The Union Square W Hotel in Manhattan had become my family’s personal Hotel California—we could check out any time we liked, but we could never leave. We had no place to go.
We checked in when our developer promised our new apartment would be ready “in a week or two.” That turned into a month, then two. Nothing to do but sit tight, and I do mean tight—a family of four plus our dog, Spike, wedged into a cramped hotel room—and keep racking up the hotel bills, waiting to move into a new dream home that we could no longer afford to actually live in.
Strange as it may seem, I was okay with that. I didn’t see it as losing a home. Not anymore. I saw it as winning an argument.
FUZZY MATH
My marriage to my wife, Rose, is a passionate disagreement over almost everything. Case in point: our home finances. She’s a big believer in “paying it forward”—that is, buying things today that you hope to afford tomorrow. According to her revolutionary supply-side economics, a.k.a. “Rose Math,” the need for money somehow creates a supply, as if the capital she’s tied up in her shoe collection is what she leveraged to attain her enviable success as a business executive. Sure, it’s fuzzy logic, but for a surprisingly long time, Rose Math has worked.
Thanks to her theory, we enjoyed a very good ride on the ever-expanding Manhattan real-estate bubble, flipping our way through three different residences in 5 years, each home nicer than the last. Okay, fine, I’m no victim. Flipping is addictive. You start to think that if you’re not overextended, you’re underinvested, that the only way to stay ahead of the game is to get behind the eight ball. It’s a rush. When the flip is on, you feel like Tarzan, swinging from one place to the other, buying low and selling high, your feet never touching the ground.
Problem is, eventually you hit a tree. Ours came in the form of a sudden $3,200-per-month assessment on the loft we were selling. The building needed a new elevator, and the condo board had to take out a big loan.
No one wants to buy into a troubled building. Unless, of course, the price is right. We slashed our asking price until it hurt, then until we bled, and finally, to the bone. By the time we sliced off enough to attract an eager buyer, we were far south of where we thought we’d be when we made our commitment to buy the new apartment. And we had no idea how we’d make up the difference.
FOUR-STAR BANKRUPTCY
Staying at the W was Rose’s idea. Yes, it was a splurge, but Rose argued that unloading the loft was so stressful we deserved a mini-vacation. Plus, the W’s convenient location would save us hundreds in cab fare. From our 17th-floor hotel room, I could look down upon the handsome redbrick office building where our accountant, Abe, had his offices. Having him right across the street would be terrifically convenient when it came time to file for bankruptcy.
A month into our stay, with our developer coming up with increasingly creative reasons why the new place wasn’t ready, I declared this flip officially flopped. We had flown too high on mortgaged wings. Even Rose had to accept it now.
I set up a meeting with Abe to discuss our only realistic option: Put the new place on the market immediately, find a cheap rental, and crawl under a rock until the storm blew over. I said my piece and then offered Rose my big, strong shoulder to cry on.
She pushed me away. “I will die before I give up that apartment!” Think Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind: “I will never be hungry again!” Then, as if to underscore her willingness to die for the apartment, she succumbed to a massive coughing fit. She’d caught some kind of bug during our stay at the W.
Abe and I looked at each other and shook our heads. “What’s our bottom line?” I asked.
“Well, since Rose’s income looks fairly fixed for this next year, basically it’s up to you. To afford that apartment, you will need to double what you made last year.” Gulp.
A SOLUTION?
Back at the W, Rose had an idea: “All you need to do is sign a book deal.” As if writing the great American novel was as easy as going to the ATM.
“Honey, for me to sell a book, I would have to write a book. Or at least a lengthy proposal. It’d take months, and trying to write under this much pressure would be like trying to build a house of cards with a sledgehammer.”
“If you love me, you’ll find a way.”
Pow! Jewish guilt, the way my wife rolls, is a bare-knuckle blood sport. Rose followed this uppercut with her sucker punch, another extended coughing fit. Whammo!
I staggered to my corner, slumping down at my laptop. This was a no-win situation. If I didn’t pull this rabbit out of my hat, we would lose the apartment. But if I did, well, I shuddered at the thought of continuing to live by Rose Math. It’s like having Nietzsche as your financial advisor: That which does not bankrupt you makes you richer.
That night, as I stared at the ceiling, I wondered how we’d gotten here. How could Rose and I, after 10 years together, disagree on something as fundamental as home? For Rose, home is where the doorman is. I could only theorize that, for a second-generation American, coming home to a fancy address provided vital reassurance that she had truly “arrived” in America.
But my first American ancestor came over on the second crossing of the Mayflower. What I know about my thrifty Scots ancestors suggests that he probably was originally booked on the first crossing but volunteered to go standby on the second for a free ticket. My fore-fathers pioneered the Midwest, withstanding flood, famine, drought, pestilence—all for the privilege of being pig farmers in Iowa. Perhaps because of my humble origins, I believe that a place has to be humble to be no place like home.
I spent the next week at my laptop, trying to do research but mostly wasting time. And never had I come up with such creative scenarios to avoid working. One night I even had myself convinced that our hotel room was under attack from mutant mold spores. A dank smell had been permeating the room for the previous week; this, I theorized, was causing Rose’s cough. The next morning, with Spike at my side, I made my case to Boris (not his real name), a W Hotel building engineer. Boris smiled and nodded politely, the way you do with crazy people, and said, “Or maybe it’s just zee little dog.” He pointed at Spike, peeing on the rug at our feet.
Somehow, he got to my witness.
I made Boris give us a new room anyway, thinking a change of scenery would help, or at least give me different walls to climb. But the new room was exactly like our old one—except it looked directly into Abe’s office.
Having your accountant peering over your shoulder while you try to work is like having your mother watch you pee. I sat at my computer, frozen. For days.
BREAK POINT
After 40 nights at the W, life there had become a four-star hell: You could pick up the phone and order up whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted it—except the feeling that you were home. In a piece of urban-dweller behavior worthy of a graduate thesis in anthropology, our boys’ nesting instinct became so strong that they built their own bedrooms out of sofa cushions, luggage, and blankets.
I began to think we couldn’t afford not to make the new place work. Rose, in particular, was banking on a fresh start. The beautiful thing about my wife is that she’s all in, all the time: mentally, emotionally, physically, and financially. All the stress finally caught up with her, though, putting her in the hospital for 2 weeks with pneumonia—the real source of her cough. We celebrated the sixth birthday of our older son, Sam, at her bedside. She missed his first Little League game.
One night, when visiting hours were ending, Sam turned to me. “Daddy, let’s all stay in Mommy’s room tonight! The beds are so cool, the way they move up and down.”
“There’s nothing wrong with your bed at the hotel.”
He drew quieter. “But if we all stay here, we could be home.”
“Sam, this is a hospital.”
“But if we stay here with Mommy, then we’ll all be home, because we’ll all be together again.”
Rose and I looked at each other. Somehow, as our fighting for a better life had turned into fighting with each other, we’d lost our way home. At moments like this, it’s terrifically handy to have a 6-year-old around to remind you that the most important things in life aren’t really that complicated.
SURRENDER
Man, I hate it when Rose is right.
Not only did I land the book deal, but it brought in what our accountant said we needed—almost to the penny. Then, the developer felt so bad about what we went through that he picked up our $20,000 hotel bill. And, of course, we all love the new place.
Now, I’m not saying that Rose Math works. Just that it worked for us.
Again.
THIS SOLD HOUSE
It’s a buyer’s market. Until you do this. If you’re showing your house to prospective buyers, you know the old ploys: Build a fire, bake some bread, put out flowers, play soothing music, hide the bloodstains. But don’t stop there, especially in today’s market. Here are a few other sneaky ways to impress potential buyers, courtesy of Mike Wixted, a regional trainer for Home Depot.
1 Unclutter your kitchen cabinets and closets.
If they’re crammed, it looks as if there isn’t enough storage space.
2 Replace your worn doormat.
It’s the best $20 you’ll spend, and you’ll take it with you anyway.
3 Don’t paint any rooms.
The buyer will probably be doing that. Instead, clean the baseboards in high-traffic areas.
4 Do paint the front door.
You know—first impressions and all. Also make sure it swings easily and doesn’t creak.
5 Don’t upgrade the bathroom.
It’s the first room the buyer will want to renovate. But scrub the toilet and tile, okay?
6 Seek a second opinion.
Ask someone you trust to do a coldhearted walk-through. “I had my father-in-law look over our property,” says Wixted. “Ouch!”