Fr. Frank's '72 Seafari for sale, reduced to $4895

[Fr. Frank]

lost2a6 said

Get rid of the stuff that you owe money on.

I hear you. Problem is my debts are not saleable, except the house (up for sale), and my truck (not selling my wheels). I still owe on my student loans from my last three degrees. I only got my BA 10 years ago, and since then I've added a masters, and a doctorate. and I am almost finished with my second doctorate. I got off light, too. The average educational debt for going straight from BA to a doctorate is over $120K, I got off for less than half that because of scholarships.

It's my house that's killing me. I built my house at the wrong time, (right after Katrina), and the materials cost was nearly $70K more than bid prices, which were made before Katrina. Add in the 40% increase in labor costs in construction here in our area, and it increased the cost of building my house by a whopping 70%.

I must, however, admit I went overboard in some aspects of design and construction. (I designed my own house.) My house is 2 story, 1830 sq.ft. Cape Ann/Cracker style, and yet is engineer certified to 160 mph wind loading. (except for the roofing shingles, which are only designed for 130 mph.)

My 2nd floor and my roof are all made from a unit-truss design, and have 5/8" go-bolts from the roof down through the foundation on every truss unit, on both ends. My house is wood frame, but the smallest exterior framing is 2x6, and corners and headers are doubled 2x12, except around the breakfast room.

Initial bids and estimates came to $165K. Actual construction came to $262K. Appraised value is $387K as of 10/2006, including $65K for waterfront land. But truthfully, in today's market in this area, I'll be lucky to get out of the house for the quarter mil I owe plus real estate fees. That's taking a $70K loss on the house and property.

Real Estate in Citrus County has taken a bigger hit than almost anywhere else in the state, with the average home resale price dropping 22% from spring of '05 to spring of '07. New home prices have fallen even more, by almost 30%.

So I've got to sell the house, because we can't afford it on just my wife's income, and I may never see the $$ from the church. That's just a fact of life.

SO, in the meantime, I still need to find a way to pay mortgage, lights, insurance, food, truck pymt, etcetera. Thats why I'm selling my Seafari. It might pay the mortgage and utilities for 2 months.