But, but, I thought we were rich
posted by bitchphd
Holy crap, people. I just talked to a mortgage broker about buying a house. Lalala, I am thinking, Mr. B. makes just over six figures and yeah, we don't really have a down payment but you know, with that kind of money and a gold-plated credit rating and no debt it shouldn't matter, right?
WRONG.
"Well, I can get you into a townhome or condo," the guy says.
"What?!?"
"Where do you want to live?"
"Well, my kid goes to Midtown Elementary, so we want to be there because I'd like to be able to walk him to school."
"Do you have a real estate agent? What's she telling you?"
"Yeah, she's been showing us listings for like $600, 650..."
"Well, let me see..."
An hour later and we've determined that if we can somehow borrow $25-50 thousand we can get a $500 interest only loan. Which will cost us $500-700 more a month than the rent payment we're making, which I formerly thought was absolutely fucking ridiculously high. My vision of a cute little house with a tile roof, or maybe a bigger boring ranch-style house (since Mr. B. prefers space to charm) quickly morphs to an image of a plain little square two bedroom with vinyl siding, a chain-link fence, and no garden to speak of.
"Can't you borrow a down payment from your parents?"
"Um, no way."
"Don't they have equity in their houses?"
Look, chump, I want to say. My mom hasn't worked in over a year and lives in her brother's 600 square foot house with shag carpeting from the 70s rent-free and has no money at all and needs cataract surgery and has no health insurance and I'm probably going to be fucking paying her rent and her medical bills in five or ten years. My dad has a tiny two bedroom in what used to be a boring valley town that's now a two-hour commute bedroom community for the bay area, he's a retired elementary school teacher for chrissake, his wife works for the social security office, and she has a daughter my age with five kids and no education who works as a bookkeeper and gets her electricity and phone turned off regularly--if my dad's bailing anyone out, it's them, and the man is *retired*--I'm not going to fucking borrow money from him, he needs it to live on. My mother-in-law is a 70 year old widow with five kids who manages a fairly comfortable modest middle-class retired life because she's an old world immigrant who never buys anything and continues to live in the three-bedroom house her kids grew up in, which I am *not* going to ask her to borrow against for the same reason I'm not going to borrow from my dad--that's her only fucking savings.
Instead, I say, "no, trust me, that is not going to happen. We're the rich people in our family." Inside I'm thinking, who the fuck has parents who can loan them $50,000?!?
At the end of the meeting, I come away with instructions to somehow find someone I can borrow that kind of money from. I'm thinking fuck that shit; I guess we keep renting and somehow--despite the $500 vet bill this week and the overdue $350 ticket for running a red light and the $500 I put on my credit card to rent a car when I went to clean out my office goddamn it I have got to stop thinking I'm rich and stop buying stupid shit--save for a year or two and then see if we can try again.
How the fuck do people do it?
WRONG.
"Well, I can get you into a townhome or condo," the guy says.
"What?!?"
"Where do you want to live?"
"Well, my kid goes to Midtown Elementary, so we want to be there because I'd like to be able to walk him to school."
"Do you have a real estate agent? What's she telling you?"
"Yeah, she's been showing us listings for like $600, 650..."
"Well, let me see..."
An hour later and we've determined that if we can somehow borrow $25-50 thousand we can get a $500 interest only loan. Which will cost us $500-700 more a month than the rent payment we're making, which I formerly thought was absolutely fucking ridiculously high. My vision of a cute little house with a tile roof, or maybe a bigger boring ranch-style house (since Mr. B. prefers space to charm) quickly morphs to an image of a plain little square two bedroom with vinyl siding, a chain-link fence, and no garden to speak of.
"Can't you borrow a down payment from your parents?"
"Um, no way."
"Don't they have equity in their houses?"
Look, chump, I want to say. My mom hasn't worked in over a year and lives in her brother's 600 square foot house with shag carpeting from the 70s rent-free and has no money at all and needs cataract surgery and has no health insurance and I'm probably going to be fucking paying her rent and her medical bills in five or ten years. My dad has a tiny two bedroom in what used to be a boring valley town that's now a two-hour commute bedroom community for the bay area, he's a retired elementary school teacher for chrissake, his wife works for the social security office, and she has a daughter my age with five kids and no education who works as a bookkeeper and gets her electricity and phone turned off regularly--if my dad's bailing anyone out, it's them, and the man is *retired*--I'm not going to fucking borrow money from him, he needs it to live on. My mother-in-law is a 70 year old widow with five kids who manages a fairly comfortable modest middle-class retired life because she's an old world immigrant who never buys anything and continues to live in the three-bedroom house her kids grew up in, which I am *not* going to ask her to borrow against for the same reason I'm not going to borrow from my dad--that's her only fucking savings.
Instead, I say, "no, trust me, that is not going to happen. We're the rich people in our family." Inside I'm thinking, who the fuck has parents who can loan them $50,000?!?
At the end of the meeting, I come away with instructions to somehow find someone I can borrow that kind of money from. I'm thinking fuck that shit; I guess we keep renting and somehow--despite the $500 vet bill this week and the overdue $350 ticket for running a red light and the $500 I put on my credit card to rent a car when I went to clean out my office goddamn it I have got to stop thinking I'm rich and stop buying stupid shit--save for a year or two and then see if we can try again.
How the fuck do people do it?
Labels: mindless kvetching, money
Posted at 12:06 PM
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