I don't know that I was swept away by greed or material possessions but I do admit that I had a long term motive. We bought a second home because we were relocating but we also thought it would be a great long-term retirement investment. Then the decline in the economy happened.
Three years ago my Family and I moved to Fort Mill, SC from Erie, PA. We had bought a home in Erie, and lived there for one year. My husband during this time was exploring other avenues of work when he came across a position in Charlotte, NC. We then had to make a snap decision on whether to buy a home or rent. We had this notion that buying a home would be cheaper than renting so we decided on a whim to purchase.
My husband ended up moving before me and he left me behind to sell the house we had in PA. My husband and I have always been good about making decisions together, but this was something he had to take on himself. He found a home within a week of looking and signed the papers. We felt as if this great burden was lifted, our house sold quickly in PA and we had a place to call home in SC. We knew that we didn't want to live in our new home forever but figured after a couple of years we would find our dream home and then rent this one out for extra income as we would hang on to this as a future retirement investment. Well we couldn't have been more wrong.
Our first down fall was the new mortgage with an arm that lenders were offering to homebuyers; they had a way of making it sound so appealing. The major seller was you didn't need any money down. This was a great option for us seeing as we had no money, we had just relocated and we had a baby on the way. The thing that should have raised red flags were the two mortgages with fluctuating interest rates after five years. Nevertheless, our real-estate agent had us convinced that this was the right thing to do and reassured us that five years would be plenty of time to refinance and combine our mortgages; we shouldn't worry about a thing.
Here we are three years into living in our future retirement investment thinking to ourselves; what are we going to do now. The economy has taken a dive and the housing industry has taken a major hit. We now can't refinance like we had planned because now the price of our home has dropped dramatically and unfortunately everywhere you look you can find the same townhome uninhabited and selling for a dime a dozen.
I do feel that we were taken advantage of by the double mortgage deal, but I think we were not so smart on buying the house on a whim. We jump too quickly sometimes and don't weigh out all of our options. Of course, we could never have predicted what has happened with the economy, I just think we should have been smarter. Unfortunately you can't predict the future nor should you try. I have learned that you should always try to live within your means and never buy something with the thought of you will be able to pay that off, because you just never know where life is going to take you.
Three years ago my Family and I moved to Fort Mill, SC from Erie, PA. We had bought a home in Erie, and lived there for one year. My husband during this time was exploring other avenues of work when he came across a position in Charlotte, NC. We then had to make a snap decision on whether to buy a home or rent. We had this notion that buying a home would be cheaper than renting so we decided on a whim to purchase.
My husband ended up moving before me and he left me behind to sell the house we had in PA. My husband and I have always been good about making decisions together, but this was something he had to take on himself. He found a home within a week of looking and signed the papers. We felt as if this great burden was lifted, our house sold quickly in PA and we had a place to call home in SC. We knew that we didn't want to live in our new home forever but figured after a couple of years we would find our dream home and then rent this one out for extra income as we would hang on to this as a future retirement investment. Well we couldn't have been more wrong.
Our first down fall was the new mortgage with an arm that lenders were offering to homebuyers; they had a way of making it sound so appealing. The major seller was you didn't need any money down. This was a great option for us seeing as we had no money, we had just relocated and we had a baby on the way. The thing that should have raised red flags were the two mortgages with fluctuating interest rates after five years. Nevertheless, our real-estate agent had us convinced that this was the right thing to do and reassured us that five years would be plenty of time to refinance and combine our mortgages; we shouldn't worry about a thing.
Here we are three years into living in our future retirement investment thinking to ourselves; what are we going to do now. The economy has taken a dive and the housing industry has taken a major hit. We now can't refinance like we had planned because now the price of our home has dropped dramatically and unfortunately everywhere you look you can find the same townhome uninhabited and selling for a dime a dozen.
I do feel that we were taken advantage of by the double mortgage deal, but I think we were not so smart on buying the house on a whim. We jump too quickly sometimes and don't weigh out all of our options. Of course, we could never have predicted what has happened with the economy, I just think we should have been smarter. Unfortunately you can't predict the future nor should you try. I have learned that you should always try to live within your means and never buy something with the thought of you will be able to pay that off, because you just never know where life is going to take you.