Thursday, March 31, 2016

Selling, uh, Grace House

A few years ago, my parents gifted my brother and me a decent amount of money, as they simplified their financial lives.


At about that time, a nephew of ours with three kids and one more on the way and with a shaky marriage was also about to lose the apartment his family was living in.


The gift from my parents was about the size of a downpayment on a small house that could be adequate to provide shelter for our nephew's brood. So, we made them an offer. We would buy a house for them to live in for as small a rent as we could charge so long as they understood that the house was for the children and that, no matter what happened with the marriage, the house would be the kid's home base. They accepted that offer and chose a house on a quiet street. We made an offer on the house and, in the end, bought it.


About a year later, the marriage tanked. The mother of the kids chose to leave and our nephew and the four kids stayed in the house.


A few weeks ago our nephew told us that he has saved enough money to buy a house and has bought a larger home, large enough, we believe, for his girlfriend and her son to move into in time, if that works out.


We have no interest in being landlords so we are talking to a realtor and preparing to put the house on the market. She's telling us, as she probably would, that she thinks we will get our money out of it.


Either way, we gave those kids a stable place to live for some very important years.

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