78uuu lumière des étoiles

Dusty:Starlight:Culture



to market to market
2006-09-27   3:03 p.m.

I like our realtor. Really, I do. But I am a bit tired of the questions regarding potential homes for us that involve children we do not have. "Where will the kids ride their bikes?", for example, is becoming a bit tired.

Kids? and bikes? How do we know we'll even have kids? Or that they will want bikes? Is kids+bikes a re-sale issue, like quality school systems and property taxes?

I confused.

There's a beautiful old farm house high up on a hill, on a woodsy lot with a little pond down below. Its cellar door is in the front porch floor (for hiding run-away slaves?), its side room is made of glass, and its driveway curves around from the street below, narrowly winding up toward the porch. It belonged to a belly dancer who had room enough to practice in the oak-floor third bedroom. She has to move soon, and so drops the price by a few thousand dollars every week. So why don't we buy it?

Practicality takes over. From me:

The driveway is too steep. The taxes are too high. The attic needs work. This isn't really a "third bedroom", it's more like a hallway.

From Steve:

There is no real basement. The taxes are too high. We'll have to bring a blasting team and dump trucks up here to cut through this rock and make the driveway wider.

Do we drop the 300K - less than we thought we'd have to spend - and undertake these massive structural changes? Would the changes even be possible? We're cashing in favors with friends we have, who, lucky for us, happen to be contractors, electricians, and construction workers. We might be able to get one up to the house to take a look with us on Saturday.

But oh yeah, there's a house we put an unrealistic bid on last week. It, too, is a beautiful old house, the listing price already extremely moderate, and we go and offer all we can afford, which is 20K less.

Other people bid on it, surely more than us, but still, Linda (the owner) hasn't made a decision yet. Steve thinks this is because she, being a fellow artist, lurved us to pieces and wants to see a couple like us live in her house, rather than a couple (not like us) buy it only to slice up the property, sell off chunks (and there's plenty to sell, at 1.5 acres) knock down her pottery shed, and put it all back on the market asap.

So what will we do? Besides wrestle once again with the signs that we are, indeed, grown ups? Have been for a while? Estimated tax payments, stock portfolios and living wills? Bah. Wanna go to play with my barbies. Or, more accurately, my Fullah.

Oh, did I mention Fullah? I believe I did. She's my favorite Tunisian experience. Here she is with her infidel cousin Barbie.

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Fullah rocks, for so many reasons. I'll explain some next time I write. I have to go to a grown up conference now on "Sustainable Development, the IMF and Developing World Economies" . Grown-ups only. No kids allowed. I hope they have Chocolate Chip cookies again.