Walk the line — or walk away [Northern California]
Josefa Ramirez and her husband, Juan Carlos, both 43, spent 10 years moving in and out of San Francisco apartments before buying their two-bedroom, one-bath Antioch home in 2006 for $375,000.
“It took almost two years to raise our credit score,” she said, but finally they were approved for a loan. “We didn’t care if the house wasn’t big, we just wanted something warm.”
They promised their son, Juan Carlos, Jr., 9, as soon as they bought a house so they could have a dog, a Chow-mix stray now named Doris they adopted from a shelter. There’s also a contrary cat named Princess. Their daughter, Ana Kristina, 5, calls them both her sisters when she draws pictures of her family.
That meant paying $2,700 a month for their “fixer” which required a new roof, wiring and landscaping. Their loan adjusted in June to more than $3,200 a month. Ramirez, a hair stylist, said business has been slow and Juan Carlos was laid off from his construction job with a local contractor. Recent houses in their north Antioch neighborhood are now selling for around $150,000. They stopped paying in February.