To Move or...

We are contemplating a move. Our home is worth less than the mortgage and we can no longer afford the mortgage and tax escrow payments. Coupled with HOA fees and utilities and maintenance, it costs $1500 or more to live in this home. On fixed incomes of social security that is too much. Over 50% of our monthly income. So…..

The house has been on the market as a short sale property since mid-September 2012. We've had maybe 10 or 12 showings in that time and not one offer. The home is in foreclosure proceedings; it is only a matter of time before we are removed and sent packing. We've been hoping that a sale would make our leave taking smoother, more constructive than a stark foreclosure.  We are beginning to believe that will not be.

So we are seeking a new home. Local is our first choice because I’m elected to the local park board of commissioners, a board member of the local three-town Chamber of Commerce, and the co-founder and Managing Editor of the local newspaper. We are active in our church and have a lot of friends here. We don’t want to leave.

But this is DuPage County and it is the highest taxed real estate in Illinois by county. Property values are higher here than in most other counties as well. So from an affordability view point we are probably going to be forced into moving. There are very few homes on the market under $100,000 and property taxes less than $3200. Most of those have HOA fees of nearly $300 per month as well.

So we have looked in Sandwich, Illinois; and Oregon, Illinois, too. Although both are removed from family and friends – and doctors! – we can ‘see’ ourselves settling into both communities. Sandwich involves a manufactured-home community (that’s double wide trailers to most of you!), while Oregon offers a home in the very center of the town one block off Main Street, almost on the public square! From that home we can walk to everything – park district, library, county court house, stores, church, downtown shopping – you name it is within walking distance.

For Rocky there is a very old artist colony dating from 1898 founded by sculptor Laredo Taft, also within walking distance. The mighty Rock River flows past just 3 blocks away. Mature stands of trees are everywhere along with the glacier carved hills and river bluffs.

The house in Oregon is priced at $92,500 and has what we need including a large garage for the car AND Rocky’s studio. Taxes are $2400 or less. No HOA fees. Lower utilities, too.

The call to a new community is there. We consider it with some reluctance because of 19 years in our current home, and 23 years more in the same county – 42 years in all! Leaving all of that behind is not done easily.

But we are going toward what? For us it is a blank slate but one we will manage with our life skills accumulated over a long time. We see things much more clearly now and we have an image or vision of what is ahead. It is good. It is simpler. It is easier to deal with.

Making it be good is up to us, not the new community. What do we bring to their table? What can we contribute to add to the public good? Anything? Something? Only time will tell. But first we have decisions to make.

Not one of them will be easy.

July 18, 2013