Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

It is so amazing and horrifying and validating to realize how many of us
have gone through their own versions of this nightmare/comedy. So I'm really
grateful to everybody who's here and talking about this stuff.

And Jeffrey, dude. DUDE. You have no idea how many times I read that goddamm
MS and thought, my god, I AM Basil Exposition.

Because I'm totally a path of least resistance type, I did a lot of the work
on the narrative first. But! I had already been living this, and
accumulating the information about those no docs, no money downs, interests
onlies, and subprimes. I was addicted to following the bubble. When I say I
had a near psychic relationship with the Fed, I'm not kidding. So it helped
that I already had this bank (har har har) of knowledge to oh so gently
shoehorn into the story.

Even though I'd lived with the story and had been taking notes for a long
time, the actual time from signing the book contract to delivering the MS
was nine months. (Oh, symbolism.) And everything was changing so so fast
just in that time, I really had more than enough to write about. The big
challenge was keeping it current.

Fun fact: I delivered the epilogue November 3, 2008. There's a fantastic
quote from Commerce Bank founder Vernon Hill where he used the word "jihad"
to describe the Community Reinvestment Act (which, btw, is how I got MY
mortgage) that's in there. It's from November 2. Than heaven for deadlines
or I'd still be writing this sucker.

And since you mentioned the dream (nightmare?) of doing another book, I want
to do a similar book but about public education. Oh the stories there!

Artlife, I'd say I'm pretty darn happy. My life and liviing situation aren't
a nonstop party, and while buying a home was the end of one kind of
struggle, it was the beginning of another. But that's the point of life, I
think. I love that line in Happy-Go-Lucky, "It can be tough at times, that's
part of it." I live across the street from park, so I took up running when I
moved here and have run in two races. I've found a community of friends. And
hey, I wrote this book. Life is good.
  

    
My copy arrived today, and I'm looking forward to digging in. Real
estate is a major league contact sport out here in the Bay Area just 
like it is in New York, and even though I have not bought or sold in, 
hmmm, 14 years now, I still try to guess the price every time I drive by
a house for sale. (It's like riding a bicycle; you never forget how.)
  

    
MB, knowing what you now know about real estate, mortgages, etc., what
would you do differently if you had to sell your place right now and
find another one? 
  

    
I finished the book and I can't say how much I admire the endurance to
keep slogging through the crap house for 3 years before finding the
right place.

I also really enjoyed your voice as a storyteller and how a great
funny remark would catch me by surprise from time to time.

Never having been to NY, the whole location thing was lost on me.  As
I read about some horrible area being renamed and taken over by a more
affluent group I sort of missed knowing the actual locale, but I had no
problem putting those same people into neighborhoods I am familiar
with.  This is where the descriptions of the people and the details
really brought it to life and made it possible to do that.

Maybe I can lure you to the home conference to hear more of what you
have to say.
  

    
Doing some reading in SF today:

http://blog.jeffreymcmanus.com/1230/reading-marybeths-book-at-the-park-chalet/

  

    <scribbled by marybeth Sat 7 Mar 09 14:00>
  

    <scribbled by marybeth Sat 7 Mar 09 14:03>
  

    

<scribbled for typo shame>


Ahahahaha! I want every family in America to have photo like that! (PS
 thank you.)

Philippe, I would love to come on over to home.

And Fawn, if I had to sell my home today, I guess the first thing I'd do
would be to friggin' kill myself. I've had two good friends in the
neighborhood put their apartments on the market and then take them off again
because the market is so soft.

Barring suicide, and pain in the butt as it sounds, I'd probably do what my
 friend Nikki and her family did. They stayed in their co-op until they sold
it, then they moved to a rental until they found a house they really wanted
to buy.

  On the downside -- that's TWO moves, with their THREE kids. That's the
 expense of two moves. That's money going to rent instead of equity, and the
 terrifying uncertainty of the housing market.

 On the upside -- it happened to work out well. They were patient and
 unpanicky about getting the buyer and the deal they were happy with, and
 they didn't have the horrible stress of simultaneously trying to lock in
 another arrangement. It took them longer than they'd imagined to find
 the home they wanted,  but they got exactly the home they LOVE.

Taking on selling and then buying as sequential rather than simultaneous
arrangements made an awful lot of sense for where they were in their lives,
and honest to god, I don't know how people do bothat once without flipping
the hell out.

 I'd also suck up the bigger commission fees and go with a big prestige
brand realtor. Local brokers know the area, but they have a  harder time
getting the folks from outside the hood and their almighty dollars.
  

    
I watched my parents move twice in two years. They moved from Chicago
to Baltimore with a one-year job in Honolulu in between. They packed up
almost everything they owned into storage, sent me a truckload of
stuff, and moved with just minimal belongings. 

Since shipping was so expensive, they mostly bought inexpensive things
over there, and sold them again when they left. Probably made some
incoming grad student very happy. And, coming back, they realized that
they'd enjoyed living light and felt burdened by too much stuff. 

It's an interesting mental exercise - what do we need for a month,
three months, six months? I could live without a great deal of the
stuff cluttering up this place, myself. So many things we don't want to
get rid of but don't USE. I've been thinking about the possibility of
moving, just as a mental exercise - I'm actually planning to move in 10
years - and I think most of the work involves stuff that isn't in
active use. That stuff is the EASY stuff. 
  

    
Sell then buy is a good plan in a stable or dropping market, but in a
nutso market you could find yourself priced out pretty quickly.

I was wondering, towards the end of the book when you met the person
who bought the place from the Craigslist lady, weren't you dying to
know what she paid?

Three years ago when we were looking for a cheap lot to build on near
a ski area we sort of did the same thing as you, only with land.  It
was crap lots, crap locations, or both.  All overpriced since this was
before the big crash.

We finally saw something at the higher end of what we wanted to spend.
 A drainage ditch cut through it, the boundaries were not clear, and
you could hear the highway.  So of course, we made a full price offer
on it.  Our offer was rejected because the owner had talked to a friend
who told her she should have been asking 60% more.

I said to the agent that his client needed to put down the crack pipe
and we've since reffered to the lot as the crack lady's lot.  Its still
on the market but now it 45% less than our offer.  We feel so lucky
our purchase fell through.
  

    

Philippe, I actually do know how much Clare paid for Crazy Craigslist
apartment! It went or $399K - exactly her original asking price. It's on the
market again now, three years later, and they're asking $470K.

Betsy, I totally agree about assessing how much stuff you need. The rest of
my family were all major pack rats; I'm the big purger. I hate having more
stuff than I can keep track of. We moved from a (for New York) big apartment
to a smaller space, and while it's hard it wasn't unsurmountable for me.

We had a stoop sale before we moved, and while there was some sadness,
mostly I felt really good watching my old stuff going to new homes and
knowing it'd be appreciated in new ways. I hope that between the increased
need to wake up and take care of the environment and the shitty economy,
we're going to become more mindful as a culture of what we really need to be
happy. What's that saying? The best things in life aren't things.
  

    
I tried to sell my apartment in Park Slope twice, and pulled it off
the market twice, because it wasn't fetching what it ought to. It's no
skin off my nose; I have great tenants now, and I like the fantasy that
I'll go back someday. It's not the most realistic fantasy, nor the
most practical, but owning something is so ingrained in me. Like being
thin or having a certain education: one "must" do it. 

Marybeth, I notice that out here in the bay area, it's not a given --
as I felt it was in new york -- that the natural progression is
roomates, rental, BUY. People make in the bay area make the conscious
decision not to buy, feeling that's the more responsible choice. Can
you talk about that cultural difference -- letting go of the need to
own? 

Your writing is so engaging! 
  

    
I want to know how you remembered all these details about the places you
saw. I can remember a lot about my abortive attempt to find the perfect
rental in Cobble Hill, but not at your level of detail. Were you taking
notes because you had some inkling you'd write about this? Was it your
routine to journal things like that? Or are you just deeply sick and
remember stuff like that in excruciating detail? Because I tell you, I could
feel the rotten boards under my feet, smell the smells, see the peeling
linoleum.
  

    

Great, great question and great point, Amy.

Look, the impulse to put down roots is natural for a lot of people. And the
notion that housing is a smart investment is, traditionally, true. So we can
understand that buying a home seems generally a good, desirable thing.

BUT... we as a culture got waaaaay ahead of ourselves on this one. Buying a
home you can't pay for, on the hope you can flip it? Not such a smart idea?
Buying the absolute most home with the least money? Less than genius.

Anything is not inherently better than nothing, you know? You know.

But that was the idea that pushed on us, conveniently timed to the invasion
of Iraq. More more more! Buy buy buy!

At the risk of stating the obvious, a rental you can afford is better than a
mortgage you can't.

I live in a city of renters. We have one of the lowest ownership rates in
the nation. And look how we got the fever.

I think the bay area is frequently on the leading edge of progressive
thinking, and I hope the values you're talking about become more common,
Amy. The uncertainty of renting can be scary (I say that as someone who's
been kicked out by a landlord) but it beats the crap out of the devastation
of foreclosure. We need to get real and responsible. In the words of a very
smart man who recently moved  with his family into a nice white house, "our
time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off
unpleasant decisions, that time has surely passed."

And Jessica, thanks!

I started taking notes very early in the process. That house on Sackett with
one working outlet, from the first chapter? I went to two open houses and
wrote about it after the second. It was very, very theraputic. I also had
almost every email from that period, so the written record was strong.

A few months into the search I wrote a story for the New York Observer:
http://neptune.observer.com/node/48065
but I couldn't stop writing. I just kept going, kept taking notes, writing
scenes. And when I finally sold the damn proposal, my friends were
incredibly helpful in filling in the details -- anything I'd glossed over or
misremembered they worked with me on.

Because you know, I have two kids so my memory is SHOT TO HELL.
  

    
your writing made everything quite vivid to me - the shock and dismay
when you see something so decrepit and it's selling for HALF A MILLION
dollars

in the bay area, that's pretty much a starter home, and although
prices have dropped some in the past 6 months, there is a skewed sense
of value for money spent

it's location, baby - you could buy a very nice tricked out house in
say, texas or indiana, for under 200,000

with acreage
  

    
yes but where would you go for lunch? what would you go see on the
weekend? believe me i have tried to talk myself into moving to
somewhere cheaper. you pay a premium for the bustle that feels so
necessary to me.

the description of the family in st. louis, i just wanted to know --
so what do you do? where do you go? 

it's so ironic that i forced myself to leave new york so i would
experience something different and picked a place just as expensive.
what is WRONG with me. 

marybeth, how did you go about researching and understanding the
mortgage mess? i feel like i am finally understanding what the hell
happened only as i read the book. the only person that explained it in
an understandable way before you was Seth Meyers on Weekend Update. 
  

    

Amy, my SISTAH! Here's the story of my life: New York's so expensive! I know
-- I'll move to San Francisco! And Boston! And then... back to New York!

Because you know, god forbid I live anywhere affordable ever.

For those of you who haven't seen it, btw, here's Seth Meyers boiling it
down for ya:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VABzL8acwWM

Artlife, I know from whence you speak -- for most of the life of this book,
it was called Location, Location, Location.  People get very proprietary (oh
stop! I slay me!) about where they are -- one of the things that really
surprised me in the process was how many people took and continue to take it
as a personal affront that we wanted to stay in the city. Why don't you
leave? You could get a house! You could buy the whole state of Nebraska for
what you'd pay for a condo in New York! And I'm like, I'm sure Nebraska's
great, I just don't want it.

Living through the recent election made it even clearer to me that we
really do live in two Americas, still. If god willing I get to write another
book, I want to explore that great divide.
  

    
The best explanation of the Mortgage mess I've heard so far is the
This American Life episode 355 "The Giant Pool of Money"
(can listen or download transcript at) 
 
<http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio_episode.aspx?sched=1242>

The fellow who wrote Rich Dad, Poor Dad has some good
easy-to-understand explanations about why a house is not necessarily a
good investment. Bottom line: investments are supposed to make money,
houses drain money.  

I live in a streetcar suburb of Boston,  bought this house before the
bubble got big, and bought my ex out halfway up the curve, which means
that I might be a little bit ahead of where I'd be if I rented, but
it's definitely costing me more per year to live here. Meanwhile, I've
built up enough equity to buy in the rural parts of Kansas or Oklahoma
but not in the nice urban parts. (and really, it'd be a heck of a
commute) And that's assuming that global climate change doesn't put my
land underwater or something. 

Fun site for figuring out where the inexpensive houses are:

http://www.trulia.com/home_prices/
  

    
I concur with the Giant Pool of Money recomendation.  Hearing that
made it all make sense to me for the first time.
  

    
Shocking as the concept may be, we actually do find places to eat
not-so-horrible food, to socialize, and to go and do things- and we
even know interesting people!- in backwaters like the Midwest! 

Having grown up in NY and lived in the Midwest, I don't really think
that there are two Americas. I think, though, that the alleged
ignorance of people in the "flyover states" is probably matched by that
subset of those on both coasts who simply. cannot. imagine. what.
people. DO. in. those. PLACES.
  

    
Yeah, as someone who quite happily decamped to the DREAD SUBURBS in order to
(a) have a reasonable commute to something resembling my dream job and (b)
be able to afford the holy-unto-me trinity of schools-house-yard, there are
things I miss very much about living in the city, and things I absolutely
adore about the life I'm living and couldn't have if I lived in the city.
It's completely a personal choice. Different strokes, etc. No need to assume
that if you live somewhere with a lifestyle different from the city
lifestyle it means you're doomed to Denny's for the rest of your life.
  

    

Hey, I live within walking distance of an iHop.

I do think a lot of people get super defensive about their choices. You live
in New York? WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA?

Uhhhhm.

I don't remember ever dissing on any other part of the country, or mocking
the suburbs, but whoa, the amount of "that's what you get for living in New
York!" I get.

So I really want to understand that. A big part of what I hope to do with
the next book is get out there and see that America I've somehow missed thus
far.
  

    
I actually thought you did a great job of telling the stories of friends in
other parts of the country and the similarities and differences in what they
were encountering as they worked through the whole set of issues.
  

    
Me too! I just -- divinea's right, I don't know of what I speak. My
love for the city is irrational. I have room in my heart for Queens,
though.

Have you gotten flak from the real people, from the hemp- clad prick
to your mom, who appear as characters? 
  

    
You know, it feels like when people try and try to conceive and
someone says "why don't you just adopt?" maybe you will, but to have
someone else judge your choice not to, yet... "just move to maplewood"
has the same feel, it's the same divide. Maybe.