I was not at all surprised to hear my daughter comment when I showed her: "We say that about you all the time!"
See, I take that as a compliment. Physically and financially, I am not fit to travel around the world, but in my head I'm "all over the place". I ALWAYS have to be "Up To Something! Life's just more fun and juicy that way.
Take my summer project--researching the death out of online real estate information. I have some dear friends who live in a condo complex in Chicago. When my bestest buddy Marianne purchased one late last May, I just had a brain flash:
"This is MEANT TO BE"...I'm supposed to buy a condo there!
So I proceed to merrily access all the floor plans and photos I could absorb online...looking up endless articles about mortgage rates, "rent vs buy" calculators, condos with all the features we needed, blah, blah. This was weeks BEFORE I consulted a mortgage lender who concisely informed me that my financial situation would not warrant any living change from "rent" to "buy".
I knew that it would be a financial stretch to buy, since my last home purchase in 2006 ended up in foreclosure in 2010. It takes seven years for that black mark to disappear from your "permanent record". Makes sense. I was caught up at the worst possible time in the financial nightmare facing so many people. In 2009, I retired and tried for most of that year to change my mortgage payment, or sell my condo in a short sale.
I left the condo and started renting while my credit rating was still shiny, and I have been renting ever since. I am happily sharing a nice place with my daughter in Arlington Heights, a northwest suburb of Chicago where we raised our three chicks for nineteen years. It has the BEST library (very important to me) with the fine feature of a drive-thru facility which I use at least weekly to pick up books and DVDS.
More importantly than the fine library is my location to my grandbabies, my two sons and their wonderful wives...one is ten minutes away, and the other 30 minutes away.
So if I must rent, I am in a great location, and a comfortable apartment for us, with great maintenance and management, a pond view and a few steps out to our car...that few steps feature important to me in my not-so-great legs condition these days.
So when I was faced with the fact of renting better than buying, I closed the door on my buying real estate Quest, with a surprising feeling of relief...no financially scary venture.
BUT NOW I HAVE TO GET "UP TO"
SOMETHING ELSE--AND VERY SOON.
STAY TUNED!
