RE: Property Sucks
We had much the same situation with the first home we ever owned, moving before it could be sold, the proceeds of which finally helped pay for a new roof, drilling a needed new water well (over $7,000), carpeting and flooring throughout our third home (the one we finally lost to the greedy tax and spend into economic oblivion state).
It took us several years before we could sell, and had to pay over a thousand dollars to renovate our old $25,000 home due to bad tenants, who even stole the circuit-protected kitchen electrical outlet I installed to remove this potential hazard while we lived in the home, replacing it with a dangerous unprotected outlet, which I paid to replace again before selling.
We had been homeless briefly before finding this home, living in a pickup truck camper and hotel rooms briefly with four children and another on the way, and have now been homeless half a year since losing our third and last home in the past 25 years, resulting in severe health issues as a direct result.
Anyone who thinks those who worked hard to afford and provide for whatever minimal (these days) protection owning a home can provide them (which is really a liability with upkeep and insurance costs, not forgetting confiscatory "property taxes" much less bad, destructive, thieving tenants, and is only an "asset" on accountant's ledgers in a worst-case scenario of being forced to liquidate all belongings to pay creditors, or the criminally greedy state and federal courts) isn't thinking this thing through clearly, logically or with sufficient insight into the far more serious problems facing our world, society, personal well-being and freedoms today.
Thanks for sharing your story. I'm sorry it sounds like such a difficult one. I hope @bacchist addresses these concepts when writing his future post about risk.
It has been difficult, but educational (we're never too old to learn).
For some reason I cannot reply directly to @pharesim's response below, but the supposed "solution" of taking a home simply because it isn't being lived in by the owner currently is just warmed over communist-style socialism, which has never proved workable economically (Russia and China are two major examples of the past century).
Say that a businessman, who worked hard to salt away a few shekels, decides to go on a business trip while paying others to look after his home. Should his return be delayed by unforeseen business difficulties, at which point would he be forced to find a new home and personal property to replace that taken over by squatters during his absence?
One month, one year, or immediately? Sorry, but I don't see the difference between what the anarchists are proposing and state confiscation of homes for unpaid (even unconstitutional) property taxes.
Private mortgages are not the problem, unless their interest rates are in the usurious range, based on voluntary contracts. Banks that claim to make such loans, but which actually only trade the borrowers promissory note (a claim against his future earnings) to investors while putting nothing of their own considerable assets at risk in the transaction -- like modern-day money changers -- but later use this document they no longer hold as a claim against the property or other collateral pledged against default in paying the so-called "loan," are part of the real social problems we should be addressing (fraud in the courts, banking institutions, and corporate businesses that profit from such fraud, as a result).
All this is addressed already imo. There wouldn't be tennants, and nobody would be homeless :) When you have a home, there's no way to get you out. And when you don't have one, you'll find (and probably need to renovate) one. If you want to sell, you either make a good price to find a buyer, or give it up. That's still your decision. Playing the markets while others want to utilize the good is a waste.