Job Transfer? Not In This Housing Market!
Discussing the current economic slump tends to spin into a conversation about the necrotic housing market. If you aren’t personally affected, chances are you know ten people who are. They sold their home in a short sale and now rent while building their credit back. Maybe they lost a home to foreclosure which means it will take even longer to rebound, or they are renting out their former home and ‘Surprise, they’re Landlords!”
The explanations for any of these less than positive situations vary. Loss of work, underemployment, owning multiple homes, a mortgage beyond their means and job movement are some of the main reasons for landing squarely in the middle of the housing chaos.
Two years ago my family made the decision to relocate to another state for a great job, a change in lifestyle that included my husband home for dinner most nights, and weekends spent hiking and playing. We adjusted to the move and the changes except for one thing: our home in the previous state never sold.
We rented it out surprisingly easy and here we were, surprise landlords.
After renting a small home ourselves for 18 months we realized we may never sell that albatross of a house. If our tenants fell through for even 2 or 3 months we would join the ranks of foreclosure like so many others. At that point we purchased a home in the new state, preparing for the worst. Knowing we wouldn’t be able to purchase a home anytime soon after a credit fiasco like a foreclosure on our account was a deciding factor.
A recent article from National Public Radio (NPR) reported an increase in families choosing not to accept a job offer due to inability to sell their home or being upside down in their mortgage.
'No kidding'. I imagine in ten years, we will look back and laugh and say oh sure, we were caught in the middle of that mortgage crisis nightmare, no big deal.
However. In hindsight knowing our home would never sell and facing the very real possibility of credit decimation from a short sale or worse, we never would have accepted the job and subsequent transfer.
The thing is, we have never lost income, and our lifestyle has remained nearly the same throughout. Instead we had a giant elephant called fear -of -foreclosure looming on our family, our marriage and our sanity.
Image Credit: Worldwide ERC Transfer Volume & Cost Survey published in Mobility (September 2010) via NPR
Stock Image: Shutterstock.com
Follow Technorati