“You wonder how these things begin. . . well, this begins with a glen.” Or a dream of a glen, at least. This quote from the musical “Fantasticks!” seems appropriate to describe the origin of the dream that we have of owning our own land and having a beautiful house, mortgage-free. We dreamed of our own little spot of Earth, our very own sweet glen, away from the hubbub and without hefty monthly payments. I’d like to tell you that, of our own accord, we moved mountains and manifested this dream into reality. The truth is, however, a bit more prosaic and certainly less inspiring. Our catalyst was a crisis.

The crisis came in the form of an email from our landlord. He was a Marine and had been away in Iraq and Afghanistan for two years. He hadn’t raised the rent in all that time and stated that expenses required him to either sell the house or raise the monthly payment by $200 when the new lease came due in a month. I received this lovely little missive while teaching a class. The students were doing some group work and I was taking the opportunity to check email. My heart sank as I read. There was no way we could do $200 more a month! And we certainly didn’t love the house enough to buy it! I knew we would have to move.

I hate moving. I am so tired of moving. I don’t hate the new places and changes; I just hate the actual packing, sorting, and loading and unloading. I am also desperate for a place where I can really make it our own and do WHATEVER we want to do. Greg and I have been renting ever since we got married in 1995. First, we were just a couple of poor kids in a cute little one-bedroom apartment. Then, we were a family with a small child, going to grad school and not wanting the responsibility of home ownership. After that, we were new professors in a new town, with poor credit thanks to the lack of credit cards and the college loans adding up to over $100,000, which were almost always in late payment status. Over the past fifteen years, we have lived in 9 different homes. N.I.N.E.!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For pity’s sake, we’re not even military!

Each move had a clear purpose. Losing a job, going back to school, expanding family, saving money, etc. One of the funniest/worst reasons was when the Assembly of God Foundation in the city we were in at the time (which was, incidentally, the national AG headquarters) placed a printed slip on our door informing us that they had bought the house and we had a month to vacate. They were systematically purchasing all the rental houses in the neighborhood, trying to make it into a (please do insert a strongly sarcastic tone here) “godlier” environment.

So, after telling Greg about the email, we began the familiar and detested chore of looking for a new rental place. After all, the country’s in a recession and there’s no such thing as a sub-prime mortgage right now. And we certainly haven’t been saving money for a down payment—we’re barely able to make rent and school loan payments and all the other usual bills. Though we may dream of home ownership, and though our socio-economic status would seem to indicate we “deserve” it and “should” have it, it’s just not feasible. OR IS IT?

Is there another way? A “back-door” to home ownership? We’d been dreaming of yurts and cob houses for several years, but assumed it would have to wait until we made more money or won the lottery or something. But what if we assumed that renting was no longer an option? How could we stop the cycle? We desperately need to get to the place where we own our own home, mortgage-free. Every month, we pay the equivalent of a mortgage payment to the college loans. We’re never going to save any money or take vacations if we always have to pay $2000 a month between rent and loans.

One day, as we were driving around looking for rental houses, I saw a sign that said “Land for Sale—Owner Finance.” Hmmm . . . I wonder how tough their credit requirements were? But what use would that be, if we couldn’t buy a house to put on the land? Just as I thought that, I saw a mobile home--an older one—that appeared to be uninhabited. Hmmm . . . I wonder how much a really used mobile home would cost? Though the very idea of a trailer reviled me, if it meant we could get our own place and save money for our yurt or cob house, maybe it was worth it. My mind began spinning and I saw the faint glimmer of a new path. The crisis had become an opportunity and I was determined to embrace it for all it was worth. I’m going to try to lay out that journey here, with all its successes and foibles, for you, gentle reader, so that if you need the same “back-door” to home ownership, this may give you ideas. If you are already a home owner, it might provide you with either a laugh or a moment of gratitude. Either way, welcome. (*SPOILER ALERT* We don’t end up in a mobile home, after all. It’s much crazier than that!)