Great Time to Buy a Home

I had this great idea of moving to Lakewood. I love the Great Lakes and a view on the lake would be intoxicating. I even took a tour of a friend's home in one of these very tall building which looked like a giant standing on shore. I also spent hours on Realtor.com oggling the best condos with my calculator to see what I could realistically afford. It looked pretty good so I called my Realtor to get a Market done.

Then I noticed that on my streets "For Sale" signs were appearing faster than dandelions even my next door neighbor entered the contest. I was shocked by her asking price, she bought her home 15 years ago and still has a small mortgage. It is freshly painted with a nw kitchen, three bedrooms and a family room in the back, she has a attached garage and the street is quiet and did I mentioned that the neighbors are wonderful?

She listed her home at $115,000 and it just sat there gathering more cobwebs than visitors. She finally had an offer at $105,000. I am pretty sure that she would have accepted except that the buyer started to make more and more demands and finally withdrew the offer and presented a new one of $95,000.

I was a Realtor in a previous life but I never encoutered this kind of greedy behavior. Buyers know that the market is saturated with inventory and that great deals are available but it is not enough to get a great deal, they want to steal the home. It is as if the Southern Carpetbaggers are back here in NE Ohio.

I called my Realtor and expressed my reservations. " You know that I made a lot of renovations and I don't have to move, I just want to live in Lakewood."

"Listen Honey, if you don't have to move and you are not willing to loose money, just wait. The buyers are locusts, they want to get great deals and this new crop are bottom feeders. They just want to low ball their offers in hope that someone will accept it because they are desperate. It is not a good time to sell."

I was a bit disappointed but even more disconcerting is the possibility of trading in my very nice next door neighbor for people who are eager to take advantage of her situation. I know that it has nothing to do with me but I am resentful of this economy which did so much for so few. I know that I have finally managed to make enough money to have the same income that I had 7 years ago. My food and gas budget has however more than doubled.

I know many people are facing foreclosure and loosing a home is a true hardship. But for people like me who continue to meet their financial obligations by swimming in place there is no assistance available, no relief. Our big American dream is falling down the drain like itsy bitsy spider and may not come around again unless we can get tax code reforms. I would like to see a payback for all the money that corporations have made by keeping their tax dollars while outsourcing good jobs oversea. You hear so much about company going "global." But it is starting to sound like a dirty word to me, a euphemism for destroying our middle-class quality of life.

It might be time for Americans to require a new amendment to the Constitution that would allow the removal of a political administration who blatantly steals from the people to favor their own friends, investments and family members. Maybe the silver lining behind the legacy of GWB, is that it made many people re-evaluate what they want for themselves, their families, and their country. Maybe next time there will be a welcome change.