Now that the threat of snow has *officially* passed us by in Upstate New York, I'm seeing "House For Sale" signs pop up like popcorn. It happens every spring. Just like our growing season, our buying and selling season is very brief. We really only have 5 to 6 months of the year to do outside stuff around here. I don't mind it much, as I like winter.

Lots of folks are taking out second mortgages and home equity loans to cover the damages from the bad flooding we had April 28. I've heard that our area was declared a "disaster" zone. Two months later, it still looks pretty disastrous! The mud is gone but the properties are in bad shape (mine included). Such destructive floods are very discouraging. I can see why people would want to bail out ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifnd sell.

We are going to have to prepare for some kind of mortgage restructuring, ourselves. An FHA Streamline Refinance or Military VA Loan sound good, but I doubt we'd qualify. It's a good program for those who do qualify. We've considered (briefly) selling our home. I'm getting too old to keep renovating it. And with prices and taxes going up up up, it's futile to work on it. Such a shame.

When we visited Virginia, the properties were so beautiful, hardly anything run down at all. But then again, taxes for the area we stayed are $400 a YEAR or less! Here in New York, we pay $400 a MONTH for property taxes. Some folks pay much, much more. It's become impossible to keep the homes maintained, not when you're paying so much in taxes. All very sad. New York State had better shape up. We cannot maintain such exorbitant taxation, especially for our top-heavy bloated, wasteful government.

But I digress.

I love Home Sale season. I like walking through homes, looking at the floorplans and architectural designs and all. I like houses in general. Maybe I'll stop in on a few open houses, just to have a peek. :)