home ownership vs renting in Pottersville

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Someone please help me with this one. I bought/mortaged a small modest home last year in a small town. Can the banks REALLY take it away from me next year? If so, why and how? Also, I read a lot of people would rather rent than own. Why? It seems to me that if you rent and the landlord is hurting from Y2K, then he or she can charge really high monthly rentals, and then what can you do? One more thing, someone told me that total blackouts were highly unlikely for extended periods, but to expect brown-outs and power surges throughout the year. They said I should be stockpiling light bulbs as power surges tend to make light bulbs burn out faster. Is there any truth to this?

-- Naomi (myhouse@home.com), September 22, 1999

Answers

It takes an average of NINE MONTHS for a mortgage lender to evict a homeowner. It takes a landlord about a week. Also, IF TSHTF at rollover, do you think the BANKS will survive? IMHO, they'll be LONG CLOSED before they EVER get to the forclosure point.

As to brownouts, light bulbs should be the LEAST of your worries. (After all, $30 buys you 2-3 YEARS worth of light bulbs!) The main victims of brownouts are MOTORS... like your refrigerator COMPRESSOR, well PUMP, and furnace BLOWER. Those babies are BUCKS!

-- Dennis (djolson@pressenter.com), September 22, 1999.


Yes, Naomi, it is called foreclosure when a homeowner does not make the mortgage payments over a period of time, and the bank takes steps to reclaim the property. You will have to check your own Real Estate Contract or mortgage to see what it says about how many months you can go before they can foreclose on you.

BTW, if this is a rental property, what makes you think that the renters will absolutely be able to pay the rent to you? How long will you let them stay if they can't pay the rent?

It also seems like to me that property owners/managers charge "what the traffic will bear" also keeping in mind the quality of the rental itself to come up with what they will charge to rent out a property to tenants. I would think that if times were really hard, I would imagine that rents would fall also, unless one beleives that the difficult times would only be fairly short term. YMMV.

-- (nobody@nowhere.com), September 22, 1999.


We are renting at what, for us, is big bucks. The landlord is about 1500 miles away. I will pay a couple of months ahead into the new year. If in March the system seems kaput, I will renegoitate a $$ amount with him, in the belief that he will not be able to get better tenants who can pay the cutrrent rate. That is, of course, contingent on the mail and/or telephone working and banks being somewhat up. I have no intention of cheating this man, but I also don't intend to cheat us in an uncertain period.

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWayne@aol.com), September 22, 1999.

"They said I should be stockpiling light bulbs as power surges tend to make light bulbs burn out faster. Is there any truth to this?"

Yes, The power might be pretty flakey (which is why I make my own).* IF* you wanted relatively cleaner power you might get a power conditioner to filter the power going to your appliances/lights. I'd reccomend unplugging any critical items early on the eve of Dec 31st.

I take it you don't have or use compact fluorescent bulbs which save lots of money in energy costs and other savings. You might want to look into these. Then too...it may be academic if there's no power to feed them at your home.

DCK

-- Don Kulha (dkulha@vom.com), September 22, 1999.


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