The Birth of the AquinoClan

OK, I'm feeling more balanced now. The pressure of getting the house on the market by next month is off, no, not for any particular reason, other than what I said before. I am working on doing what I can, leaving the rest to God, and there is a lot of 'the rest' let me tell you!

I just learned from my Realtor, that only 18% of short sales end in escrow. This means the rest end in foreclosure. If we don't get this house this round, we can try again if/when it goes into foreclosure. Apparently the banks get a tax write off for their losses with a foreclosure, not so much with a short sale. If any of you are really into write offs as I am, you can see how these lenders would choose the higher write off, not necessarily the highest moral integrity, considering these same lenders contributed to the problem we see here in the Bay Area.

Many people were approved with 'creative' negative amortization loans that borrowers couldn't possibly pay when the initial low payment terms ended, 3/5/7 years usually. Over the last years here, before the bubble burst, you could just refinance, the equity was growing so fast it easily accommodated this 'creative' financing. I think it had been going on for years, just the people at the tail end of the curve took the hit.

So Lawrence and I have sent a letter of invite to Lawrence's mom, Cecilia. The prayer is that God do what is the best, so if having Lawrence's mom living with us is too hard on family life, that she not come. The letter outlined basic boundaries and norms. We even included a list of American values to help a foreigner understand Americans better. My aunt and uncle sent Lawrence and I a copy over 15 years ago (I know, can you believe it's been that long?!). It took us about 7 years to come up with a workable culture of our own, and the Aquino Clan is born:). If Cecilia can make it through the paper, she will have a better understanding of the things we do. A very interesting paper. http://www.cmc.edu/math/alee/extra/American_values.html Re-reading this paper, I laughed, and found it funny. So much truth. Perspective, with 15 years of seeing the truth play out. Asian and western values are so different. Without Christ, we wouldn't have had a foundation for unity.