Looking for a House with the Greedy Poet
Outside the wind howled threateningly. A eucalyptus limb crashed to the ground, and two cats scattered to dark corners of the garage. A garbage can lid sailed across the yard like an oversized Frisbee. Palo verdes scratched against the house; wind whistled through window cracks.
Inside, logs crackled in the fireplace as tongues of flame leaped up the blackened walls. The Greedy Poet, seated nearby, rubbed his hands appreciatively and stretched them out to the comforting blaze.. His wife brought him a cup of hot mulled cider, which he sipped with gusto. His little daughter Alison climbed up into his lap and said, "Tell me a story, Daddy."
"Which one do you want?" he asked. "Your favorite?" She nodded.
"All right," he said. "Here it is."
The Greedy Poet's Story
A young man greedy for fame decided to become a poet. So he quit his job, sold his car, gave away all his suits, and began to grow a beard. For the next five years he devoted himself to developing his poetic sensibilities, sustaining himself by a number of part-time jobs as janitor, waiter, and street-sweeper. Once he was offered a chance to teach a class, but he turned it down, feeling it would take too much psychic energy away from his poetry.
He wrote hundreds of poems and had two of them published by little magazines. One of the two folded shortly afterward, and the other was bought out by IBM.
Greedy for recognition, the young man began to think there might be other ways of being a poet than with words. So, realizing that machinery is much more impressive, he took up the production of multi-media shows, saying to himself, "I can use my background to be a poet with media." So he turned his bedroom into a lab, shaved off his beard, and amassed a large collection of hardware. To advertise his talents, he made several free productions and soon had requests for many more. The success he had sought as a poet was arriving, but it left him no better off financially; no one could afford to pay for his productions. Besides, he was still in debt for his equipment.
So the poet became even greedier. He took up real estate, saying to himself, "I can walk the highways and byways of this land and put homes over people's heads, not word-sheds--foolish abstractions."
Now the Greedy Poet goes to work with a digital watch and a calculator, the eye of his camera fixed on the poetry of homes.
*****
"Is that a true story, Daddy?" asked Alison.
"Yes," he said, putting her down and stretching, his eyes fixed reminiscently on the flickering flames. The phone rang. He lifted the receiver.
"This is the Greedy Poet speaking. Can I help you?" he said.
"Man, I'm glad you're there," said a voice at the other end. "You gotta help me get out of here."
"Who are you, and what's the problem?"
"This is Jake. Remember I called you last week about buying a house. I'm living in a mobile home, and, man, this wind has me scared. Listen--you can hear it swaying."
The Greedy Poet heard a faint creaking and groaning over the wire.
"I'm ready to buy a house," said Jake. "What do I do?"
"Well," said the Greedy Poet, "I need to get together with you and your wife and find out what you need and what you can afford."
"When can you come?" asked Jake.
"Right now," said the Greedy Poet, grabbing his raincoat with one hand and his brief case with the other. "Hang up the phone, will you dear. I have to go."
"Oh, darling," said his wife. "Do be careful. This storm is terrible."
"Hello, hello, hello . . ." came over the telephone. Alison grabbed the receiver.
"My daddy is on his way," she told Jake. The Greedy Poet's car swung out of the driveway, and two cats skittered behind the garbage can.
*******
An hour later the Greedy Poet was sitting with Jake and his wife Nancy in the living room of their mobile home.
"OK," he said, "let me make sure I've got this straight. You, Jake, are making about $1100 a month. [Remember, dear readers, this was over 20 years ago.] You've been working at the same job for five years. You, Nancy, are making about $600 a month. You've been working there a year and a half, and you've just been promoted to assistant manager. You have one dependent, your 7-year-old son."
"That's right," said Nancy.
"You own your mobile home free and clear, and you can sell it for about $10,000."
"And we have $5,000 in savings," added Nancy. "What kind of a house can we afford? $40,000?"
"It depends," said the Greedy Poet, "on several things--how big a monthly payment you can make--"
"We figure about $300 a month," said Nancy.
"And another factor," said the Greedy Poet, "is the kind of financing available on a house. Right now one of the best ways to buy a house is to find one with a low cash down payment and an existing VA or FHA loan on it that you can assume."
"What does that mean?" asked Jake.
"You don't have to qualify to assume VA or FHA loans," said the Greedy Poet. "That's the beauty of it. You just take over the payments." [Alas, dear readers, 20 years later, this is no longer possible.]
"You mean anyone could walk in and assume one of those loans?" asked Nancy incredulously.
"That's right," he said. "The government insures or guarantees them, so the lender can't lose. And if you find one with a low rate of interest, your monthly payments will be a lot less than if you got a new loan at current rates. For example . . ." He whipped out his pocket calculator and punched a few buttons with lightning-like rapidity. " . . . a $35,000 house with a 30-year loan of $30,000 at 10% would have payments of $263.27 a month. A new $30,000 loan at 14% would be $355.46."
"Wow, that's really a big difference," exclaimed Jake. "But that's what we want--a house with one of those older low-interest loans. Can you find us one?"
"One!" said the Greedy Poet. "You underestimate me. By tomorrow, I'll have at least 10 houses for you to look at."
"Oh my goodness," said Nancy.
"I'll pick you up tomorrow at 1:00," said the Greedy Poet.
*******
By 8 o'clock the next evening, Jake, Nancy, and the Greedy Poet had looked at 13 houses in different parts of town, and Jake and Nancy had found three that they really liked and wanted to consider.
"Which one do you think is the best buy?" asked Jake.
"Well," said the Greedy Poet, clearing his throat importantly, "they all have advantages and disadvantages. Let's make a chart and compare them." Click
Which house will Jake and Nancy buy?
April 1981