The Deeds to the Ranch
Posted by andyslack on 16 November 2008
On Friday, a mysterious package addressed to myself and my lady wife couldn’t be delivered (no-one at home to accept it), so yesterday, armed with the failed delivery notice, I recovered it from the post office. Hacking our way through the plastic wrappers, we discovered all manner of ancient paperwork from the 1960s, namely the title deeds and assorted other documents that prove we really own the house, at last.
Much to my surprise, I was rather excited by all this. Partly because of the sheer history of it all; no-one else has stayed in the house long enough to pay off the mortgage. Partly because however bad our mortgage lender’s finances become, they can’t get our house now.
Was it a better move than renting? I don’t know. I haven’t done the figures, because what would be the point? Sometimes one would be better off, sometimes not, but to win at that game one would need to predict accurately the stock market position for a specific month 25 years in advance. The odds of that are not good.
