had not informed me, but pleased that they at least
had it listed as an investment property, which meant I wouldn’t have to move.
I was
also pleased that it had been two full months since the listing and not a
single prospect had surfaced. That meant there was little interest in the
property (though the fact that they were asking a good 20 grand more than the
house was worth might have had something to do with that) and that thus there
probably would never be any interest in the property. So for the time being at least, I felt
safe.
Then in
November 2018, the first prospect came in.
In January a 2nd, February a 3rd, and both of
these were realtors sizing the house up for prospective investors. We never heard back from any of them which
meant there was no interest in this property.
Three prospects in seven months; I felt safe.
Then in
March there was a fourth, this time some kid in his 20’s who had had a lovely
childhood growing up in this neighborhood and had been dreaming all his life of
moving back here. That meant he wanted
this as his residence which meant I would have to move if he qualified for
it. He didn’t seem to have much on the
ball. He was in the house less than ten
seconds, had literally just stepped into the living room when he suddenly
declared, “I love it! I want it!” He made his decision without looking at
anything. He made his decision without checking out the basement, which was a
disaster of flooding and dankness and mold.
He made his decision without checking that the house had only two
bedrooms whereas it was listed with three bedrooms. He made the decision without checking to see
that there wasn’t a single window in the house that could be opened.
There
were a ton of problems with the house that I could have briefed him on but I
did not feel that was my place. It was
up to the owner and the owner wasn’t fessing up to anything, just bragging
about all the improvements he had made to the house over the years including
the brand new energy efficient furnace. But even though the owner wasn’t
disclosing any of the problems (which I didn’t really blame him; they would
have been very obvious to anybody doing any due diligence at all), he did do
the ethical thing and take the kid aside and asked if he planned to hire an
independent inspector to go through the house and evaluate it for any
problems. To this the kid arrogantly
brushed him off exclaiming, “I don’t need to pay no inspector. I know how to do
all that myself.”
And he did do the inspection
himself. I watched him. It took all of two minutes, which means he
didn’t really inspect anything at all.
He had his mind made up. I
thought for sure his trip to the upstairs would be the game changer when he
would discover that there was only one bedroom there, not the two that were in
the listing. And he would discover there was no heat upstairs. But nope, he came down the stairs after his
“inspection” and said only, “Everything looks fine to me!”
The kid struck me as someone who
was very low-income (I was told he had only a low-wage job at the Oakland
County Animal Shelter) so both the owner and I expected that he would not be
able to find a bank that would give him a mortgage and, when two months went by
without hearing anything, I once again felt safe. There would be no bank. But then in May, he was back in touch that he
had arranged the financing with a bank.
The bank inspector even came over and, again, we were certain it would
not pass muster. And lo and behold, as
she’s coming down from the upstairs, her first comment is, “There’s only one
bedroom up there. It’s listed as having
two upstairs.” I figured that was
finally it. This house was going to get a big fat F. Then a couple weeks later, we got the
shocking news that the house had passed.
That was at the end of May. We
were told that the clock would start on close probably by mid-June, then 30
days to close, and it was in the purchase agreement that I would have 30 days
beyond close to vacate. So I had at
least 60 days. That’s about the minimal
comfortable time it takes to move an entire house. It takes about 30 days just to find a place
and sign a lease, then another 30 to arrange the move and get the house emptied
and cleaned.
Okay, to be safe, it was time to
rent another big storage locker and move as much of my stuff out of the house
as I could before the 60 days started.
iStorage in Sylvan happened to be running a special so I got a pretty
good sized storage bin for $75 and began moving all my many, many boxes over
there. In mid-June, the word came. I had now at least until the middle of August
to vacate. I started looking to rent
another house but, unlike my house search seven years ago, all the ones that
were available were either horrible or in horrible neighborhoods and all the
ones that were good were already snatched up before I could even get over
there. There’s a decent apartment
complex in Sylvan (Bloomfield On the Green) that I knew always had vacancies so
that would be my backup.
But after three weeks of running
into a wall trying to find another house, it occurred to me that I didn’t
really want another house. I didn’t mind
mowing (in fact, I liked it) but I did not care for yard work, only did it
because it had to be done, especially did not care for the neighbors (ie. Val)
being critical of my curbside appeal (which was perfectly fine from the street
if you didn’t look too closely, but she insisted on looking closely) and, after
a lifetime of shoveling snow, I absolutely did not want any more of that. For years, I had been mortified every winter
about slipping on ice, or hurting my back shoveling, or having a cardiac
episode shoveling.
I was especially mortified at the
prospect of those days that happen every winter when you wake up to go to a
critically important appointment only to find that you’re snowed in. The house in Orchard Lake had a huge driveway
and it was a 2 hour operation every time I had to clean it off (and 3 hours to
mow the lawn.) The appeal of the Keego
house was its tiny lawn (only 15 minutes to mow) and the very compact 10 foot
driveway. For the first four years,
taking care of the place seemed a breeze compared to Erie Drive. But those last
three years after I broke my elbow changed all that. The lawn, porch, sidewalk and drive all
seemed massive now and quite burdensome.
So if for no other reason, I now found myself preferring an apartment
instead just so that someone else would be taking care of the snow.
It was right after the 4th
of July weekend that I changed my orientation and within a week had identified
three places: a complex near Pine Lake, one on Cass, and my current place in
Bloomfield Township. From the outside
the place on Cass looked very snazzy, a two bedroom overlooking Cass Lake for
$400 less than I was paying in Keego.
The place in Bloomfield looked like a dump. The constraint on both places was that I
couldn’t get an appointment to actually see the unit. When I saw the one in Bloomfield, on the
inside it looked wonderful. The rent
would be the same as Keego. I made the
decision. Unless the place on Cass was a
lot worse than advertised, I would take it.
As luck had it, I gave them a call the minute I left Bloomfield and they
said come right over. But indeed, the
2-bedroom they showed me was not at all as advertised. On the outside it looked great, on the inside
a dump. It was a lake view all right … a
lake view of a marsh! And the units were
shabby … and the rooms so small. But the
deal breaker was that they did not supply laundry facilities. I would have to buy a washer/dryer and pay
not only for it to be installed but for it to be uninstalled and disposed of
when I vacated.
So the gods (or Ruthie and Richie)
had directed me to the Devon Square Condominiums in Bloomfield. As soon as I was in, I knew it was home for
me. Renee, the manager, had wanted me to
take a 3-year lease but until I lived there for a while, I insisted on a
one-year. I signed the lease on July 19th
and moved in and slept there for the first time on July 29th. August
1st there was still no close on the house so I had at least the
entire month of August to empty it and hire a cleaning crew which, fortunately,
Renee was able to recommend people to help me with both. And it took the entire month of August to
accomplish these tasks.
By early September, I knew I wanted
to stay here long term and had decided to ask Renee to tear up my one-year
lease and give me the three-year. But
before I could get over there, it was right around the 15th of
September that I got a letter in the mail notifying me that the owner of my
unit had suddenly passed away so ownership had now been transferred to his
daughters and, under Michigan law, when a rental unit changes ownership, the
new owner is not obligated to honor the lease.
Yikes! It had only been six weeks
(after nearly a year of stress in moving to this place) and I’m now being told
I could be getting another 60-day notice at any time.
After only six weeks, I once again
had that very unwelcome axe hanging over my head. The one sister (who lived in
the complex next door) assured me they had every intention of honoring the
lease until it expired in July and possibly extending it another two
years. The other sister (who lives in
Canada) however was reported by her husband that she wanted to unload the place
ASAP. So what am I supposed to
think? They both agreed on one
thing. They were happy to sell me the
unit on a land contract. It would
require a 40% down and then the mortgage would be the same as the rent plus
$400 for the HOA dues. Well, there was
no way I could afford an additional $400 in housing costs, let alone the 40%,
so I had to pass on their “generous” offer.
That was October. I knew I was
likely safe until March – but it was only 5 more months until March. One thing was certain – I wanted to get these
two sisters out of my life.
I had been thinking of buying my
own place for quite a few years but always assumed I couldn’t afford it, and
this was only reinforced by every inquiry I had ever made to realtors who
either tried to set me up with places that were way out of my budget or opined
that, given my financial status, I would never qualify for a mortgage. Bottom line – keep renting.
And that was the status quo until
one fateful day in February when Renee, out of an abundance of consideration
for my stress levels and the fact that I very much wanted to stay in this
complex, forced the issue with the sisters and sort of inadvertently set me on
the path to home ownership.
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