Ozark, Obviously

Thanks to the kindness of a student's grandparents, we had a marvelous place to use as home base for a trip to Missouri over Christmas Break.

We left December 23rd, the first day that school was out. Looking back, I do not know if I would do this again. With no break between the end of school and the beginning of vacation, I was pretty discombobulated by the time I finally sat down in the van. Our first day's travel was to take us from home to Bill and Teresa's in Olathe, Kansas.

Perhaps 75 miles from home, Avery started alerting us that her tummy didn't feel good. Sure enough, soon came the little gagging noise that precedes vomit. But you may not have realized that my wife is a hero. She had packed gallon zip-lock baggies which she used to catch Avery's offering before it hit anything. Not a drop got loose. You should also know that Aves is prone to both low blood sugar and motion sickness; she wasn't actually ill.

We lunched in Clear Lake, Iowa and then continued south. In the distance you could see brighter weather, but we were still buried by a huge bank of clouds. Finally, a little south of Des Moines (where we got fuel for $2.85 a gallon) the sun broke through and stayed with us all the rest of the way to Olathe. Driving through Kansas City was an adventure, especially with the western sun in our eyes, but we arrived at Bill and Teresa's around suppertime. They were very kind hosts, but it has to be noted that their home isn't set up for little ones. After observing antiques and collectibles everywhere, our kids finally settled on some antique balance scales that Bill has displayed on a huge shelf in the great room.

In Olathe, we went out for pizza with Bill and Teresa (thanks, guys), watched a professional marble guy make a marble from scratch, attended a Christmas Eve service at St. Aidan's Episcopal Church, and played on the playground of Black Bob Elementary School. (Ironically enough, Black Bob was apparently a local Indian chief. The political incorrectness of it cracked me up.) Late in the morning on Christmas Day, we finished our brunch with Bill and Teresa and said good-bye. On to Ozark.

The weather was beautiful when we breezed through Springfield and arrived at our "home" on the outskirts of Ozark. It was the polar opposite of Bill and Teresa's mansion -- a sprawling one-story with no junk and hardly a knick-knack in sight. Right away we saw the beginnings of a treasure hunt that Paul and Carol had left for the kids. Following the clues, we eventually arrived at some Swiss Miss hot cocoa mix and a box of holiday Oreos. For the rest of Christmas Day, we just relaxed and waited for some attractions to open.

December 26th is our anniversary, and we celebrated it (with four children) at Lambert's Cafe, the home of the throwed rolls. This huge restaurant has not only huge portions of food but also dishes they call "pass arounds"... there are servers wandered the aisles with baskets of treats like fried okra, macaroni and tomatoes, molasses, and fried potatoes. About every 10 minutes, a handsome young man would come out of the kitchen and yell "HOT ROLLS!" Then anyone who wanted a roll would wave his hands in the air and wait for the roll to be "throwed" to him. Our boys were delighted and caught several. Our girl tried as well but took a piping hot roll to the cheek instead. It was quite a memorable experience.

We also made it to Branson on the night of the 26th, where we visited the Bass Pro Shop and the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum. Interesting, but weird. If you had a good pile of money to spend, Branson would probably be a lot of fun.

On the 27th, we tried to tour Smallin Cave, but the admission for all six of us was going to be somewhere on the high side of $70, and we just didn't see it happening. (Smallin Cave is just the opposite of its name... a huge cave where primitive peoples lived and Civil War soldiers camped.)

Then it was up to Springfield to see more of Tara's family: Uncle Dan and Aunt Marti, their daughter Jennifer and her son Connor, and their son Jimmy who's not married yet. We had a great time eating Aunt Marti's lasagna and catching up with them at Jennifer's house. After a few hours we moved on to more sightseeing.

The morning of the 28th dawned bright and clear. In her usual orderly fashion, Tara had everything ready and loaded, and we did a final check of the house around 9:30. It was time to head home. We didn't know exactly how many miles this route would cover, but we knew it was going to be a long day.

After filling up, we prayed for safe travel and set our faces to the north. Our last incident with local color was at a huge warehouse called "Davis Baskets". Intrigued, we stopped off even though we knew we really didn't have time. Entering, we at first saw no one, just aisles and aisles of baskets, toys, collectibles, crafts, and the like. Finally an old man hobbled out of nowhere and answered a few questions tersely. Tara found a bag of cedar pieces for $3.49, which included a very nice cedar box with lid and clasp. We bought it. In retrospect we should have bought 12, because they would have made nice gifts for the next biennium. And the proprieter? Mr. Davis had founded the business in 1947 and was still operating it. When he passes on, someone's going to get a whole lot of inventory!

Our next major stop was Jefferson City, where we tried to find the Panera (I had gift cards) but weren't quite successful. On the phone with Grandpa (how technology has changed travel!) we were able to isolate one in Columbia. While this was going on, "Barfing Petunia" was at in again... not once but twice. Again, Tara caught the entire amount which we left for the citizens of Columbia.

After lunch, we continued through northern Missouri, and, I really have to tell you, Missouri is beautiful. I fully intend to spend more time there in the future. I'm also fascinated by the number and size of the churches. There are churches everywhere -- and about 70% of them, Baptist! Freewill Baptist, Southern Baptist, Regular Baptist, Bible Baptist, you get the idea. Oh, to have enough Sundays to worship with and encourage each one!

It was almost sunset when we crossed into southeastern Iowa, and it occurred to me that we were going to be driving in the dark soon. But I'm happy to say that it was still light when we rolled through Ottumwa ("City of Bridges") and Oskaloosa (an adorable old-style small city). Most wondrous to me (but amusing to my family) was an old building engraved with the words "PVBLIC LIBRARY". Now, if you've done any classical study at all, you know that "U" and "V" in ancient Roman times were the same letter -- "V" did the job of both. The rest of the uneducated in the car, however, found it very funny to try to pronounce the "V" as a "V". But I salute some early citizen of Oskaloosa for his courage and knowledge of ancient Rome.

After Oskaloosa, it just got darker and scarier, but the Lord protected us, and our '97 Dodge Grand Caravan made it home once again, having traveled 575 miles in one day for a total of more than 245,000.

I guess this brings to an end our year of adventure!

A Bold Manuever

So I didn't blog last weekend. Mostly that's because I was so busy doing what I'm blogging about.

On Saturday morning Tara and I went to look at some more foreclosures. One of them wasn't a foreclosure, but rather an estate. The old lady had died in early 2010, and her kids finally got around to marketing the house last fall. Recently they dropped the price, and that's when it arrived on our search.

About 10 seconds after Lisa unlocked the front door, Tara exclaimed, "Oh, what a cute little grandma house!" After looking around for a few minutes, she was ready to make an offer. I wasn't so sure, because, while I like to look like I'm bold and decisive, I'm really not. So we went back again Sunday afternoon and check things out in detail... things like plumbing and cracks in plaster and the age of the furnace. Everything checked out, and we decided to offer, even without financing.

Monday afternoon I had an appointment with a banker at Merchants Bank, which I was sure would be a disaster and would bring the deal to an end. But it wasn't! He had a deal I could live with, and he was willing to lend the money. So we got our pre-approval letter and sent it along with deal.

The very next day we heard back from the realtors: her children had accepted our (kind of low ball) offer without questioning a single aspect of it. Really, I was amazed. I was prepared either to walk away or to negotiate severely, but none of that happened. Lisa was pretty astonished as well.

If all goes well with our financing, we expect to close and take possession March 30, over Spring Break. The first few days will be cleaning, scrubbing, painting, and getting used to the way the space works together. We'll probably move in after a few weeks when it's all ready to go.

We want to honor God for his kindness to us in these steps along our journey. Without his care and faithfulness, we would not experience the joy or peace in life that we do.

A $9,000 House and the Three Terrible Monsters

I had never been in a $9,000 house before this weekend. It came on the market a few days ago in Oronoco, with the caption "House may be a tear-down." But we thought, well, what the heck...

Tara and I went on Saturday morning, taking with us the two little ones and leaving the "bigs" at home. When we drove up to the home, we noticed it was in one of those areas of either lake cabins (not fancy) or houses on the lake (very fancy, but still rustic). The garage was nice and solid, the lot was a double, and the home... well, it wasn't so good. The short story is that it would have taken a lot of work to get it to livable, and then you'd still only have a one-bedroom, one bathroom cabin-sort of thing. Also there was a huge workshop / shed in the backyard that had been through a fire and would need to be torn down. Also there was some issue about the septic being non-compliant. Also there were dead appliances strewn throughout the yard. Also...

Had my wife said, "Go for it," I would have figured out some way to get it. But she didn't. She said, "It doesn't fit your plans at all. Even if you tear down the house and start over, you don't want a double lot near the lake. You want acreage in the country where you can grow... whatever it is you want to grow."

We also visited a reasonably nice property in town for $35,000 that would easily meet our needs... after we eradicate the mold. Please tell me, how do you get mold on the floor of the bedroom without getting any in the corners or the ceiling?

So right now we are waiting for the tax return money to come back so we can decide what our next move might be.

One of the things I teach my children about finance is the story of the three terrible monsters.

The first and worst monster is the Credit Card Monster. He is green and brown and sort of slimy and gooey. He only visits people who have credit cards and who have not paid off their balances at the end of the month. He pretty much hates everybody and would like to eat as much of your money as he can in one sitting. You should never begin a relationship with him.

The second monster is the Mortgage Monster. I picture him as black and not quite as angry as the Credit Card Monster. The Mortgage Monster visits just about everyone, since few Americans own their homes outright. Most folks are on friendly terms with the Mortgage Monster, feeding him just enough to keep him away until the next month. They don't realize (or don't want to realize) that after 30 years, they will have fed him probably more than twice the value of their home. Though I have had something like a 14-year relationship with the Mortgage Monster, I am ready to call it off. He can seek a new lackey elsewhere.

The final monster, and one that we probably won't be able to shake, is the Tax Monster. I picture him as red because the federal government is always in the red. Besides making us do mountains of paperwork, the Tax Monster also wants his share of yearly income. He has little cousins like City Tax, Sales Tax, Vehicle Transfer Fees, and Social Security. I also dislike his obese uncle, Property Tax. Although you can't get rid of the red monster, you can minimize his effect. Live in simple properties. Buy cars that are more than ten years old... and not from out of state! Give generously to church and charities. And finally, have lots of children!

All Lenders Are Warthogs

Once upon a time many different animals came together to form a community.

Jim was a muskrat. He was married to Tara, also a muskrat, and they had a litter of four together. He taught at Meadow Campus school, and he was tired of so much of his earnings going to Owl Mutual Bank. He and his family scoured the fields and the village, and they found some mighty nifty foreclosures. One was only a hollow log, but Jim and Tara thought they could probably manage. The muskchildren agreed.

Jim had already talked to the owls about buying an investment log, but they weren't so helpful. They wanted 20% down on the log and wouldn't agree to the idea of it being an owner-occupied log. They figured that there would be no way you'd go back to a log if you already had a hollow tree where the village meets the meadow, which he had. But Jim was less bound by social convention than most, and he was willing to give up the hollow tree and regress to the log if it meant some lasting benefit to himself or his family.

So the middle-aged muskrat contacted a lender that he'd known from a previous deal at Wells & Warthog. They were on the phone for a while hashing out details of a pre-approval letter, interest rates, etc. Lois the Warthog* said she'd run some numbers and then give a call back. A few minutes later she did. She announced that Wells & Warthog wanted cash reserves in the amount of six months principal, interest, taxes, and insurance for both properties. Not to mention closing costs and origination fees. Jim was not sure that he had cash reserves of this size. In fact, he was pretty sure he didn't. So he told Lois that he appreciated her efforts and that he would put things on hold until either the tax refund came back or the first property sold. And he wondered how the woodland creatures would ever get their economy moving again when they couldn't grant a pre-approval letter for a $20,000 loan to a muskrat who'd been doing the same job for 16 years at the same school.

Traveling home that day, Jim the Muskrat considered saving up $20,000 in cash and buying his hollow log outright. No closing costs. No appraisal. No attempts to impress the warthog. This was sounding better and better all the time.

*Lois the Warthog is actually a very nice lady of a quite different name. But the idea of lenders being warthogs appealed to me.

Caught in the Middle

Most people who know me know that I don't really like waiting for... anything. I suppose that could describe all of us, but some people are naturally better at waiting than others.

In our area, the foreclosures have been getting cheaper and cheaper. A few small homes in Rochester are in the mid-20s or a bit higher. Don't be misled; these are not pretty houses and mostly they are not in pretty neighborhoods. But the majority are quite livable, and places like Spring Valley even have teasers selling for something like$15,900.

So here's the dilemma: If we pounce now and try to grab a foreclosure, getting the financing is a battle and we may well be stuck with two properties (not the end of the world, but not Scenario A+ either). However, if we wait for this house to sell, the market may have changed and all of these almost-free houses may have vanished. Like any other investing, real estate is a game that includes risk and strategy. I like playing the game but find myself wishing that I had more capital, since I am actually playing with other people's futures, to say nothing of what's left of my own.

So I feel kind of impatient but probably should wait for the tax refund to be done before we try to do anything irreversible. We visited another three foreclosures today. One of them is very cute and just a few blocks from Silver Lake. We also noticed two houses up for auction, but honestly, house auctions scare me. I'd do something wrong and end up owning a house I couldn't pay for. Or something.

Rumblings of Activity

It may help to know that I have real estate searches on the internet. Every new listing that fits our criteria comes directly to my computer. So on Friday night, when I noticed a small property just north of downtown, I made a mental note to go and look on Saturday morning.

With me I had Evan, Aidan and Avery. Toby was out on a "date" with his mother, something of a shopping date, but they both enjoyed it. Arriving, we piled out of the van and trudged up the alley to the house. We were happy to discover that the 3-season porch was unlocked, so we were able to stand inside and look in through the windows easily. On the main level the house had a living room, an alcove, a central space that might have been called a dining room, but was really too small, a kitchen, a full bath, and one bedroom. In the ceiling of the bedroom was a hole that served as attic access.

Evan and Aidan peered into the windows and declared that it would be "OK". They looked the house over inside and out, and somehow I guess they were able to see it. Avery was rather non-commital, but not really negative, either. With an asking price of $24,900, I thought it might be worth showing my wife.

After lunch, I suggested to Tara that she come and look at the house with me. She was willing, so we left everyone home with Evan and went. Tara also thought the house might be all right after peering into several windows and looking at the floor plan. So we messaged a friend of ours who is in real estate and asked if she could get us in for a showing. Sunday afternoon worked for her, so we were back there by 2:30 today.

The interior was about as good as (or maybe even a little better than) we expected, and after looking it over thoroughly, we told Lisa to put in an offer for us. This was a little bit of a surprise to both of us because we really had planned to sell first and buy second, but at $20-25K, you just don't mess around. If you wait too long, the place will be gone!

So we went home on something like pins and needles, but Lisa called back a few hours later and said that for the first 15 days, they are only accepting owner-occupied offers, and if you're already paying taxes on another property, you can't count as owner-occupied. So we hit a wall on this one, but we are open to the Lord's leading. And 15 days really isn't all that long...

A Time of Preparation

For many years I have been fascinated with a different life than the ordinary city-dweller. Most people, it seems to me, grow up and eventually buy a house, but they do it with other people's money. Then they spend the balance of their working life paying for that house. When it is all over, they have an ordinary house on an ordinary yard and have paid some mortgage company $264,000... in interest.

I have been tantalized by a different picture. I see beautiful land with gently rolling hills, an apple orchard, and open fields. Perhaps it is 15 acres -- or more. There is enough land to grow all kinds of things, including children and animals. A kind of peace permeates the land.

The house is small and rustic with log siding and a wood-burning stove. It has enough comforts to keep my wife from declaring a mutiny, but otherwise it is basic and almost off the grid. The living area is inviting, a place for crackling fires, a stone hearth, and a colorful rug.

But it is a long way from there to here. We already own a home on the edge of town, complete with its own mortgage, five bedrooms, and ONE bath. We have been here over two years. Before that we did a year and a half on five acres near Mantorville, before that we were downtown in a 1900 four-square. Before that we owned a little 1.5 story just south of Silver Lake. Before that I was not marred... I mean, married.

We are not all in agreement about the need for this move. Tara, for example, thinks our current house is a delight: "They'll have to carry me out of here in a body bag." Evan "doesn't really want to move... I would prefer to stay here." The little ones more or less agree with Evan.

So the fall of 2010 was filled with discussions of this matter that finally ended with Tara agreeing to a Year of Adventure. These are the rules:

1. Our current house goes on the market February 1st. I have until August 1st to sell it. If it does not sell by August 1st, the experiment is over.

2. If it does sell and a good "final" property for our family is available, we snap it up and move directly to it. If a destination property is not available, we explore the following options:

a) We rent a house in town for six months. During those six months, we search for the destination property and then execute step two.

b) We rent an apartment in town for six months. Again, we use the time to seek a good destination house.

c) We buy one of the foreclosures that are selling for $38,000 in town or in one of the surrounding little towns. We live in it and fix it up. When we're done with it, we sell it for presumably a bit more than $38,000. Then we return again to step two.

d) If we like the rehabbed foreclosure house, we stay there and forget about the rest of these plans.

3. If no "final" house is available, we are also willing to consider buying land and building our own rustic home in the style of the pioneers. (Yes, plumbing; yes, electrical; yes, internet. Don't get crazy here.)

4. By Christmas of 2011, we either are where we intend to go, or we're know how we're getting there.

5. If no plan is available by Christmas of 2011, we will seek and ordinary home in town and abandon these delusions of grandeur.

In a few days, look for pictures on Craig's List.

In all of these plans and preparations, we are mindful of James' admonition in Scripture. We need to hold our plans loosely. If the Lord wills, we will do this or that. We submit our thoughts, hopes, and dreams to Him!