When my sister, M, got married, her groomsmen, impressed with each new detail of the celebration, would say "how did you ever. . ." and as the answer was always that my dad, Pete, had footed the bill to make M's wedding dreams come true. Thus, the groomsmen dubbed him "P Money".
Fast forward to 2020, a global pandemic, and a family emergency. We needed to move Tim's mom to Cleveland from Nevada, but not into the 1600-square-foot bungalow we'd loved for 14 years. No ma'am. A temporary home might be made in the main floor sunroom/playroom/home office/guest room, but for our family of six, plus three dogs, it was not a long term solution.
The perfect* house came on the market. We'd decided, out drinking to our anniversary, to take a look at it in the fall of 2019. It was being marketed as a multifamily, and several sales had already fallen through. (Multifamily properties require a more substantial down payment than single family homes that will be owner-occupied, sometimes as much as 50%.) And it needed work.
We worked with a neighborhood realtor who knows our market very well, having raised her own children here, and she helped up put a bid together in case the latest offer fell through. It did, in late May, and we rejoiced!
I was already jumping into renovation planning, but the mortgage people were just not ok with things. Ultimately, it was decided that the simplest and best way to do the renovations needed, in the shortest amount of time, for the least cost, was to buy it for cash, do the core interior renovations ourselves, and then repurchase it with a Choice Loan, which allows the purchase plus up to three contractor quotes for specific scope of work that, when completed, will equal the mortgage amount. It helped to have a semi-retired loan officer on our side, one who likes a challenging project in the way some retirees enjoy a crossword puzzle with their morning coffee.
But who has $77k to buy a property like this outright? Just write a check from their home equity line of credit?
P Money.
My dad has worked since he was 8 years 10 months old, when he finagled an open Plain Dealer route in his hometown of Solon, even though the advertised starting age was 9. But as I worked on the sunny front porch of the new house all through the summer of 2020, I realized how that P in P Money also stands for privilege.
Women on both sides of my family were part of the (white) ethnic mercantile class. They owned not only their homes, but also businesses that allowed them to give their children a good start in their married lives, with homes of their own, education rooted in their Catholic faith, and lots of love, judging from what I got to know of in my grandparents. Both of my parents were raised in homes purchased after World War II with the help of federal programs available almost exclusively to whites.
My great-grandparents and grandparents left a legacy to my parents that allowed them to buy their first home as newlyweds, on Nancy Drive in the Euclid-Green neighborhood of Cleveland. And, after a few years of moving around Ohio for work with a national company, back to town to Lakeshore & 306 in Lake County to raise me and my sister M, and a few years later, our baby sister B.
They improved every home they owned, and they traded up—ranch in the city, ranch in a small town, ranch in Mentor, and finally a brand new colonial near the lake. Home equity is the secret ingredient of this success, and I think it's important to note that systemic racism has provided an unfair advantage in the accumulation of home equity by families like mine. They accessed credit and insurance based on their success, and were not hampered by redlining, or covenants that excluded them or their parents from buying in up-and-coming areas.
So as proud as I am of our work on this project, it's important to acknowledge where the power to do it comes from, and what I think we owe our community as a result of that advantage.
*Debatable, but as in improv, I need you to just say 'yes, and.' and go with it.
Read more on The Lasting Legacy of Redlining and efforts to Undesign the Redline here in Cleveland.
