Half Price House...

If you're not my son's aunt, grandma or sister, you may not be interested in today's post.

But then again, you might!

Son number one has been saving for a home since he was sixteen. I'm not kidding. He's a good saver. In his early twenties, he bought his truck, new, paid half down and paid off the rest in two years, to have a decent vehicle. This way, he figured he'd have a decent vehicle for at least a good ten years or so, and no payment on it while he was paying a mortgage. Good thinking, no?

Then, when he did buy, he wanted to get the home paid off as soon as he could. More good thinking. He wanted a good deal on a house, and by waiting, we found one. We had watched this one go up for sale--but it was $44K more than he paid for it-- when it was listed last summer.

Yup, 44K. I had looked it up at the full listing price last summer, and just wrote it off, it was way out of his price range.

But summer came and went, and fall arrived, and fall was almost over and the trees were bare before I checked it out again. The price had dropped 34K in those months since summer!

Something told me there was a motivated seller.

It was now something that was within his price range, but still 10K over what he wanted to spend. (We've always told our kids buy a home BELOW your means.... however, that is NOT what a realtor would have advised him. He made up his mind this house was the top of his price range.)

So we called, and went and looked.

It was a wonderful house, nothing wrong with it that a little paint, tile or updating wouldn't fix...just needed some TLC--no major remodeling, nothing really to stop him so he got brave and made an offer 10K below the asking price, which made it exactly what he thought he could spend and still afford to eat, drive and all those other things that humans like to do!

(His purchase price is just about half of what the previous owner paid for it.)

Sadly, we found out, it was a divorce situation and both parties had moved out and stopped making payments and had a short sale and a looming foreclosure. Mark made his offer and it took three months to find out, but the bank finally accepted it.

Within TWO WEEKS of acceptance, he had the keys and owns it. He took a fifteen year mortgage and the day he got it he told me "I can't wait to pay it off, I hate owing people money."

Paying off debt is the old-fashioned American way. In fact, I don't know WHO thought it would be good to sell the lie to the masses that mortgage debt is GOOD, but I DO NOT agree!! I think a person should have a goal to own their home outright as soon as possible.

I can't tell you how happy I am and how very PROUD I am of my son and his purchase. I'm thankful that he had an opportunity like this...and sadly, the couple owed almost 100K MORE than Mark paid for this place, and I'm sure they'll have to declare bankruptcy...their divorce is terrible, even worse than losing the house.

But I think that when you want something, and you're willing to sacrifice, save, and wait for it....wonderful things can happen.

And we've seen it happen with this.

For the last four or five days, we've been working on it, painting and cleaning and stripping wallpaper. It's actually been lots of fun! I like the house more every time we go there. Soon I'll have some before and after pictures to show.

The living room was red and the kitchen was pink so there's some major changes there! Tomorrow I have to go there because Mark bought some furniture over the weekend and the delivery man will be there while he's at work.

In a couple days, he moves out and is on his own.

Ch-ch-ch-changes...