07.20.06 Sell sell sell

Endgame

We are now in the final phase of our US tenure... we both quit our jobs next week, the big going away luau is next Saturday, the house has been sold (still sorting some closing details), the cars go up for sale shortly, the financial plans have been laid, and the 1 way plane ticket has been bought!

It's sad leaving this house. It's such a great place, and we have taken so much time and consideration to make it into a home that really feels like we belong to. Summer days here are just so very pleasant and breezy, and the garden looks so beautiful with it's lavender and dahlias. With the UK having record heatwaves, I'm sure that I'm in for a bit of a shock my first few weeks in the new flat. Sigh.

 

 

Bubble?

 Luckily, the house sold for the asking price, and we have made a reasonable rate of return on our money, although not the extravagant proceeds housing boom-ists would have you dreaming of. The figuring exercise was kind of fun: assuming that I treated the money I put into my house as an investment that I could have put into a stock or mutual fund or whatever, I tried to figure out what interest rate I got on the house investment. Making an apples to apples comparison was a bit difficult, but I think I'm close...

 
1. I assembled the following values:
 
 
* down payment
* improvements (paid in cash out of pocket, not including HELOC)
* extra monthly payment (mortgage payment + interest only HELOC payment - rent payment I would have had if I stayed at my old rental)
* income tax saved (due to income tax deductions)
* final takeaway (cash left after selling house, paying HELOC, closing costs, realtor costs, etc.)
 
2. I figured out my "investment" as: investment = down payment + improvements + extra monthly payment - income tax saved
 
3. I figured out what yearly compound interest rate would result in my investment growing to my final takeaway over 3.75 years...
 
4. the rate worked out to ~9.8% each year for almost 4 years straight, which is 2.3% better than my stock broker did for me just last year. Not quite the "double your money" type of return that people in Seattle seem to think they are going to get on a house, but still, nothing to sniff at! obviously I didn't take sweat equity into consideration, and I don't have to buy a lawnmower to keep my stock portfolio saleable, so there are probably more hidden costs to be exposed. But then again, you can't throw a cool cocktail party on the deck at your wachovia securities statement either. :)
 
 

 

 

Updated Schedule 
 
 The current plan is as follows:
 
July 28 - quit jobs
July 29 - BIG luau at Tasha's
August 1 to 30 chillllll
August 30 - vacate house, fly ONE WAY to the UK
September 4 - meet mom at Heathrow
September 15 - Reba comes out
September 19 - Reba goes to Greece with Leah, Austen, Marshall, and others
October 2 - EAN STARTS GRAD SCHOOL
October 8 - Reba comes back to Oxford Mom Trip
 
The regular reader might notice the Sept 4 entry in the list above... YES, my mom can come on the trip! This is an absolutely awesome turn of events. I was worried that her health issues would prevent her from coming out, but the trip is totally set. We're going to do all sorts of great UK and Ireland stuff: Oxford museums, British Museum, Tea at Fortnam's, Stonehenge, Parliament Square, visit Swinford (ancestral home of the O'Donnells, my mom's family), Aran Islands, and to top it all off, we'll stay a few days at a fancy old country house come hotel on the west coast of Ireland. This is the trip that mom has wanted to do forever, and it's going to be a real honor to be able to be the one who took her on it.
 
 

Luau Rising 
 
Tasha is famous for ragingly good Luaus. She really goes nuts for them too... decorating the yard in tiki stuff and bamboo; Hawaiian shirts, pulled pork, enough rum to choke an alcoholic Titanosaur; she even flies flowers in from Hawaii (actually cheaper than local wholesale prices, for whatever reason). The Primate 5 (http://www.myspace.com/theprimatefive) are playing, as is my band, Tales From the Birdbath (http://www.neatshows.com). Today we bought something like 4 gallons of rum. This will be in addition to the 3 kegs of beer and whatever else folks bring. This should be a whopper, and in all likelihood should get totally shut down by the authorities. Yahoo! Evite claims there are 96 confirmed attendees, 22 maybes, and 178 undecideds, adding a touch of apprehension to the air. This should be a blast!