Big financial problem. Need answers!

Hello everybody. I hope i'm posting at the right place, i have a lot of questions and concerns so i couldn't pick a specific topic to open my thread. I apologize.

I need some solid advice from someone who can understand my problem and has the experience or knowledge to help me out. I live in California with my parents (i'm 22, in college) and the bad economy has hit us hard. My parents and I, as a part time job, are working in the produce business. It's been a few months since business has been going from bad to worst. We owe money pretty much everywhere from PG&E, smud, car payments, credit cards, rent (we are supposed to pay first and last month in a few days and have no money right now, just moved to another place) and we also owe money to wholesellers where we get our produce from. The total amount my family and I owe is approximately 50k dollars. 30k of that is money we owe from the business and the rest is cars, credit cards etc.

We basically have 0 money right now, and that lead us to put on sell our house in greece (worth about 650k dollars) so we could buy a couple houses here (since houses have gone down) and use the rest to restart our business and pay off some dept.

Here is our problem/dilemma: We could sell the house within a month, but, we would only get 2/3 of the price that it's really worth. Meaning if we sell it now we would get 350k in euros, but if we wait until the summer we can sell it for 500k-550k euros. The reason for this is because we know someone who is interested in the house but only willing to pay 350k, in the summer demand goes up (the house is a mini villa by the ocean) and it will be easier to find more potential buyers who would like to use it as vacation home.

So what do we do? Should we sell the house now and loose approximately 200k dollars but have money to restart the business here and get off the "dept boat"? Or should we wait to sell it at its price during the summer, and suffer meanwhile?



Probably the best choice is to wait and sell it later, since 200k dollars is a lot of money, but the question is how would we survive until then? Should we file bankruptcy? Should we sell the trucks we use for work (worth 30k)? Should i commit suicide (just kidding, but maybe a good choice!)

If we do sell the trucks then there's no way we can work and no way we can buy down the road (bad credit, no money).

Or should we sell it now and start fresh?


I really need some help. Please
Thanks and sorry again if i posted at the wrong place

This is an Irish website so its difficult to offer anything other than general advice.

I may have minsunderstood but of all the family are in the same (family) business, it might be time to spread the risk and look for an outside job.

Could you postpone college for a while to help out with a FT job?

You have no guarantees on future house prices - could you rent it as an interim solution?

No matter what, you need to sit down and work out the hard facts of your situation - income, outgoings etc.

Is there anyone in the extended Greek family (pardon my presumption here) that could help in some way?

GReek said:

We could sell the house within a month, but, we would only get 2/3 of the price that it's really worth. Meaning if we sell it now we would get 350k in euros, but if we wait until the summer we can sell it for 500k-550k euros. The reason for this is because we know someone who is interested in the house but only willing to pay 350k, in the summer demand goes up (the house is a mini villa by the ocean) and it will be easier to find more potential buyers who would like to use it as vacation home.

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The basis for assumption about what the house is 'worth' is incorrect. House sale prices do not seasonally fluctuate like you are suggesting. Rents do; but house values do not. Whatever it is worth now is the correct price as of now. Prices may go up or down before next summer, but you are wrong to conclude that they will definitely go up. I also think it's extremely optimistic to think you can sell the house within a month.

My advice is liquidate what you can as soon as you can and pay off your debts. Also, prioritise between buying a new house in the US versus investing in your business. Don't do both at the same time.