Missing In Action

It’s been over a month since I posted about accepting the offer at Florida State. The long lay-off was not intended and I actually have several things to write about. Unfortunately, I just haven’t been making the time. So, I’m going to answer a very popular question in this post and then get back to more developed thoughts on a regular writing schedule.

Some people thought that I was living some sort of super relaxed dream life before. These people seem to think I must be about to slip a lack of activity coma now, because this question keeps coming up:

“So, what is it that you do now that you REALLY have nothing to do?”

The truth is that I did take about a week “off” to celebrate. Those that know me well understand that celebrating involves good food, draft beer, or single malt scotch (preferably some sort of combination of the three). Many of people wanted to toast the completion of this phase of the journey and I was eager to oblige.

After that, I had to start taking practical steps to extract myself from life in Atlanta and make a smooth transition to Tallahassee. I started packing up non-essential items to store at my folks house, completed some yard and house projects, and invited a couple realtors over for a tour and a market evaluation talk. Turns out, that there isn’t much market to evaluate. Well, not in a positive light, anyway.

It turns out that many of my neighbors could not actually afford the homes that they bought. I know…you are shocked. You’ve never heard of this. It is almost certainly a phenomenon occurring entirely within my neighborhood. Well, maybe just my zip code. As (bad) luck would have it, nine of the last ten home sales in my zip code (for my house size) have been foreclosure or short sales. The lone bright spot was over nine months ago. If that doesn’t scream “panic attack” then this will. Six of the seven current competitive listings in my zip code are foreclosures.

If you would like to know what this feels like, please follow these simple steps:

1) Calculate the equity that you have in your current home
2) Withdraw that amount of money in cash
3) Set the cash on fire
4) Just as your hand starts to burn, drop the flaming cash in a toilet
5) Flush

What you’re feeling is a collision of the “this seems fake” chuckle and the “holy crap, what just happened” stomach churn. Alcohol seems to help the sensation, but only momentarily.

I know some of you think I’m exaggerating or that I’ve adopted my old college roommate’s philosophy (“All of my stories are BASED on true events”), but I am serious. It was so bad that one realtor, knowing she was competing for my listing, actually said, “I think you should just rent this…for a long, long time”. She was complimentary of the condition of my home and conceded that it was “worth” far more than the others currently listed (which were in varying states of disrepair). Unfortunately, in the age of the internet no one will ever look at your house if it’s significantly more than other similarly sized homes and, thus, will never know it’s true value.

I really, really didn’t want to be a long distance landlord while trying to complete a PhD, but here I was confronted with the reality that by the time I sold my house, paid the realtor, fixed the nit picky things buyers demand, and cashed my check, my proceeds would probably only cover the down payment on a climate-controlled storage facility in Tallahassee. I ran this by my sister, a veteran of several Florida real estate transactions, who informed me that I would not be able to afford climate controlled storage:

“This is Florida. No one has a basement so everyone has a storage unit. They’re way more expensive down here.”

Sometimes, a lack of choices makes the best decision. Armed with the knowledge that I had no viable option, I dug out a contact for a woman who started her own property management firm. We met a year previously at a Chamber of Commerce event and I had filed her away as a “maybe one day” contact. I issued her firm the challenge of leasing my home quickly and told her if she could get X dollars per month, I would pay them to manage it, too. Within hours of the sign hitting the yard calls started coming in. A deal was closed in less than one business day after it was entered into the FMLS system. These gals are good. Even better, the tenant is slated to sign a two-year lease the day she moves in, postponing the majority of my real estate fears until right about the time I’ll be studying for comps (God chuckles at my prayers for “better timing” – I seem to struggle to accept that He’s in charge sometimes).

So, what have I been doing for the past month? I’ve been reluctantly launching a real estate empire.

Next stop: House hunting in Tallahassee

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