I am assuming that her husband is in the Guard or Reserves. If this is the case, I can't feel too sorry for her because her husband joined the military part time, knowing that he could be deployed at any time. Whether or not it was before or after they bought their house is not important. If they bought the house and then he joined the military, then he should have taken into consideration that he could be deployed at any time, how much they were going to pay him, and if that would not cover their expenses, then either move to a less expensive house or don't join the military. If he was already in when the house was bought, then once again they should have taken into consideration the fact that he could be deployed, how much was he going to make, and then buy a house that they could afford in case this were to happen.
When I bought my first house back in '99, I was not in the National Guard. We bought a house well below what we qualified for because I did not want most of my civilian paycheck to go towards a house payment. I thought that it would be a neat idea to actually have money left over to enjoy other things in life. Later on after we closed on the house, I joined the National Guard. Before doing so, I looked up how much a Sergeant gets paid for being activated. Not deployed in a combat zone, just activated for whatever reason. I determined that I could still afford my house with the Army pay so I joined the Guard. Had I not been able to, I would not have done this since I did not want to put my family in Jeopardy financially. Now, if he is currently active duty, then how could he afford this house in the first place? You make less money at your base than you do in a war zone. When you are deployed to a combat zone, you pick up extra money (imminent danger pay, hazardous duty pay and family separation allowance) as well as not having to pay taxes while you are in the tax exclusion zone. This can be several hundred to over a thousand dollars a month, so he would actually be coming out ahead. Finally, if he is an IRR (Individual Ready Reserve. This is a pool of service members who did their 2, 3 or 4 year hitch in the active duty military, National Guard or Reserves, and are now on call for the remainder of their contract, which is 8 years total. If the US needs them, they get called up to go back in). So again, if this is the case, then he should have done what I said in the first paragraph of this discussion. And before anyone goes on about 'if we were not at war in Iraq, then none of this would be happening to this poor family'. That is crap. No one knows for sure when and if we go to war. So again, if you are in the military, you need to make sure that your life is such that you can handle being deployed for long periods of time. Bruce Zaphod Beeblebrox wrote: > I do real estate virtual tours on the weekend. This weekend I did a > moderately priced house. It was a very well kept property. The > little girls room had a really cute mural of a countryside with a > white rail fence and a life size pony painted on it. The backyard had > immaculately maintained landscaping along with a wooden fort/swingset. > The rooms were all painted with nice colors, nothing too loud. > Everything about this house expressed the owner's pride in it. > > The woman who was selling it was doing so because she couldn't afford > it anymore. Her husband has been in Iraq over 2 years now. She's > unable to make up the difference in pay. Unfortunately, I didn't know > the situation this woman was in until afterward. I thought it odd > that she seemed so emotional when I asked her if she painted her > little girl's room. She seemed to be on the verge of tears during the > time I was there. > > Meanwhile, we're going to ship another $190 billion to Iraq....... > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| ColdFusion is delivering applications solutions at at top companies around the world in government. Find out how and where now http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/showcase/index.cfm?event=finder&productID=1522&loc=en_us Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:243504 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
