Reuters: Why you may retire in poverty

[riderinthestorm]

44. We have a working farm and have refinanced once to make desperately overdue improvements

so this isn't your "typical" situation.

We're not going anywhere so paper losses and gains aren't meaningful to us but yup, after the hundreds of thousands of dollars in improvements and the initial purchase price, with our current mortgage amount, we are valued at less than what we owe.

Farms can be weird like that. We have a working farm so we've done things that improve our business but are also completely personal in facilitating our daily lives. For example: paying $60k to completely upgrade all the water lines to the house and barns and installing a new well pump is both personal and business but was a necessity in order to create a more functional farm and stop the daily water line breakages we experienced when we first purchased the place. A water line breakage to the mare barn means the whole place has no water. Same thing with electric lines as another example - we discovered the former owner had simply buried extension cords to "power" outlying barns from the house. Really dangerous stuff for us in the house (and the horses in those barns). Reconfiguring the entire electrical system on the farm was a necessity even as it was incredibly important for us personally.

We're northern Illinois and housing values in my area are devalued by approximately 50 - 60% on average.