The End

After talking with a lot of banks over the last few weeks, we've come to the end of the road. No more tiny house. At least not now. Unless we win the lottery. Or know someone who wins the lottery who wants to give us a personal loan.

The short version is this. After the housing collapse, banks were no longer allowed to give in-house loans for mortgages unless they (they bank) were grandfathered in. Those that were grandfathered in still have to adhere to much more strict policies (we're talking 30+% down). 

Our house doesn't qualify under Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As we all know, the banking industry (along with most things that are regulated by the government) are a little out of touch with reality so they don't see our house as having any resale value, which is what is required to sell a mortgage on the "secondary market" so to speak (more on that in the last post). 

Which leaves us in a tough spot. Either way pay more money to the architect in hopes that he can make the house more "traditional" (which isn't what we want) or cut costs significantly so that we can take a loan out on my mom's paid for town house. Both seem like highly unlikely options. 

So for now we'll focus on cleaning up the title (read: spend more money and pay more fees to the government that screwed us over in the first place by not transferring said title to us). We'll hire someone to plow for us this winter. Maybe tear down the fence next spring. And hope that we can sell the lot and recoup at least some of our money. 

In the meantime, we'll start looking at condos or other small houses (both options that have a lot of problems and neither of us really like). However, staying any longer at our terrible apartment complex isn't an option (never rent from a property managed by Village Green!). 

What we've learned is that the things we want aren't the American Way. In a place where bigger is better it should come as no surprise that the systems that are in place aren't designed to help us live in a life of having less. And unfortunately we don't have the financial resources to fight the system to make changes.

It's a sad day. We thank you for hanging in there with us over the last couple years. Sorry there isn't fun news at the end of this road.