Left Over from the 27th of Janurary
Good morning, it’s me again. I’d written yesterday, but I guess we erased it when closing some of our windows. There wasn’t much said, but we’d kind of worked through a couple of collages to explain some of our thoughts in this last week or so. These are the main pictures. They’ve made it over to FB too.
Pswhoo … I guess that will take some explanation won’t it. The first thing is there are 3 main houses in my mind right now. For a while that was too much and confusing me, but yesterday I got a better grasp on that too. The first one is Del Webb, the second is William Ryan and the third is Ryland. You can imagine just there where the second and third might get mixed up?
There were a few more houses that we looked at and are scheduled to look at. All of them have been single floor houses. The three here are all new houses and it seems that is the direction we’re really going to go for. The older houses have been really disappointing. They are least likely to have cathedral ceilings, overly large windows and master baths. There’s more too, but that’ll do for now.
Now as to the three places we’re looking at … Del Webb has models in Elgin and Shorewood, W. Ryan has models in Elgin, Shorewood, and Lockport. Ryland has homes in Elgin, other places and in Bolingbrook.
This is the general stat page for first breakdown consideration. Surprisingly they are reasonably in the same price category. It surprised me, but then it didn’t that this same “kinda house” level was pretty much where I was thinking I should be as to life status. The first two places are single buildings that look overly simple and the third building – the Ryland is part of a “villa” sharing the same building space with two other homes.
With just this last consideration … I guess we should state a few things.
Architecturally, I look at the Ryland place as being the most intelligent choice.
It gives me the feeling of pride in living in something that looks beautiful and striking. But, is it the American way? Probably not. Most Americans I believe are more independently minded – so that having totally their own space is most important. I think the idea of a more socialistic type house is more European or Asian. I’ve been very happy with that part of my present living situation – in that the apartment has 5 other families living in it. Unless they are directly in my part of the hall, I don’t hear people and I believe it would be the same living in this kind of situation. Plus, there isn’t anyone above us and we would be on an end unit, so on three sides of our place we’d have windows.
This would be our part of the place. In itself, it isn’t too bad an image in that it’s got a brick front and oversized windows and a tall roof.
Yesterday I was like … I don’t even remember the places, but through the effort of putting one right to the side of each other I was able to segment my thoughts better. Just giving each on a name (from the builder) was a good idea – like a street sign or label. It wasn’t working to say the Elgin place, because as it turns out each of these companies had a place in Elgin. Elgin in itself, pretty much takes itself out of the market, just because our work is in the southeast side of the Chicagoland area and Elgin is in the northwest side of the Chicagoland area. It would mean traveling WAY cross many expressways.
For that reason most of the looking we’ve done has been on the south side of the western suburbs. Work is 12 minutes away from the expressway 55 or in other words the Stevenson. The places I found with the most amount of popularity – is within proximity to 55. The locations range from our present situation at 30 minutes out to one hour out. We’ve looked in Darien, Lockport, Brookfield, LaGrange, Bolingbrook, Plainfield, Shorewood and Oswego. Darien, Brookfield and LaGrange seem to be older communities with not a lot of new buildings. Because new places are so evenly costed out as to older buildings it’s like why do I want to live in someone else’s colors when I could start fresh AND with fresh roof, heat source and clear windows. We’re far enough outside the dream so the concept of 4-6 months building time isn’t bothering me.
There are a lot of reasons though why to buy now as to economy. Right now until the end of February you can still get the $6500 or $8000 tax credit, which means Obama is going to send us a check within 4-6 weeks for that amount. The house has to though close by the end of June, which means you really, really have to get the thing going NOW! There are other tax benefits and from the sounds of it. I read one example which fits us pretty closely in that if you had a $300,000 loan and were then paying about $1500 a month or $18,000 a year on interest that you would save 25% (from a 25% income bracket) of that in tax savings or $4,500. That’s like $375 a month in free money … or at least freer. So far I think the mortgage interest cap is like $1 million so we’re pretty sure we’d be covered.
There are other things going on like interest rate. Now it is averaging about 5.125% Normally, interest rate is about 6-8% so that makes a big difference. Also, it seems we are really at a low part in the housing market as to it being a buyers market. With the coming of spring that is going to change. People have been sitting on their hands long enough so that money will most likely see itself back into housing. And, right now the incentives are at their lowest peak for builders.
They have already started to show changes in the three places we’ve looked at.
Yesterday W. Ryan went down $10,000 in house price and another $10,000 in incentives. Ryland is coming off a $20,000 decrease in house and up to $25,000 in incentives. These guys are really motivated. Builders in general make up just a few houses that they can sell quick, but most of the places you don’t build until they get the earnest money.
FHA seems to be the way to go because for one it would accept my credit rating of 620. For two it has a 3.5% down payment so on a $300,000 loan we would have to come up with $10,500. That’s a lot easier than a $15,000 – 5% or a $30,000 10%. Not to say though that $10,500 is an easy number. No matter what we’d do it would depend on getting $12,000 from Rich’s Mom. I’m not sure if she’s inclined to do that. I think things are going to need to escalate more. I have every indication they are doing that.
I don’t like that that part is happening or is being allowed to happen. Nobody yet seems to have a better way of handling the Mom situation. Rich talked about it a little yesterday. He had to calm down his brother, because the brother had gotten triggered from Mom not talking to him. But, then again Rich said she’d had a hard day in that she did quite a bit of work for her. That being things like making bud breakfast and moving around just a little bit. I think if I were going to do one thing to help her, I would take her chair and move it away from its steady location.
Usually mom pins herself in a very small cubical of space in a tight U-shaped kitchen. She has to get up to stir things or to wash things, but she’s going no more than a foot to a foot and a half. This isn’t helping her build any endurance.
Usually after she stands for a short time, then she’s sitting down again to have another drink or smoke. I think a lot about that in the thinking through of wanting a kitchen so big. I think it would definitely be a challenge to her. I would try to establish that she sit right in the inside left front corner next to the pie rack. She would be able to get her cigarette out of the cooking area and she’d be sitting next to people sitting at the bar keeping her company. And if she wanted to cook, she’d have to make a little more effort to be moving – like walking and standing. She’s not getting any other exercise, so this would be the most critical part of keeping her young … she would have to move. Her world would by course get larger. Right now Rich is complaining that she doesn’t want to leave her corner, tv and smokes to be anywhere else in the house to be with Bud. She does go to her bedroom, but other than that she’s really limiting herself. Her TV could go where those three ceramic pots are
*Sigh* I’ve of no shortage of dreams. I tried to tell Rich, but he won’t tolerate much of it, but in my mind most often I’m doing mental things to bridge differences in that we should be making our living space mom and Bud friendly until it becomes their living space too.
I’ve been having some worrisome thoughts with Rich. The other day sometime in the last few days I’d come up with an idea after listening to his problems with Mom and I said that we need to set up a day that we could call a “Ladies Day.” I could go out and spend a few hours with Mom and we could just talk and progress life. But, Rich is like – no can’t be done. I’m like what the fuck? I said is it that you don’t trust me around your mother? And he said no but that he was afraid that I’d take up her bad habits. So in that sense he thinks that I will start drinking and smoking. That’s about the most ridiculous thing. It feels very terrible in that Rich is micro-managing my life to that degree. Basically, that he can only trust my common sense to the ability he has to toss me.
That’s pretty much how I feel about it. Basically, then given an ultimate choice, what happened if I did drink and smoke. Like his mother … wouldn’t that be my choice? This is the part that I don’t like of what Rich thinks about. It was the same micro-managing as all those long 15 years of not being able to talk to his mother, his kids or his friends. He went out on the limb as far as saying that he wants me to help him first and not all those others. I don’t know maybe he thinks I will love him less in sharing my love with others? I just am not comprehending.
After yesterday when he was talking about his mother and bud needing to talk to a psychiatrist, I was like what’s then not to say that YOU shouldn’t be seeing a psychiatrist? I was serious. I said why don’t you come with me to Dr. Marvin’s this week. He said that he was tied up on Thursday and wouldn’t know until next Monday. I didn’t push after that … because essentially, he left out a “maybe” without saying so many words. This means that there’s a slim possibility? I know he’s going to doubt that decision or thought process later. He will say he doesn’t want to take up my time. But, it really is him that’s having problems. He doesn’t want to be in a situation that he needs to be helping his mom and Bud more. He’s doing a lot of denial.
I can appreciate from a person who works in social services that “helpers” need to be available to help individuals conquer their problems. He can go as far as to list his mom’s problems as aging, drinking, addiction, depression, etc., but he thinks if he can miraculously find someone to talk to for an hour a week that she is going to not have these problems. I told him … Rich that’s unreasonable. Even if you got someone VERY good – like I’ve had Dr. Woollcott and Dr. Marvin – well, basically – I’ve been seeing them for 20 years. Things don’t happen overnight.
Then we talked about it being an overcrowded situation. At any given time about 20% of the population is in that group (older than us) who could be considered old.
They can’t all see “helpers” to help them get through it. They can see a doctor about medication for depression, but all the rest has to be more internally driven by one’s self and one’s family and friends. He wants to put his mother out on a raft and hope she drifts past the right iceberg. Well, ok maybe it’s not quite like that, but I just don’t get where he’s coming from. It seems that he sees her from the perspective of a social service person – though I think on a personal level he is hurting because he’s losing that Mom who was always supposed to be there for him. Maybe that’s why he has such strong needs that I be taking care of him.
There … we’re back. We did some work for a while, but now have some minutes. We spent time with the volunteers and then sent them back to be with the clients.
Then, we worked on a series of calls to get some psychiatric help for one of our clients. It seems funny but this kinda stuff is so normal after our 10 years of being here that it barely raises a bubble in the system. We talked to Rich a little bit, but just a few moments during lunch. Lunch is never very long. We also talked to Sr about not working with one of the staff who we felt after 3 years has been trained enough. It has to do with getting people official on the books.
I think Rich is going to be here for a little while then he’s going to go pick up some money from one of his customers.
Hmm, somehow it got to be later in the day and there is only about 15 minutes left before going home. I think I’m going to call the H&R Block people and see if I can come in earlier.
Good good … that worked out. I am going to be talking to the same woman I talked to last year and she seems like she needs a good friend … well probably I’m not a great friend, but I’m good for about a half hour once a year. Looking forward to seeing how much money I might get. I’m really hoping for more than less, but I’m not sure how that goes.
posted by Ann Marie @ 2/08/2010 09:27:00 AM
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