It wasn't susposed to happen. Not to me. But here I am looking for a job...and looking,...and looking...

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

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Rent to own is the bomb. What I mean by that is it has been a bomb for me and my family - a bomb as in it sucks. My wife would shake her head at me and tell me to choose another word (sucks being a vile, sucky word for her), but sucks it does and has for the past three plus years.

I originally thought, on that peaceful fall day three plus years ago, it would be a good idea after we lost our house to sign up and pay a significant down to be in a position to buy the house after a few years.

Nope.

Through no ones fault but my own, I am today just as poor as I was three years ago. I have become the Jean Valjean of hard-up writers. Instead of stealing bread for my family I will be the poor man on the street who sleeps on the corner next to an outlet in order to update his blog. I don’t steal anything to eat. I just need power to blog.

Three years later the price on my house is $75,000. more than any other house in the neighborhood. We have had to pay out for a new fridge, new windows, new and decidedly less soggy carpet and a partial new roof. Rent to ownership means that we assume responsibility for normal wear and tear, which for them means something more significant than holes in the roof or central heating and air that screams and smokes and has been on vacation since Obama took office.

Don’t be late with your payment, and don’t call us if there is an electrical fire or if the foundation slides its way across the street.

The only way rent-to-own would have been good for us or anyone else is if the market had stayed relatively stable and we would have kept a sizable contingency fund to cover acts of god and gravity. Of coerce, had we had more to put down, we would have bought the dang home to begin with.

And now that we are getting ready to move because, A - we cant afford to tear the walls out due to a ten year old mold problem, and B - the property investment organization wants another sucker to put another significant down, guess what I got in my email? An offer to attend a cool meeting about The Way to get rich by investing in investing in property/homes club of the greater rocky mountain area in a rent-to-own as a landlord! They even want us to buy their book! The flier says that we can let lowly others pay our bills, and then we can keep our money to invest. All we would have to do is find someone more lowly.