A Whirlwind of Volatility

I'm not just talking about the stock market these last few days-- I'm talking about the last few months of my life.
You would think I'd have spent more time blogging lately, given that I quit my job and at least in theory have plenty of time on my hands. But the end of 2017 got a little crazy as we had to do a lot of work to put our apartment on the market, and then we sold it so quickly, it was a hustle to get ourselves packed up and moved out by the beginning of January!
I think we had pretty great timing, actually. We hit the market at a point when there weren't a lot of comparable listings in our price range. Within days we had multiple offers and a bidding war, and ended up with an all-cash buyer at above our original asking price. Seeing what's been going on with the tax bill and now the gyrations in the stock market, I'm very glad we weren't trying to sell now or later this spring.
The buyers wanted to close fairly quickly, but luckily we had also managed to find a house in an area that we liked, so we knew we'd have someplace to go-- sort of, anyway. The timing didn't totally work out and we couldn't move in right away, so our stuff (what's left of it after purging and donating and selling a lot) had to go into storage for a little while, but beyond that, the closing on our house went pretty smoothly too, since we were also paying cash. We also had good timing in that during our storage limbo, we decided to get away for a little mini-vacation in January when it got so cold and nasty in the Northeast, and not move into our new house til later in the month when it was better weather. And now we (by which I really mean Sweetie, whose apartment it was) are sitting on a big chunk of cash that we luckily didn't invest right before this stock market correction.

So we are just now settling down to the next phase of this new life, but still feeling a little at sea. Our expenses are going to be so much lower, it's kind of blowing my mind. Our HOA fee is a fraction of the maintenance on the apartment. The car insurance is cheaper, and parking is free. Even joining the local gym, which we did today, is going to be about half what we used to pay in NYC. The local grocery stores tend to have somewhat lower prices than in the city. Our utility bills may end up higher since we have electric baseboard heating. And at some point we may need to get a second car, depending on what we end up doing with ourselves in terms of jobs or other activities. So far, our main activities have been unpacking, exploring the area, and marveling at how beautiful and quiet it is here.
We'll see how it goes. I do miss the urban vibe of being in Brooklyn and going into Manhattan almost daily-- we drove back into the city for the first time the other day and ended up in a neighborhood I didn't know well and I kept thinking how nice it seemed and wondering what it would be like to live there if we someday decide we want and can afford a pied a terre. I kind of miss just watching people on the subway. It's weird to have to drive everywhere. But life also feels very peaceful now, and all the stresses of our former apartment, former jobs, and former expenses have just-- poof! -- gone away.

Homeless

When I was waiting to close on my newly-constructed condo, I jokingly called myself "homeless" for a few months because I had to stay with relatives and sublet apartments after moving out of my own rental apartment. My property was mostly in storage and I was living out of a couple of suitcases and garbage bags full of linens. "Home" for me has for many years been defined as my own apartment in NYC, where I live. But sometimes I catch myself referring to "home" in the sense of the home where I grew up. My hometown.
The older I got, the less I'd say that. My parents bought the house I grew up in when I was 9 months old. I had the same bedroom all to myself for my entire childhood. And in the many years since, when I'd come home to visit, I would almost always stay in that room. The few times when I didn't, when for some reason I slept in my parents' room, or my sister's room, always seemed a bit strange. Even when my mother renovated and redecorated and got rid of so much stuff after my dad died, that house was still "home" in some way, though the removal of so many of the books and personal items and furnishings that I'd grown up with made it seem weirdly sterile and anonymous.
But now the house has been sold, and all that is left of it is about $500,000 in my mother's bank account. I last visited about 6 weeks before she closed, and found myself wandering around the house, taking photos of odd things like certain doorknobs and some child-height coat pegs that my father had made for the back hall when we were kids. I felt less sentimental about it than I would have expected, though. The house had become a source of stress, mainly because of my mother's compulsion to overspend on it, resulting in a complete drain of the savings my father had left when he died. (To be fair, that's not the only thing my mother spent money on, as she was also putting a lot towards my grandmother's nursing home care.)
At the end, my mother felt like the house was dragging her down too. She knew she couldn't keep up with the expenses of maintaining it, let alone doing any more improvements. It played out exactly as I had told her it would, that if she spent a lot on renovations, she would have to sell the house within a few years because she'd be broke, and the cost of the renovations would not be recouped in her selling price. She could have done a few minor cosmetic things and a much less elaborate bathroom renovation and still ended up with the exact same selling price.
Anyway, it's good that the house is sold and she got a decent price for it. Now the stressful conversations between my mother and sister and me are all about what do do with the money. My mother has this idea in her head that my father wanted my sister and me to have an inheritance. She also "doesn't want Medicaid to take the money" if she goes into a nursing home. She's not that old, and her health is relatively OK. My sister and I are just worried that cash seems to slip through her fingers like water. I think what we'll end up doing is that my mom will give us some money, and we'll each save it to use on her behalf later if necessary, though my sister is also tempted to use the money to pay off a second mortgage. I think I've also talked my mother into letting me set up an investment account for her so that whatever money she keeps will earn her more than the miniscule interest of a savings account or CD. Psychologically, this may also help in terms of her thinking she can't really spend it-- we'll see! I'm thinking of a Vanguard account with a conservative blend of funds.

I felt bad that my work schedule didn't allow me to go back to the house one more time and help with the last of my mother's packing and moving. Maybe it would have cemented the reality of the situation a bit more-- as it is, I keep wondering if the next time I go up there to visit, I'll automatically drive to my mother's old house without thinking, rather than my sister's. The other thing I'll really miss is being able to walk to a beach about half a mile away. It was always a quiet refuge, a good place to escape from family stress. But as much as I feel sad about not having that family home, I feel worse for my mother, who truly is homeless now, and feels a lot of insecurity about where she'll end up. She'll stay with my sister a bit, and then go to live in my grandmother's house-- another money pit that we are hoping doesn't turn into her next renovation project! After my grandmother dies, she'll have to figure out where to go next. Another topic for another post, another day...

Selling My Apartment, Part 2

I found a very nice broker and we were immediately in agreement about the listing price for my apartment. It was more than what I'd agreed to with my friends, and left me some room to negotiate down a bit and pay a 6% fee and still come out with close to the same net. The broker took lovely photos, did a couple of open houses, and the offers rolled in, fast! I forget the sequence of all the various offers playing out-- we juggled around the various pros and cons of a few for several days-- there were some investors who offered a little low and didn't want to come up to match higher offers. There was an offer above asking price but we were worried we'd have trouble with the bank's appraisal coming in too low later. I ended up accepting an offer at asking price where the sellers said they'd waive the mortgage contingency. This could have been a good thing, as they had plenty of cash, but they did want to finance the purchase, and before the contract was ever signed, they backed out because, guess what, they couldn't get a mortgage! But meanwhile, another offer had come in for asking price, from an all cash buyer. My excellent and slightly sneaky broker told them there was a contract about to be signed, but that I'd back out of the other deal if they upped their offer to $5k over ask-- and they did, with the only contingency being that they wanted to close fast. That was fine with me, so finally, after several failed attempts, the deal was done. A few weeks later, I walked out of my lawyer's office after the closing with several checks totaling over $180k-- my equity after paying off my outstanding mortgage balance plus a nice profit.

The whole experience happened quite quickly, so I never really got to the point of panicking too much about the failed transactions. But it did leave me feeling profoundly relieved after the sale was done-- not only had my apartment become a financial and logistical burden because I wasn't really using it, it had also become a source of stress as I realized there were some maintenance issues in the building that I hadn't really noticed, and if not actual irregularities, the potential for some irregularities in how the building was being managed. The buyer's inspector found a little mold in the basement, but otherwise seemed to think the building was in decent enough shape physically, which I was happy about, as I'd had my issues with leaks at the very beginning and worried there could be other problems. So I was glad to be done with it by the time I moved out.

A couple other observations: I tried to sell most of my furniture, without much success-- people on Craigslist can be really flaky! I ended up giving a lot of stuff away to friends' children, either in or just out of college-- in exchange I got a nice bottle of wine and a lot of goodwill and appreciation, which was fine with me! I also found it very difficult to donate stuff-- only one charity who offered pickups even bothered to return my call, and when they got my voicemail that one time, they never called back again or answered any of my calls or emails. I ended up paying Junkluggers to haul away lots of stuff and donate it (they provided a receipt so I could deduct the value on my tax return).

I was also somewhat surprised that many of my potential buyers were parents buying apartments for their children. I mean, I know this must happen a lot in NYC, but it was still kind of annoying to have  the reality of it in my face. I guess I thought of my apartment as being the kind of place that was accessible to a middle-class first time home buyer, a young couple or a single person like me-- it was small, a bit further out in Brooklyn than a lot of people wanted to live, and just not somewhere I would have pictured a rich kid living. But I guess it's just a sign of how things have been changing in NYC in general that even my not-that-fabulous neighborhood is all that relatively wealthy people can afford-- the super-rich are pushing the merely affluent into neighborhoods that used to be more middle-class, and everyone feels the effects.

But I'm out of that game now-- for the moment, I'm a renter, as I pay Sweetie each month to cover my share of our bills. At some point, we may make some arrangements so that I'll actually have a mortgage in my name again... but that is a story for another post!

Selling My Apartment

I realized I never wrote in much detail about selling my apartment, and it's now been over a year since that happened!
As a refresher, I had owned the apartment for a couple of years when I met Sweetie. Once Sweetie came along, I gradually started to spend less and less time there, to the point where I was almost never home and kept a lot of things at Sweetie's place. This made me a bit sad, as buying my own home had been a milestone for me, financially and emotionally-- it felt great to have that independence. But as Sweetie and I gradually got to the point of being committed to each other and wanting to live together, it began to seem very indulgent to hang onto this extra apartment that I was basically using for storage. Yet I found it a bit difficult to take any action to change things until a situation fell into my lap-- a friend of a friend needed a place to stay temporarily. It started out as just being for a couple of months, which seemed like the perfect chance to test the waters and make a little money. It worked out well, and turned into a full year arrangement, and during that time, I didn't really miss having my own space. It was actually a relief not to have to visit it weekly to check on things. But being a landlord brought a few other headaches-- somehow having to repair the heat or the toilet seemed a bit more annoying when I was doing it for someone other than myself! Although I realized I could make a decent profit as a landlord, I decided to try to sell the place when my tenants told me they'd be moving out.

From doing some research about the market, things seemed pretty good. And I had actually already had an offer from an interested party, an investor who already owned another unit in the building. I emailed him to see if he was still interested, and he was-- until he couldn't get a mortgage. I figured it wasn't that surprising that banks might not want too many units in the building to be owned by an absentee landlord, so I didn't think too much of it, and took the next step, which was asking my Facebook friends if anyone wanted to buy an apartment!
I kind of knew the "for sale by owner" thing could bring some headaches, but it also seemed worth a try. I was sure that my apartment would sell for more than I'd paid, but I worried that a 6% fee might eat up a lot of the profit. So I was happy when I immediately had some interest from some college friends who I hadn't been in close touch with in recent years. I had all the worries you'd expect about mixing friendship and business, but it also seemed like the friendship was at arm's length enough that it wouldn't cause any big problems. There was a bit of negotiation, but we pretty quickly agreed to what seemed like a fair price, and got our lawyers talking.

And then... they couldn't get a mortgage either. This started to worry me a bit-- their finances were good but they weren't rolling in dough (or they wouldn't have wanted my apartment anyway!). It wasn't that they couldn't qualify for a mortgage, it was that there was an issue with the building. Because I'd changed my address on my taxes, I'd tipped the owner-occupancy rate under 50%, and in the climate of recent years with banks being so much more cautious after the financial crisis, this and a couple other quirks of the building seemed to make it challenging. It was a bit of a surprise, as some another unit in the building had just sold and those new buyers had managed to get a mortgage. But now that 2 potential buyers had bitten the dust, I decided it was time to get a broker involved....

Stay tuned for part 2 of this post later this week!

2012 Income and Expenses

2012 was a great year in terms of income-- I hit another new high:

Salary $106,244
Bonus $18,239
Employer contributions to my 401K $8,119
Dividends $15,977
Realized Gain (from a fund change made in 401k) $11,347
Blogging income $4,402
Gifts received $100
Interest $208
Tax refunds $2,516
Total Income $167,152

Almost all the dividends and realized gains were reinvested, and sometimes I don't really even consider these "real" income. But I love seeing my money work for me-- that is over $35,000 worth of income made not from labor but from my own savings and 401K participation.

The other income I had this year was $10,000 in rent from the tenants in my apartment, but for this year, I am kind of looking at it as a defrayal of my housing expenses. I'll start breaking this out differently next year, as I'll be reclassifying some of my expenses as business expenses for an investment property rather than personal household expenses.

Now for expenses:

Bank Charge	$77
Charity	$1,153
Clothing	$3,062
Dining / Groceries	$11,296
Education	$458
Entertainment	$1,364
Gifts Given	$2,266
Gym	$2,249
Household	$1,792
Housing (net)	$11,974
Income taxes	$34,639
Medical	$1,714
Miscellaneous	$3,434
Newspapers and Magazines	$404
Travel	$8,421
Utilities Internet Access	$360
Utilities Telephone	$953

A few notes:

• Charity refers to my personal contributions. I also plan to donate all the blogging income from this site.
• Dining-- about $8500 of this is for stuff shared with Sweetie. (I have to admit that we have been indulging in fancier wines than we used to! We buy it by the mixed case and usually 1 or 2 of the bottles is a special treat, i.e. something in the $16-35 range, compared to the $9-12 range for the rest. But at least in restaurants, we tend to stay with whatever's cheapest.) The rest is mostly for my own breakfasts and lunches.
• Entertainment was pretty high this year, due to buying more tickets for concerts and theater, including a rather expensive one to see Madonna at Yankee Stadium
• Gym-- this covers a membership renewal for 2 years
• Household is mainly laundry and dry-cleaning, plus a new armchair for the apartment Sweetie and I now share
• Housing-- as noted above, I pulled together my housing expenses such as condo charges, property tax, mortgage interest, rent I pay to Sweetie, and gas and electric charges for my condo, and then subtracted the rent I receive from tenants to arrive at a net housing cost for the year. This does not include about $10,000 in mortgage principal I've paid off, as I view that as a transfer from my cash net worth to home equity.
• Miscellaneous included a new iPhone and a lot of art supplies, plus haircuts and all the usual little personal items
• Travel includes daily commuting, some family visits, and a 2-week summer vacation in Europe.

Total expenses for the year came to $85,616. This is also an all-time high. I think the new iPhone, big vacation, 2-year gym expense and new chair account for a lot of that, plus trying to take better advantage of all the culture NYC has to offer.

Net savings were $81,536, of which $10,125 is the transfer to home equity for paying off mortgage principal. This is NOT an all-time high, but it's second only to the year when I received a $25,000 inheritance, so I'm not going to beat myself up about it. I saved about $5000 more than I did last year,
and about $9000 more than I did in 2010 if you back out the inheritance.

As always, I could easily have cut back on expenses and saved more, and I always have these thoughts about how much sooner I could retire if I did, and whether I'll wish I had saved more when there's another economic crisis... but at the end of the day, I am comfortable enough with my savings and net worth so far to allow myself some luxuries. I feel very, very lucky and thankful for the good fortune that has come my way.