19 Years Ago Tonight We Moved Into Our Hosue

      This night is very special. It marks 19 years that Elena and I have been in this house. Elena came to the house after a grueling day of work as a medical resident. She had a sleeping bag with her. Electricity was on and she had heating from a heater spewing out carbon monoxide. We have not left the house since.

    We officially moved into the house the following Sunday. Our dogs Copernicus and Eloisa joined us on the Monday after the move-in.

      A number of our readers have lived in this house or visited it. Few of you know the full story of the battle that we fought to hold onto the house and make it livable.

    Right after we moved into the house, Pacific Gas and Electric came out. They detected high amounts of carbon monoxide in the house. The heating system was "red lined." We immediately had to go out and spend $5,000 US for a central heating system. We found a backyard with no fence. We had to spend $2,500 for a fence that we hoped would keep the dogs from escaping. At that time, our joint income was $100,000 US per year. That sounds like a lot of money. It was not a lot of money in Silicon Valley. We barely afforded these expenditures.

    The house was rat infested and literally falling down. At the same time, the real estate market boomed. The house went up in value from $525,000 US to $800,000 US. Like many other people, we used the house like an ATM machine. Debt on the house shot up to $745,000 US. Then the real estate market crashed. We awakened one morning to find that we had a property valued at $398,000 with a debt of $745,000. Our house had a negative value of $345,000 US.

        Everyone including bankruptcy lawyers advised Elena and me to abandon the house. Elena dug her feet in and refused She pointed out that in her home country of Argentina, people do not walk away from their homes. I stood at her side although I believed that she was crazy.

    We had the foresight to save a lot of money from borrowing against the house. A massive remodeling took place. The modern house that you see came into being. After a long and protracted court battle costing $14,000 US in legal fees, Wells Fargo bank forgave the $ 144,000-second mortgage on the house. Bank of America gave us a loan modification at a brutally high interest rate of 6 percent. We fought until 2015 to get a loan with a decent interest rate from Sacramento Credit Union. It was a 15-year loan. We paid it off in 5 years. The generator and solar panels were added. The battle paid off.