Steve and I have been in a state of limbo for quite awhile now. Somehow four years of undergraduate studies has turned into eight years in the city of Santa Cruz. I had ambitions to move last year, but when it didn’t work out, I resigned myself to a 2009 move.
Well, now things are up in the air again. As everyone is undoubtedly aware, the job marked it pretty terrible right now. Steve has been staying on top of the Southern California listings for lab management, but the prospects have been fairly grim so far. He will continue to look and we may have a shot at moving yet, but I have been preparing myself for the very real possibility that we won’t be able to find jobs in Southern California this year.
Just to throw another variable into the mix, Steve is planning to apply to the UC Davis chemistry graduate program to possibly pursue a masters degree. Graduate programs are very competitive right now, so we’ll just have to wait and see.
While I recognize that there are some positives to the delay of our move, I am disappointed. I was really excited to leave. I’m tired of doing audits as part of my job, and I’m pretty tired of Santa Cruz in general. But, I suppose if we’re delayed, we’ll have a chance to finally pay off that darn student loan and put some savings away, since our jobs are relatively stable even during this tough time.
Possibly less stable is our housing. We live in the front half of a duplex that we share with our landlord. The walls are particularly thin in our bathroom which shares a wall with their kitchen. While brushing my teeth a few days ago, I overheard the landlord on speaker phone with his mortgage lender. He was saying that once their payment adjusts, they won’t be able to make the mortgage payments. The lender replied that there was nothing they could do unless the mortgage was delinquent.
Doing a little research on Zillow.com, Steve and I found that our landlord bought the house in April of 2004, supporting what I heard in that many adjustable rate mortgages had 5 year fixed terms to start. So, if their payment adjusts next month and they can’t afford it, things could get interesting. I know it will take awhile for foreclosure proceeding to finalize, so we’re fine for awhile… unless they decide to attempt to sell the house, which could mean they’d want us out. They haven’t said a word to us yet, which isn’t surprising given that they’re probably trying to figure out what to do.
By way of a contingency plan, Steve asked Sarah, one of the grad students he works with, to put in a good word for us with their landlord. She is planning to leave Santa Cruz sometime this summer and she has a fantastic rental house which would be an upgrade from what we have now. Steve and I decided that if she ends up moving and we end up getting the place, we will take it no matter what is happening here. It’s a nicer property, and we’ll be able to get away from the coming instability in our current housing.
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4 comments:
Don't you just hate equations with so many variables that you can't control as well as many unknowns. Don't assume that a new landlord would necessarily want you gone. After all that's one less variable for him if the place is rented to a regular paying customer who doesn't trash the place.
The other comment I have is, of course, don't write off the Northern California job and housing market. You knew I had to say that.
I know the landlord would prefer it if we stayed here. However, I am unwilling to stay in a situation that could rapidly become unstable when we have the potential to move into a bigger rental that is not only cheaper than our current one, but has laundry and a yard as well. But, with all these variables, we'll just have to wait and see.
If they aren't upfront with you about their situation, you are quite lucky you overheard something. Some renters are finding themselves evicted by foreclosing banks, rather than landlords, in spite of having been model tennants.
That's crazy. I hope it all works out well for the best. At least the thin wall is in your bathroom, so hopefully you don't have to deal with hearing them much (although I think you're probably glad you did hear them this time.) When we were in our old apartment we could hear our upstairs neighbors everywhere! It was a nightmare when they fought with each other!
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