Codejnki's Blog
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Iz Kan Maked A Blog Post
Nov 9th
My girlfriend recently challenged me to take part in NaBloPoMo after listening to me whine that I don’t write enough any more. Well I didn’t sign up. Looking at my work schedule I knew there was simply no way that I could keep up a work schedule, blog, and devote the required number of hours needed to completing Guitar Hero World Tour (on hard, wearing a bathrobe by the way).
So anyway I was feeling like a lazy ass for not joining the daily blog posting, that is, till she wasn’t able to make it past about day five. Now I don’t feel so bad.
Anyway, on to other things besides gloating.
The truth is that the housing crisis in America has hit me. Dial the way back machine to 2003. Prior to my ex-wife and I getting married we refinanced the house she owned to help pay down some debt, get a lower interest rate, and have some extra cash to pay for the wedding. In 2005 we had a line on a very good deal for the purchase of a Victorian in town and decided to put an offer in. With the housing market starting to slow we knew we would be unable to sell our first house. So we decided to rent the house out. A young family moved in and we were able to cover the mortgage payment from their rent and things were good.
In 2006/2007 when my wife and I divorced she got the Victorian, I got the rental. At the time, this seemed like a halfway decent deal. At the same time I also relocated to the east side of the state, starting my live over again for the third time. In the mean time the renters continued to live in the house.
Fast forward to late October 2008. I received a phone call from my renter telling me they are leaving with about 2 days notice and they are behind on rent by three weeks. I make my way down to the rental and get a look at what is a very disgusting mess. After a near two week ordeal just trying to get the keys back I am now in a serious bind. With just some rough estimates the house is going to require over $5000 worth of repairs in new flooring and paint. The house is also now worth almost half of what it was worth back in 2003. To say that I am upside down on this house is now a complete understatement.
So here is where I sit. I don’t really have the money to fix the house and make house payments. If I don’t fix the house I can’t get renters. If I don’t have a renter I can’t make house payments. I think that right now I sit in the literal definition of a Catch-22.
So I have resigned myself to become another national economic statistic. My rental house is going to end up going back to the bank. I am going to keep making payments on the house as long as possible but the house is up for sale at a drastically reduced price. I am currently in negotiations with the bank to attempt to avoid foreclosure, but right now, in this economic climate, I do not see that as being a reality.
Unlike many of the people who are going through foreclosure I feel like I did things exactly right. There is no funky strange loan on this house. It is a straightforward starter home that we chose to rent out and up on. Thousands of people have done this. It just didn’t work out for me.
The Unpacking 2 — Electric Boogaloo
Jul 4th
In celebration of July 4th, I’ve actually be quite productive rather than my expected ass sitting self.
First I walked down to the Clawson parade and checked it out. I actually managed to get a few pictures of Carl Levin our Senator. I thought that was pretty cool.
I then came home and pulled the 4 foot weeds that were surrounding the house out of the make shift planter. Now the yard doesn’t look so much like a jungle.
My bathroom is now finally all put away. I can stop using the trial sized shampoo’s from the hotels.
The computer desk is all set up and I’m typing this up while sitting at my desk.
And, in the Pièce de résistance, I set up my guitars and my amp. For the first time in over a decade I was able turn the amp up and just crunch away for a while. I even worked up a sweat in the process. Oh man that felt good.
Big old procrastinating update
Jun 29th
I closed on my house on Wednesday. By Thursday evening I had all of my possessions sitting in one small corner of my basement. By Friday the old apartment was cleaned and empty. I am now a homeowner at the ripe old age of 31. Should I be feeling this smug? I think so.
My house is huge, or at least it is compared to the apartment. 200 sq feet in the old place, 1000 sq feet in the new place, and that doesn’t even include the basement in to that figure. So everything I own currently fits in to one small section of the basement. But it has begun to creep out, as “stuff” tends to do. The place is really a disaster right now.
I’ve been procrastinating on doing any more work because I think I pulled a muscle at Ikea yesterday. See I had to do an emergency Ikea run yesterday because I went out Friday night with my buddy John. When I got home I realized there wasn’t a single place to sit comfortably. In my apartment by bed doubled as a couch (ahh the magic of foutons) but now that I have a real bedroom it no longer acts in that particular fassion. So I purchased a couch and a real bedframe for my mattress. The fouton frame has been broken for a while and I kind of wanted to have something a bit more “grown up” than the college look I was sporting in the studio.
I was without internet for nearly five days. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to make it. Well, without internet is a slight over exageration, I do have it on my phone, but it is kind of a pain when you want to do some serious procrastinating. I will post some pictures later once I start to get things all in order.
But for now, home ownership is such a fun thing 
Moving
Nov 6th
So in late December of 2006 I moved in to a very tiny studio apartment in downtown Royal Oak. One of the primary reasons for this apartment was the very close proximity to the downtown area. Walking distance. The rent that I am paying on this apartment is not for the mear 190sq feet that I live in, it is for the location.
Well I think that this apartment has out lived it’s usefulness. While I’ve totally enjoyed it, and it has kept me sane by not allowing me to go overboard with crazieness, I think that it is time that I moved. I’m going to start looking in the Auburn Hills area for a nice small one bedroom apartment. It will give me nearly six hundred more square feet to live in, cost close to the same, and cut my commute nearly in half distance wise.
My lease is up December 31st/January 1st. So now is the right time to start looking.