Well, this has been an interesting couple of months!
Of course, at the end of November, we had Thanksgiving in the US. This was not unexpected, nor was the sudden explosion of colorful, twinkling lights in the Spokane, Washington area following the holiday. In fact, it was rather pleasant.
Then, there was an explosion of Hallmark Christmas Specials, where you simply watch the exact same, made-for-TV movie, starring either Kevin Sorbo or Candace Cameron, with the slight variations which personalize it to your taste. (No, I'm not mocking them. Actually, I like Kevin Sorbo and Candace Cameron. 
)
There was the obligatory Christmas Eve feast with the kids (so they could spend the next day with their in-laws) and the wincing as grandchildren became loud enough to hear two states away (3 back east), but then on the 28th of December, my daughter-in-law gave birth to a little boy, our 6th grandchild!
We have yet to see him because of the recent snowfall and sickness, but we're hoping to see him this Saturday. If I can shake off this cold I've been fighting.
And, three days ago, my Dad was admitted into the hospital for confusion and forgetfulness. Thankfully, that didn't turn out to be a stroke or anything, and he's supposed to be released today. Yay!
Loads of things happening.
And now for my rant. I haven't had a good rant for a few months, so I think it's high time.
I'm getting very tired of receiving calls from people who decide, from looking at property values, that I'm someone likely to want to sell my home. Really??? In what universe? Since property values have ALL gone up, how am I supposed to buy another one if I sell mine? There's no way to make any money by buying one at a lower value when nothing is AT a lower value. The housing market is NOT the stock market, people! I can sell Tesla stock and wait while it drops, then buy again. I can't wait till the housing market drops before purchasing another home. I kinda need a place to live.
Anyway...
End of Rant
And how was your Christmas season?
Comments
Are you on the do not call list?
There is no exception for realtors. Report them! Realistically they probably won't be prosecuted for the first report but you'll be on their own do not call list.
I've told several
Do not call back but they ones who I haven't far outnumber the ones I have.
2 years ago, we checked on a refinance spnwe could get some work done in the backyard, then I had to seriously cut down my workload because of a tumor (benign, thankfully).
That seemed to spark the calls coming. Oh well. Those who write letters supply my fireplaces with Firestarter, which is a plus, I suppose. Lol.
Hugs!
Rosemary
In keeping with your rant.
Here in small town NW Oregon, we ran a similar gauntlet. Thanksgiving came and went as expected. We celebrated at my daughters house with all of the family present. That included my oldest daughter, the host daughter and her husband, my granddaughter and grandson, plus a coupled of my granddaughters friends that didn't have anyone to celebrate with. Inviting such people is kind of a family tradition started when my kids were young. Then three days later we were informed that my granddaughter had covid and we'd all been exposed. This to spite the fact that she'd had both shots and it was long enough for them to have been fully effective.
So now what to do? I called my supervisor at the bus company (I drive school bus to keep myself occupied while retired); We already had to start school two weeks late because one of our driver had got covid and exposed three others. That left us with two few drivers to cover all the routes until the quarantine time passed. The driver that got covid died and even now we can only cover one missing driver. So my supervisor asked about "how exposed was I"? I told her that while I had given my granddaughter a hug, I hadn't been within 6 feet of her otherwise. I think my supervisor was desperate and made a risky decision to have me keep driving. I did get a home test and it turned up "inconclusive". It turned out that I didn't have it. But my granddaughter did miss two weeks work while she had what she described as a bad case of flu.
Like in Spokane, we were treated to a colorful display of Christmas lights. Then Christmas Day, we were back at my daughters for the traditional feast. This time the guest list included my granddaughters boyfriend (the culprit who exposed her to covid; turns out he missed Thanksgiving with us because he was sick and found out Friday after that it was covid) her first boyfriend (She just turned 23). Anyway, it was a good day and a great family celebration. But the weather was forecasting some serious snow for our little town in the foothills of the Coast Range. Since my daughter lives in the big city (Hillsboro) and we have a 1000 foot hill to go over to get home, we kept a close eye on the one traffic cam on that route. We bugged out just before 7 when the traffic cam showed it was snowing.
We got home about 8:00. (it's normally a 45 minute drive). We woke up to 8 inches of the white stuff and it was still snowing. Total accumulation when all was said and done was nearly a foot, making my driveway (up hill to get to the road) impassible. Not that I'm equipped to drive in 12 inches of snow anyway. The temps weren't forecast to get above freezing until the first of the year.
So there we were, snowed in. No big deal. We were prepared to not go anywhere. All was fine and good until Thursday when we lost power early in the morning. Not an unusual event here during the winter. It usually comes back on pretty quickly. Most often within an hour or two. Seems BPA had a main feed to our area go down. That combined with numerous small downs in out feed that the couldn't track down until BPA got things up and running. Fifteen hours later, we got power back. That was better than our neighbor, to houses down. Because of the patch work lines in our area they are on a different grid than we are. They were without power for 26 hours.
To top things off, school was supposed to start on January 3rd, but the winter conditions hung on and black ice kept the buses off the road (and many of the teachers house bound) so it didn't start until the 5th. With the two weeks lost at the beginning of the year we're betting the kids will be lucky to get out of school by 4th of July.
Now to add to your rant. I'm 76 (77 come March) and I'm inundated with phone calls and emails because the interest rates have fallen so low and surely with the housing market so great (my house has gained over 100K in value in the last five years when I bought it) I must want to refinance and get some of that money out of it. Really? I'll be lucky to live long enough as is to pay off my house. My house is pretty much all of my estate. Oh I have about 20 grand in a 401k and 7 or so in savings, but the bulk of my material wealth is tied up in the house. I'm hoping when the time comes my kids will be able to sell it quickly and split about 100 to 200 thou or so. If I dump my current mortgage with 25 years to go, I'll have no chance of living long enough to have any real equity. Plus being retired and having an income of about 37K I doubt I'd qualify for a hundred, ten grand loan anyway. I'm in good health and with a little luck, I just might live to pay off the mortgage. So all in all, no thanks.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Exactly. Like you, I bought
Exactly. Like you, I bought my house 5 years ago, and I find myself worth $220k more because of it. I still owe over 130k on it, and I have no intention of selling, so that $220k is worthless. I MAY refinance just to fix up my backyard. I've got a very tall spruce that makes me cringe every time the wind blows, and I can't put in the terraces I want with my messed up back.
I had someone call yesterday and ask if I still had a mortgage. I said, very hesitantly, yeah... I don't want to be rude... he then asked if it was FHA, or ... I told him I'm not interested, but thanks for calling. He immediately says, "Don't you want the to check and see what they have to..." my finger decided without benefit of my brain to disconnect. I was grateful to it.
Hugs!
Rosemary
Identikit movies and houses
Yay! Well done for commenting on that. I had a stinking cold and cough over Christmas (not COVID) and had the misfortune to see more than my fair share of them and TBH, I'd rather watch flies on bovine excrement than have to go through that again.
House prices and being asked 'ever thought about moving? Your house is worth a lot more than last year'.
Back in 2006/2007, my next-door neighbour and I got together and decided at that time to say to the realtors, 'start at £1M for both houses and we can begin to talk'. I live in a semi-detached and these realtors are acting as a front for developers who would knock it all down and build 6 to 8 detached houses on our plots. We both have 120ft x 36ft rear gardens. About half an acre in total for both plots.
We talked about a batch of these speculative enquiries late last year and we agreed that £1.5M was now a good starting point.
Each of our homes is worth around £400K-£450K on the market.
With all the improvements I have made to it in the last few years, I am not even remotely interested in selling up.
Give them the finger if you can.
Samantha
lol. both of my neighbors have sold.
So I can't use your trick. Lol. I'm sorry to see both go. Lovely people on each side.
I have no intention whatsoever in selling. Granted, with the equity I have now I could (perhaps) purchase a house outright which would be nice to own without a mortgage, I take care of two family members, plus we had some friends who couldn't find a place to live because of the housing market currently. They are now in our basement, until and unless they can find a place.
To purchase a comparable home, would require moving to a much smaller town, without the resources Spokane has, so why do that? Plus, finding a job for Norma would be a problem. "It ain't broke so don't try to fix it."
The people who keep calling always ask if i know anyone else who wants to sell, so I know they're investment firms, like you have dealt with.
The last one said, as is, no negotiating. Yeah. Do the work in the backyard that I want to do, and perhaps double the amount that id get for it when they sell it. No thanks. I'd rather do that myself or more likely enjoy it after that work was done.
Hugs!
Rosemary
If you all think it's bad...
...it's ten times worse if you own a house outright!
I was fortunate enough that in my younger days I was the primary IT for my aunt's Mortgage Company and learned a lot about the real estate market in the process. (after all, you can't set up applications and a network fully effectively unless you understand the data being processed, right? I know... I'm weird!) When the market took a dive in 2012 I knew enough to figure out when it would bottom out... and we started looking to buy just then. We ended up practically stealing the home we have now for just under $115k and were able to get a good rate... so we scrimped, saved, and went without a lot of things for a long time... no going out, no cell phones, no cable, no nothing but each other... sinking every penny into the mortgage. Five years later... five years ago now... we paid it off and own it outright. This is the house I'm going to die in someday.
For the last two years now though we've been practically buried in mail from every real estate company in the country wanting to buy it... or banks wanting us to use the equity... which is now worth almost $400k with all the work we've put into it. (PV panels, new roof, remodeled bath, new addition, new driveway, etc.) I'm not kidding when I say we get 6-8 mailers per day wanting to make an offer on a house we never intend to sell. (our kids can sell it when we die... or move into it if they want... or whatever!)
We get so many I actually do use it for firewood... not just starting a fire! Seriously, just before Christmas it turned really cold and we made a fire in the fireplace out of nothing but junk mail... mostly mailers wanting to buy the house or get a loan on it... and it burned for hours... and that was just the mailers we got this year, having burned all the ones from last year, last year! Already there's a pile in the corner next to the fireplace where there's enough to have another roaring fire from the mailers we've gotten in just the last few weeks!
::sigh:: At least I know we'll never be cold!