Susan Walters

Yes, another tale from the dark side. I may start giving these blogs episode numbers so it doesn't look like I am just recycling the same old thing. Roman numerals, identified by year/month shown, rated on a scale of 1-10 for level of buyer horror, perhaps on a profit & loss statement estimate when showing to an investor, maybe even the imaginary pangs of back pain experienced when envisioning the work needed? So hard to decide.... I just like to write about distressed properties when I show one that in some way tops all of the other ones I have shown. Today was one of those days.

The $49,000 price point in a nice subdivision that could bring $200,000 or more begged the question, "What's wrong with this property?" Wait, another idea! This could be a game show! I could give clues without giving away the actual issues. Let's see how it might work.

(Imagine the eager contestants, trying to guess the solution to...FIX_THAT_HOUSE!!!!!)

The contestants pull into the neighborhood. Good, good, nice, nice, great yards, updated and tidy homes, kids happily playing, dogs in their own territory, no poop, flowers blooming, sun shining. Perfect.

But wait.

What about...THAT ONE???!!!

Not too bad, needs a little TLC. Some siding missing from the upper peak of the house, cracked concrete driveway, distorted garage door, bent gutters, dead shrubberies, beaten front entry. Maybe they were not the outdoorsy types? Let's see what the inside looks like! Well, nice layout, original 1977 windows, maybe original kitchen too, but clearly not tidy housekeepers. How novel - vinyl floor tiles used as wall wainscotting, even behind the stove! I did not know that vinyl was fire retardant. Seems the dog must have been let out on a timely basis, no pervasive odors apparent. Someone was surely unsteady with their drinks though, the patchwork of carpet colors throughout is further enhanced by a modern art application of new and old stain patterns. Interesting paint choices, pink, pink, and more pink. Attached garage is spacious with pull-down stairs to storage above - thaaat's good.

Now for the rest of the house. Should our fearless contestants go upstairs or downstairs? Upstairs - there are often terrors below grade.

Not bad, not bad at all. Spacious hallway, 4 bedrooms with one centrally located 2-sink bath. Yes, the patchwork of carpet continues, with stain patterns consistent. Plus pink walls. Charming, really, OK to love (from a cost perspective.)

Finally, the lower level. Finished, carpeted, full bath. Where is the crisis? Contestants, make your final decisions. What do you recommend to...FIX_THAT_HOUSE!!!!! ?

Pencils down. The correct answer appears in pig Latin below.

liminateEay hetay oldmay romfay hetay asementbay mmediatelyiay, ybay rofessionalpays. azardousHay otay ouryay ealthhay. abotageSay ybay ormerfay wneroay ikelay. aterWay urnedtay noay niay asementbay, ndaay wnersoay vacuatedeay ntoiay hetay ightnay. ullFay eepday oolpay niay asementbay. onusBay!

The grand prize to the winner? You get to buy this house! Congratulations! Ay....

www.susanwalters.net

"All too experienced in Ann Arbor, MI area foreclosure showings and the resultant meager commissions" - new tag line potential? Ay....

"Be careful what you say around her...she may blog about it." I heard that remark more than once when attending a family event recently - always the same person saying it, my brother-in-law Robert.

He has a way of taking the most serious of occasions and making light of it, not out of disrespect. In this case, we were burying a loved one, hardly a time for levity. People cannot be sad always though when a death occurs.

I remember my own husband back in 1997, when UPS delivered the box containing his father's ashes to his brother-in-law who happened to answer the door. We were inadvertently re-enacting "A Christmas Carol" with the possessions left in the house. "Does it feel like it weighs 300 pounds?" said my husband. We all laughed. The healing needs to begin, the sooner the better. In my father-in-law's case, he would have laughed too. It was humorous enough that he was delivered by UPS, but my husband's remark about his beloved father struck a light note with everyone. He didn't weigh 300 pounds, but he was a big guy at 6'4" or so. The laughter evaporated pretty quickly as the cardboard box looked at us from atop a filing cabinet. Laughter, readjustment, recovery - all in a day's work and the life history of a family.

P.S. There is so much blogging I could do here about what I learned on my recent trip back to the family homestead. Best not to reveal the details and no one would believe the story to be true anyway. I really need to get that novel underway. Names will be changed to protect the innocent but each person would probably be able to recognize themselves in the details. Particularly you, Roberto. Was that a give-away?

While busily answering my email via gmail today, the little chat box appeared with this message: "Moooommmy, I'm scaaaaarrrreed." It was my daughter Sara. When she calls me "Mommy", it is a clearly understood signal between us that she needs comfort and reassurance, but the additional "I'm scared" could hardly have been misinterpreted.

Here's what stinks about being a realtor - her timing was very much in the way of my scheduled agenda. Wow. That is bad. I made an executive decision to figure out what was going on, though I pretty much knew. I risked being late for showings in the far reaches of Washtenaw County, MI and beyond, already a white-knuckle drive since that is the way I plan. :-/ It is on my list of things-to-do...PLAN BETTER.

Knowing time was of the essence I got right down to business. As suspected, it was last minute fears about the enormous events she has planned for the next two weeks of her spring break; she is on study abroad in Paris, France. The original itinerary included a male companion accompanying her through the Baltic States but he had passport issues and had to back out. (Everyone has passport issues with Russia so she dropped that herself, but not before spending money to get an official invitation from the government to come on over - it was an insincere invitation, in the end.)

She had great fun choosing a fake wedding ring as a recommended travel disguise...always about to meet one's husband at the next stop. When the reality of traveling alone hit her today, she was in panic mode. To top it off, she is "couchsurfing", staying with strangers in all locations in the student-worthy effort to save money. Several of the hosts are men. Call me old-fashioned but that had me worried a few days ago. Maybe today she is worried too. I advised the best I could via google chat:

*let everyone, including the US Embassy, know of your travel plans

*wear that little travel pouch under your clothes and keep money and passport in it

*make sure you take out more than enough money at each ATM stop - you don't know what things will cost and when you will find an ATM again

*spread your money around on you and in your luggage

*try not to look or act too much like a tourist - blend in

*remember that most people are just like you so try to be brave, Dorothy! (The Wizard of Oz is one of her favorite movies and particularly suitable for travel to unknown lands.)

*watch your back - among those many friendly people are others who take advantage

*use common sense

After those few minutes consoling my daughter in one of her greatest hours of need, I told her I had to go. I said I would talk to her later but when I got back at 7:00 PM and logged on, she was offline. It is either 6 or 7 hours time difference (drat that spring-forward leap) so it was either 1 or 2 AM there. She would definitely have been in bed.

I never said a proper goodbye. I never said I loved her. I never told her how proud I am of her for stepping out of her comfort zone and planning a 14 day trip that takes her to: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and back to Sweden. She will be flying at the beginning and end, buses or trains comprising the middle of the transportation modes. Alone. This is the girl who would call, less than 6 months ago, from the University of Michigan, 7 minutes up the road from our house, when she needed a grocery run.

Who says study abroad doesn't change lives? It is changing hers. I just hope we get to see her in one piece again. I wish the Tin Man were along for the trip. She could use someone to lean on. You know, he had that heart all along; he just didn't know it at first. By the end he knew himself - I trust she will know herself too.

Visit Sara's blog at http://www.saraanneinparis.blogspot.com/. Active Rain is welcome. (She is looking for a summer publishing internship in NYC, and a full-time job upon early graduation in December 2008.) I know; it's blatant. Forgive me. I'm distressed.

This past weekend was brutal on my body. When my Sunday open house ended (preceded at noon by snow flurries in April in Ann Arbor, Michigan) and I was headed home, I knew I was tired. I didn't realize how tired I was until I felt myself literally falling asleep mid-typing, following up on some phone calls and emails. I tipped right over on the family room sofa, pulled a fleece blanket over me and slept the deepest sleep I may have ever slept, waking fully refreshed after two hours or so. I have no idea if my family came or went, cats jumped on me and left (they often do)...I just needed that total departure.

That may have been how my tiny 4-week-old nephew felt on Tuesday when he peacefully passed away after the most miraculous fight for life no one ever really expected he would accomplish. His demise was forecast many times in his short time here yet he kept beating the odds. The fact that his badly configured heart was not the thing that did him in has to be the cruelest irony. He survived two surgeries before the attachment of a Berlin heart device, then dialysis from kidney function issues, yet finally his lungs gave out, having been fully functional at full term birth.

His funeral was on Saturday with a closed casket "viewing" on Friday evening. It had been an eight hour drive for my son and me, representing our family at the services. When I entered the funeral establishment, I really didn't notice the little white casket under a cascade of flowers. I only had eyes for his parents, my brother and his wife. They are models of faith, having known the perils of this journey for most of the pregnancy.

I know I could never have stood on the altar during the funeral Mass and spoken to my son, softly crying as Michael's mother did. I couldn't have then turned my attention to the congregation and talked about the medical staff who cried with them and rejoiced with them at every new turn of events. I could not have stood there, as she did, and said that God did this FOR Michael rather than TO him because He wanted to end his suffering. I silently applauded her belief that Michael was here for a reason. He taught the medical staff at the Afred I. duPont Hospital for Children that newborns can hold on when least expected to do so. He gave that hospital the opportunity to see a gifted team of German surgeons attach a "transplant bridge" for the first time ever in that pediatric hospital, perhaps a step in the full FDA approval of the device widely and successfully used across Europe. Michael gave all of us a chance to reassess our priorities in his short life. He made a difference.

I may have been tired this weekend but Michael was clearly more tired earlier in the week. He needed the departure I enjoyed for a few short hours; his departure was permanent though. I suspect it will refresh him beyond any of our wildest dreams. I hope and pray that his family will cope and heal. His life was not in vain. He will be remembered, cherished, and documented, all due to 28 days of life. Now that...is a miracle.

The other day I heard a pretty chilling story from an owner of income property and it is forcing him to rethink his entire strategy of income property as a way to accumulate wealth. He has lost, not earned, a lot of money.

He had rented one of his income properties to an individual. That person was the only signed tenant on the property. Another person was illegally offered residency, unbeknownst to the landlord, and when the lease terminated, the spare tenant refused to evacuate. The owner asked him to leave and when he wouldn't, threw his possessions out the door. That "tenant" had a social worker who said he had to be given notice of eviction, despite the lack of a lease with his signature. A court battle ensued, and after many months, the "tenant" was evicted. Do I need to mention that this person was not paying rent or utilities? Do I need to mention that the property was in shambles? I'm being kind in saying "shambles."

This experience so shocked and disillusioned the landlord that he is putting his income properties on the block (lucky me...), after which he will put his own residence up for sale and invest in a larger property for his family. He understands the value of real estate and reasons that if hard times do arrive, at least he can live in his investment and weather any storm that arrives via assessments, if he hasn't overestimated his financial situation. Flips are in the immediate future and he is well-equipped by employment to do those very, very effectively. I look forward to a prosperous relationship.

While this situation is extreme - there was not even a lease for the individual in question - a similar dilemma exists for many landlords. At what point does the landlord decide to evict when a previously good tenant falls on hard times? This is Ann Arbor, Michigan I am talking about and the auto industry woes have rippled through the rest of the economy, presenting challenges for the landlord who is soft-hearted but who must make hard business decisions. Michigan was hit long ago with the foreclosure crisis but Ann Arbor has held out, sizeable household incomes and savings presumably being key.

I am sympathetic to housing and other services for the homeless, too numerous to mention here. I FULLY support the goals of Habitat for Humanity in its efforts to provide affordable housing to deserving individuals. (I have hammered a few roof shingles on habitat homes myself and should do it a lot more often...) I have to question the decisions of the courts as described above, despite what must be the law. I'm thinking it is lack of community resources for housing people in these situations. I want to believe it is misunderstandings about how many people really need these services, how many people are sleeping on couches of friends and relatives until they can get their economic situation in control. What if there are no friends or relatives?

I suspect though, it is really a lack of commitment from the "haves" for the "have-nots". The "haves" are too busy to notice what the "have-nots" need. Or are too judgemental in why the needy are in the situation they are in. I don't remember the percentage, but the people in this nation who are one or two paychecks away from housing calamity is unbelievable. It could be so many of us. In one of the weathiest countries in the world, we do not have a reliable safety net for homelessness. I know Congress has been addressing housing issues of late, in this election year, but for many it may be too little too late. This crisis has been ever-present.

I don't know what the details were of the individual mentioned above; I don't know that the landlord knew either. All I know is this - when money is spent to invest in income property and leases are in place, and the terms of the lease are violated, the burden should not fall on the private property owners. A compassionate society should have a system in place to quickly fill the housing void when eviction becomes necessary.

Regarding guaranteed return, if we were talking stocks here, in this market, income property would be a stock for the young - high risk. Those nearing retirement need not apply. This is not stocks though, it is housing. Let's make it fair for landlords and safe for at-risk tenants. Everyone needs somewhere to live.