When she came to Tucson in 1967, she paid $80 a month for 5 years, for a total of $4,800. Then the landlord raised the rent to $103 a month. By this time all the boys were gone except Richie, who was sick and unable to work.

Vera looked around for a smaller place but found nothing as good for the price, so she paid $103 a month for 5 more years. She finally had to move when the landlord raised the rent to $135, since on her social security she couldn't afford that much and the utilities too. The best thing she found in her price range was a 1-bedroom apartment for $150 a month, including utilities, where Richie had to sleep on a cot in the living room. Although there was a big back yard, the landlady didn't make them feel welcome to use it, so they were pretty much confined to a 3-room area 12' x 48'. Vera was even afraid to use her sewing machine because the landlady kept warning her not to waste the electricity.
In all those years, Vera paid a total of $27,674 in rent, and at the end of it she had exactly nothing.

The Greedy Poet to the Rescue
Into this dismal scene entered the Greedy Poet. Having done some research on the subject, he showed Vera how she could own her own home for less than she was paying in rent.

Her other sons had always talked of buying their mother a home, but they had their own families and their own responsibilities. It was Richie who found the way. Although he had never been able to hold a regular job because of his epilepsy, he had for years been saving money by doing odd jobs and collecting pop bottles. He now had over $3,000 in his bank account.

From Pop Bottles to Property
Vera found a used 2-bedroom mobile home, 12' x 55', in excellent condition, for $6,500. Following the Greedy Poet's advice, she and Richie put $2500 down on it and invested $500 in new furniture. The remaining $4,000 was financed for 8 years at 15%, with payments of $80.33 a month. Vera's oldest son John co-signed for the loan. They found a nice mobile home ranch out in the country, with space to grow vegetables and a place to raise chickens. It was almost like being back on the farm.

In addition to her mobile home payment, Vera now pays $32 a month for her space, $7.50 for TV cable service [remember, dear readers, that this was over 25 years ago], $4 for garbage collection, and an average of $25 for utilities. The total comes to $148.83.

Investment Pays Off
Richie is still collecting pop bottles, but now he is saving for a double-wide mobile home. He already sees the one he is living in as potential income property and himself as a landlord. He hopes to own his own lot eventually too.

Vera called the Greedy Poet the other day and told him that she expects her hens to start laying in August, and that Tom, her rooster, had just crowed for the first time.

***************

Vera's story shows that even persons with very low incomes can afford their own homes. Using a mobile home as a starter, a family can eventually move to more permanent housing. In Vera's case, she was able to make a sizable down payment, which kept her monthly payments to a level she could handle. 8 years is usually the maximum for used mobile homes, but many new ones can be financed with as little as 5% down and payments stretched out over 20 years. The rate of interest--15%--is high because mobile homes are classified as personal property, not real estate. Current rates for real estate are 9.5% and 9.75%. But what is the interest on renting? 100%? 1000%? Infinity?

A House as an Investment
If Vera and her husband had bought a house when they first moved to New York, say for about $3,500, it could have been paid off in 20 years. Vera could have sold it and used the money for the down payment on a larger house in Minnesota, then repeated the process when she moved to Tucson. At the rate real estate has been appreciating, she might now be living in a home worth $60,000, with a sizable equity in it.

Getting Financed
But, you may say, perhaps Vera didn't have the necessary money for a down payment or couldn't have qualified for a property mortgage in those days. Perhaps not, but whatever the case was then, there are now numerous ways that low-income families can buy real estate with little or no down payment and very easy terms.

[The original article went on to discuss some specific financing options, but since these have changed since then, we will not reproduce the rest of it. Call the Greedy Poet for details.]

July 1978

Home