House Poor: Just Another Learning Experience

Have you ever had that free-falling feeling, like someone has blindfolded you, pushed you out of an airplane door at 5,000 feet and all you can do is scream at the top of your lungs and wonder how long it will take before you hit the ground?

That's what buying a foreclosure felt like.

I was counting on my real estate team, Bea Meriwether, my real estate agent, and Earnest S. Crowe, my mortgage guy, to guide me through the process. After all, they were the ones who had talked me into it. They said I would make eight percent or better and I would learn a lot. They were half right.

Bea had her eye on a sweet little bank-owned split-level not far from my home in Mirage Mills, a suburb widely known as the Chernobyl of American real estate because we live in the epicenter of the foreclosure crisis. I had to close out my 401K to pay for it and by the time the check arrived, the house was gone. So Earnest had another idea.

"Let's play poker with the big boys," he winked at me. "That's where the real deals are."

That didn't sound like a very good idea to me. I'm a terrible poker player. When I try to bluff, my voice turns squeaky and gives me away.