I'm having a rough week, fellow bloggers. At a crossroads, and don't know which way to go. Feeling a bit crapped on. Feel like yelling out, "It's just not fair!", but know it won't change anything.
As you know, I'm one of the 700,000 people who lost their jobs in January. I'm thankful to have found another one, but it comes at a great decrease in salary. My husband worked a lot of overtime to make up for the shortfall, but the City of Chicago has recently stopped paying overtime. With the recent increase in property taxes, we've now reached a point where it's very hard to afford our home. We live in a modest home, in a modest area. Nothing fancy. No marble bathrooms. No 3 acres. We're told that our property value hasn't declined, but foreclosed homes are selling like hotcakes around here, for far less than we owe on ours. If we sell, we may walk away with nothing. That's if we can sell at all.
If we stay, we will run into problems the next time something major comes up - maybe a plumbing emergency, or a car problem. We are truly in that unpleasant situation where we can't afford to stay, and can't afford to leave.
This is my first home. As in, I lived in apartments my whole life. Moved around a lot. I don't want to do that to my kids. We've been here almost 5 years, and that's the longest I've ever lived in one place. I played by the rules, did my part, and still come out behind. The Making Home Affordable program seemed like it might help us. But you know what? We're $11 under their criteria to qualify. Eleven. Fucking. Dollars.
If we could sell, and move into something smaller, more affordable, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
But it's never that simple, is it?
1 comment:
No it's not that simple. That sucks. I wish I had some words to help but I don't. The Making Home Affordable thing? Yeah, our home value decreased. Since we only bought our home 2 years ago we now owe more than we could refinance for. Does the new/extension with first time homebuyers apply to you? If you have owned your home for 5 years or more you might qualify for a tax credit or something. I don't remember now. We don't qualify for that either bc we haven't owned our home for 5 years. And bought it b4 the recession. Money sucks.
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