Our First House

Shortly before we were married, in the summer of '95, Teresa and I started looking for a house. We were making about $40K per year, but we had major financial problems that pushed us way out of the market for even a condo. We set out an aggressive budget and vowed to stick to it. We figured that in four years we would be completely out of debt. The budget was working fine until Teresa lost her job. We slipped deeper into debt while Teresa was looking for a new job. After Teresa found a new job we re-evaluated the budget and figured that if we were to move to a cheaper apartment we could still be debt free in that four year time frame. So we moved, and the company Teresa was working for went belly up. Teresa was fed up with her career and decided to go back to school to become a preschool teacher. Nearly three years later we are making about $60K a year, but the housing market in the Bay Area has gotten so far out of control that we are still way out of our league even in a condo.

In January of '98 Teresa forced me to go and "just look" at mobile homes. I had looked at them on the web, they were very cheap, but also very trashy. Aluminum siding on the outside and 1/8 in. wood panel on the inside. You can't put a nail into the wall because you will poke a hole in your house. She dragged me kicking and screaming in the throughs of a migrain headache to the models. The first one was smaller than our apartment; I was ready to leave now. The second one was not much better; I'm thinking divorce is not that bad, it would reduce the debt by 50%. The third one, well, it would do; maybe I'll keep her. The fourth one, whoa, this is livin' large. But where's the price tag. We spoke with a salesman and the price was not to bad, he just didn't have any place to put us just right yet. He must have been new, he mentioned the competition down the street. So we sought out the competition. The competition started where the first guy left off, they just kept getting bigger and better, this is no competition.

Now I'm serious. How much. The salesman quoted me $110K installed. Humm... I might be able to do that. I asked, 'Do you do 100% financing?' The saying, "I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you," did not apply. We gotta come up with 10%, but if we are willing to do some of the work ourselves, he'll give us a 4K rebate. So really we just need to come up with 7K. It took us about a month, but we managed to save and borrow, mostly borrow, $7K. And here we are, homeowners.

What are the pros and cons of living in a mobile home vs. a condo:

• no common walls
• no one above, no one below
• lower population density
• you get to decide your own architecture and landscaping
• newer mobile homes are built out of 2x6's rather than 2x4's
• you can have DBS TV even if your back door doesn't face south.
• a mobile home is 1/3 the cost of a condo
• parking in my drive way is trespassing, I don't have to ask the management to tow you away, I'll do it my self.
• no one has ever lived in my house before me, AKA no mystery stains
• no security deposit

• space rent is twice as much as HOA dues, there are those private roads to maintain, you know.
• you have to maintain and insure your own structure
• you have to do your own gardening
• envious condo owners call you 'trailer trash'
• tornadoes are attracted to trailer parks like magnets, oh right, this is California, we don't have those.
• you've got all those windows to wash
• people who live in older "coaches" are constantly stopping by to drool over your new house

• Last night (6/14/98) Mother Nature blessed us with a 4.0 quake centered about 5 miles away from Gilroy. Since I am a programmer, I was suprised that I even felt it, but my wife, who was waxing domestic at the time, took a few hours to calm down. The cats, you know animals get freaky before quakes, couldn't have cared less.
• 10/8/98: Over the last couple of months we have had about 20 earthquakes ranging in mag. from 2 to 5.4, the house is still there.
• 10/9/98: Yet another quake, 4.0. Ho hum.
• if you're interested in quakes in the Gilroy area, just click here. There are so many of them each week, I'm not going to bother listing them here. Unless it is the big one.