Jerry ZurekThe economy hasn’t taken any prisoners in the recent events that have completely destroyed our once bountiful country.
Our generation and the generation that is our parents’ have seen and are currently experiencing the housing market crash, which is only one of the problems our economy is facing, but one that hits home a little more directly, no pun intended.
In 2006 my mom lost her job due to the start of the drop in the housing market. She had worked for a company that worked in new home development. They were directly affected in the beginning because people weren’t buying new homes; they simply just could not afford it.
Simultaneously with my mom losing her job, the mortgage loan she had taken out in order to afford the house had its interest rate raised. The interest on the loan was rising, the payments were increasing and our income was not. The value of the dollar was losing value and the cost to live was increasing right before our eyes.
In 2007, we were forced to put our house up for sale on a rocky market. We weren’t sure what to expect. After almost nine months of it being on the market and having no bites, we were forced into foreclosure. Life as we knew it was changing and there was nothing we could do to stop it.
Fortunately, with the help of good people, we were able to make the late payments and stay in our home a little longer.
In July 2008, we finally got an offer, an offer that we couldn’t turn down because we were at our wits’ end. So, for $100,000 less than we had originally asked for, we sold.
No one can quite understand what it is like to have to be forced out of your home and to lose the roof over your head that your family had worked so hard for. This was the home I grew up in. It was where my memories were made and will always be remembered.
That’s all it will be now — a memory, a part of my past.
We weren’t just forced out of our home, but we were being forced to live apart from each other when we needed each other the most.
The economy is on a downward spiral and it’s headed nowhere fast.
I cannot begin to try and explain to you what it felt like to watch your mother receive a check for $3.64 from a home that we built our life in and for a home that was worth much more then what it was sold for. That was all she took away after she paid off the mortgage–and no house to move to.
The sentimental value of my home had no price tag. It couldn’t be bought, but as you can see, it could be lost. It was lost, among many others in our area and all over our country.
The market is failing its citizens and until action is taken, people all over are going to continue to lose the roof over their heads, just as we did.
