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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Amy J who wrote (28142)	3/14/2005 2:20:37 AM
From: GraceZ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

It's a three bedroom house. She had 2 roommates most of the time and now shares the house with one. Her share of the rent and her living expenses are very low. If she owned the house, the income from two other roommates would have covered her share, she'd be living for free and even have some income from it. That is why I think it is such a shame she didn't buy the house when she wanted to. This is someone who would really would have been a lot better off owning the house than renting it all those years. As it is, I haven't raised the rent in years because our mortgage is miniscule and I'd rather keep a tenant than have a lot of turnover. It is just that her income hasn't risen at all, and declined significantly when she stopped working. She opted to take her SS at age 62 which means her benefits are greatly reduced from what she would have gotten if she waited until 65. I was dismayed to hear AG say that half of the retirees take their SS at age 62, because it means they doom themselves to the lower benefit the rest of their lives. When she worked, she worked for Johns Hopkins Hospital and while her pay was low, it included health benefits, so it isn't like she didn't have really good access to healthcare. Having access and taking advantage of it are two different things. Johns Hopkins has an excellent healthcare plan and it is one of the best hospitals in the country. Her biggest health problem is type II diabetes, a condition which is entirely preventable with proper diet and exercise. She was completely clueless about it before she suffered a crisis even though the disease is epidemic in Baltimore City and she had a high risk profile for it. She's had computer access to the internet for years, so it's not like she couldn't learn about these things online. In fact the City has had a TV campaign for years on Type II as well as billboards. Being poor does not mean you have to live an unhealthy lifestyle although the poor are far more likely to be over weight, not have a regular exercise plan and to smoke. The neighborhood where my house is located is an area where I've spent a lot of time walking, it is a great area to get outside and get some exercise. I've tried to strongly encourage her to do this, as well as the dietician at the hospital. I can't tell you just how resistant people can be to doing what they need to do to get and stay well. They want to be passive about their health and have the doctor cure them with a pill. My mother was the same way. Nothing we (my sisters and me) said to her could get her to give up smoking, eat right and get some exercise so she lived out the last twenty-five years of her life in terrible health; in and out of hospitals. I passed it off to the generational difference. Women of her generation were strongly discouraged from exercising but women today have no such excuse.