I don't believe either one of us ever expected to be homeowners, but somehow we've pulled it off. In a meeting today with the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency there was an on going debate about affordable housing and whether municipalities should focus on building new houses for low-income families or rebuild blighted properties. Obviously we have chosen the later (Greg and myself, not the government) but the discussion got me thinking. Its really practically a miracle that we managed to buy a house in "this economy" and in this city. Did you know that banks are NOT lending to anyone with a credit score under 620? This might seem acceptable in any other part of the country, but in southern Louisiana we have several factors limiting the population of credit scorers above 600. Just to name a few...
1. utilities in New Orleans continued to run after Hurricane Katrina even though the city was shut down and in fact electricity was not being used, but meters continued to run, bills continue to collect debt and credit scores plummeted. And this strictly when considering the utility bills. Consider paying your mortgage on a house you can't live in, therefore you must pay rent somewhere else. Needless to say we have a large foreclosure rate.
2. The obvious... recession!
3. failure of the gas and oil industry = death of the fishery industry, tourism industry, etc. These direct job losses will be coupled with indirect job loss as well. Not too mention that a large number of fishery and tourism 'employees' are paid in cash and do not pay taxes. Which means... no credit score.
Back to my point.. its a miracle we pulled this off. During the same discussion regarding credit scores one participant in particular was quite worked up about a financing concept he had which could assist home buyers with poor credit scores. The board talked in circles with this man and eventually they had to agree to disagree, but throughout the conversation many members of the board emphasized that some people are just not ready to be homeowners. They don't have the credit score, the cash flow or the capacity to manage not only the maintenance of the structure, but the loan process itself. At that point I wanted to jump up and scream ARE YOU ALL CRAZY!!! Of course a huge percentage of the Louisiana population is not in a position to buy a house! Greg and I have master's degrees (more than one) and we were still confused! There are housing advocates pushing people to be homeowners who have less than a high school education! Its not that they cant maintain the house... its the rest of it! The documentation, the insurance, the taxes, the bills, the paperwork for days. I mean they could probably buy a house and have no idea what documents they signed... but how is that a solution to providing affordable housing? The more amazing thing is there were suggestions that affordable housing for low-income families should cost approximately what we are paying for our house. And no matter how poor Greg and I sometimes feel... we are not living below the poverty line nor do we qualify for low-income housing and yet we could not reasonably afford anymore than we bought.
That said... I am amazed we own a home. I'm amazed the price dropped twice (a. the house didn't appraise so the seller dropped $7,000 off the price and b. for some reason the mortgage broker dropped his fees by $1200 at the last minute) making it even more affordable for us. And now we own a big beautiful money pit with no walls (well there are a few plaster walls we are saving), no electricity and no plumbing.
Saturday we had our first house guest, Elizabeth came by with her puppies to see the house in its original form. Greg got to use his new weed eater to cut down the forest growing in our backyard. And we took a tour of the neighbors house which is being ever so slowly remodeled, but its beautiful with marble front steps... and I think it might be for sale soon. So if you wanna be our neighbors... won't you be our neighbors.
