Look Mom, no mortgage!

Just came back a few minutes ago from closing on the sale of our condo in South Beach. I have never been happier after loosing thousands of dollars. But in comparison to many of my fellow Floridians, at least we were not “under-water” with our mortgage and were able to bring home a sizeable check. After 6 years of ownership we managed to lose only about 14% from our original purchase price, and in today’s market that’s actually not too bad. Whatever happened to the days when you counted with home appreciation and worried about the tax implications? I’m pretty sure that if we had waited a few more years we could have recouped some of that loss, but that would have also meant many, many more mortgage payments later. So, who is to say whether we would certainly be ahead or just delusional about making any profit.

One of the reasons we decided to sale and move on, was that with the losses in property values in the country, there are now many opportunities to purchase assets that a few years ago would have been too pricey to even think about. It ‘s a sad condition to profit from someone else’s loss, but it is today’s new reality that we have to get used to, the new prices are here to stay and it’s best to forget about the past. So if you happened to have bought at the peak or if you happened to have profited from the supposed equity in your home, you are likely looking at your home value being lower than what you owe on it. So the banks that so easily lent us all that cheap money a few years ago, are now becoming reluctant owners themselves. So, to help them out, investors are grabbing the best value properties and leaving them to deal with their ugly ducklings.

Cash is king, they say, and as a matter of fact, most of the transactions I’ve been involved with in my short Realtor® career, have been in cash. Either buyers don’t want to be bothered with the banks or the banks themselves are making it very difficult to borrow, so cash transactions are becoming more common than mortgages.

For the last few weeks, B and I have been searching for our next place to live. We looked at renting a condo, but to keep the housing cost under $2,000 a month, we would be sacrificing quite a bit of living space and/or the neighborhood. With today’s prices, buying would actually make more sense as we could cut the rental in half and still live in a half-decent neighborhood. Of course, to do that I’m not talking about taking a mortgage but rather paying for the next place outright without involving banks.

But for now, let me enjoy my mortgage-burning event and have a few days without any of the burdens or privileges of home-ownership.

A new life has evolved...

My last entry was on Valentine’s day and then I went silent until today. Six months of too much thinking or too little time on my hands or lost of interest in writing. Probably a combination, but as usual I find that writing makes me stop and smell the flowers, even if just for a few minutes. I’m sure I’ve mentioned here that I find writing very therapeutic. Sometimes it’s only a to-do list or a whole article, but just jotting things on a piece of paper it’s almost like downloading information to an extension of my brain which allows the other part, the part within my skull, to take a breather and R-E-L-A-X.

It’s been probably a year that I’ve been more interested in doing something more than just being an active member of the AARP club. I’ve been looking for a possible business to buy, I’ve also been looking for a suitable job to apply to, and even looking at the possibility of creating my own type of life where I could be busy, but only busy when I want to, and not being dictated what to do by external forces (read: bosses). That something may have become a reality in my life during the last year, but it has been so subtle that I haven’t even realized it until now.

It started with a conversation I had with a Business Broker while we were negotiating my offer to a small business owner. Towards the end of the conversation I told Steve, it’d be nice to be able to buy this business, but what I’d really like to do, is to have a job like yours. I knew that I enjoyed the research and negotiations required to acquire a business, what I wasn’t sure was whether I was ready and willing to commit to the long hours and dedication that a small business requires. Steve went on to tell me that he also thought that I’d be a good business broker and explained that in Florida the only requirement was to have a real estate salesperson license.

So, in November of 2009 I started taking an online class to prepare me to take the Florida exam, however, the trips to Panama and later on to Cuba got on the way and it wasn’t until about February of this year when I started taking the online classes seriously.

I love taking classes and even have a weird fascination with taking exams, but eventually everything came to an end and I had to make a decision of which line of work to pursue. I spent a few days working with a business broker group but found them a little disorganized and offered little in the way of training. Being a novice in the field I felt that I wanted more mentorship and training and less independence.

A few days later, after doing some research on the matter I decided to join the Keyes Company to practice real estate sales. Of course my original intentions were to be the Realtor® to my main client: Belinda, but the more I learn the more I liked the idea that I could be helpful to others as well. Besides if I survive the training that is required to keep my main client happy, I’d have been graduated with heat and fire to handle the most demanding of clients available. So now I’m saying, bring them on, I’m ready to deal with the bitchiest real-world clients out there, I’m not afraid anymore. I’ve been tested.