Somebody Bought Our House – Again

The title above might make readers think that your humble author and his Mrs. are selling their house. But this is not the case. The house I am referring to as “our house” has never been ours, but is one nearby that we have always kind of wished was ours.

Wherever you might live (and whatever tax bracket that you might be a part of), I am willing to wager that there is a nearby home that you have Jonesed over. As in “Boy, would I like to move there!” When I was a kid, my father’s rule for buying a house was to buy the smallest/cheapest house in the best neighborhood, and our house was definitely at the lower end of the desirability spectrum on our block. But there was a house that was down the street and around the corner from us that made me wish I lived there – it was bigger, swankier, and in the part of the neighborhood that was loaded with big, mature trees instead of the two small silver maples that had been plunked into the yard that had clearly once been a cornfield.

When I bought my first house, I learned another rule of real estate. Every place you really want to live is priced about 35% above the maximum purchase price that your budget might allow. When you start house shopping, the home in your mind’s eye goes “poof!” and you must adjust to the reality of what you can afford. The place I ended up buying was nice, but one street over were the ones that I would have preferred.

A few years later, I was married and we moved where we live currently. Marianne found it and it was very nice. Not REALLY nice, because REALLY nice was (you guessed it) about 35% more than we were in a position to pay. But nearby was (and is) a place that met our definition of REALLY nice. It was the kind of place that could make us turn to one another and say (in unison) “now THAT would be a great place to live.”

We have mature trees, but that place has more of them. We have a bit of rolling terrain, but that place has more of it. We have a reasonable amount of square footage, but that place has more of it. And where our house is a fairly typical ranch design from the late 1950’s, that place is of a slightly older style that we have both always preferred. I have decided against showing a photo of it, because we all have a unique idea of what an “our house” looks like to us. And maybe because I would hate for the guy who buys it to find this post and decide that he has a stalker.

I remember when the kids were young, I would take them trick-or-treating, and “our” house was always on our route. The older lady who lived there would take the glass out of the top half of her storm door, and lean through the opening in a costume as she dropped candy into the kids’ buckets. Yes, I thought, someday this place will be on the market and maybe we will buy it.

Did you ever look through the ads of an old LIFE Magazine from around 1960? Those advertisements featured folks everywhere living the middle-class Good Life. You know the ones, with people at parties where everyone wore a sweater or a tie and smoked cigarette after cigarette, without a care in the world. Or maybe groups of attractive couples relaxing on lawn furniture on a summer afternoon, completely unbothered by things like heat or bugs. Those were always the kind of lifestyle thoughts that came to mind whenever I looked at “our house”. Because “our house” would never, ever be bothered by things like squirrels in the attic or a water heater that heats its last water about an hour after you go to bed one night.

But “our house” never actually became our house. For one thing, every time it has come on the market, we don’t know about it until a sign goes up in the yard. Then the place sells almost immediately. And (you guessed it) for about 35% more than we would be ready to pay for new lodgings. This has probably not been a bad thing, because 1) we have avoided spending the time and money necessary to get our actual house ready to sell and 2) because it is kind of stupid to move somewhere that is so close to where we already live.

The other good news is that I am at a point where I prefer less to more. I want fewer big trees – because the ones I have are constantly losing limbs or dying on us. I want less rolling terrain because cutting my own yard is enough of a challenge. And the square footage thing – with just two of us living here, a place with over 4,000 square feet is just ridiculous.

So while I may not be strictly following my father’s rule, I am at least in a place that is of average size and niceness for my neighborhood, and I think we will stay here for awhile. Therefore, I am declaring that “our house” is no longer “our house”, but just a nice place to look at as we drive past it. And I will salute the good fortune of the people who just bought (the former) “our house” and hope that they live that LIFE Magazine lifestyle (c. 1960) that we always imagined for ourselves. But if I get the chance to meet them, I may give them the name of a good plumber, just in case.

Lede photo source – artwork from a 1950 print ad for the Lincoln Cosmopolitan, which nails the mental picture for how we have always considered the lifestyle at “our house” to look like. And which is almost as far away from our actual lifestyle as it is possible to depict. But a blogger can dream.

31 thoughts on “Somebody Bought Our House – Again”

    • Pretty much the same here – we figured that our current place would do for awhile, and here we are 30+ years later. The only difference is that the starter house was bought by me as a single guy, and we outgrew that little place after the first kid. Actually, with only two closets in that entire house, I think we really outgrew it the day we got married. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  2. I know what you mean by “our house”.

    Back in 1995, there was a house for sale that I dreamed of owning–an all-original 1865 Second Empire house in Morristown NJ, “The Grove”. The asking price was $599,000–an exorbitant sum at the time. Way beyond my means, not even counting property taxes and maintenance/repairs. But I kept my eye on the house.

    Here’s the house now–all fixed up. They made a few changes I don’t like (the dormers–you don’t put replacement flat-top windows in arched openings–major no-no. Also there was some kind of ornamental portico (partially blocked by a tree) that seems to have disappeared. But the important thing is the house was preserved, unlike so many others like it. Zillow says it’s now worth $2.43 million!

    Next pic: The house I actually bought. Smaller, a little newer (1905), but still a lot of old-fashioned charm. I consider myself lucky and blessed to have been able to buy this!

    "The Grove": 69 Macculloch Avenue, Morristown NJ.

     

    House in Boonton NJ.

     

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • I love your house, and I would imagine it is plenty large enough! There have been a couple of those old fixer-uppers in my area, but getting Marianne to move to the neighborhoods where they are found was never going to happen. And now, I have reached an age where my desire to tackle a rehab project like the one from your 1995 photo has ebbed completely away.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  3. Well, you can rest assured that your house is likely “our house” for someone else who is currently inhabiting less desirable digs. But I definitely know what you mean. Ultimately though, your house is your house and home because you’re familiar with it (and know about that water heater) and you’ve inhabited it and built memories within it. At least that’s how it works for me, which is why I’ve never been able to understand those people who seem consumed with moving and upgrading. I have had to move over the years due to work relocation, but otherwise, I’d have been pretty much happy to find one place and stay there forever. I’m coming close to that (the staying there forever part) now, although not everyone thinks that way, and there is a distant drumbeat (coming ever closer and louder) to move… I dread that day.

    Flipping through LIFE magazine from just before I was born is one of my favorite things to do. I also recommend House Beautiful from about the same time. Such wonderful images and ads about stuff that I’ll never have.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Yes to all of this! One benefit for those who have relocated periodically is the occasional flotsam culling that comes with a move. We have been stationary for over 30 years and have culled very little of our flotsam. Someday there is going to be a real sale event.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  4. Yes, you describe our house buying over the years! Thirty some years ago we bought the house we are in now. It is a half hour drive away from the area we really wanted to be in. There are other houses on our street that I would prefer too. But it is home and many of the neighbours would love to have our well treed property. We know the strengths of every inch of this house and have corrected/replaced all the deficits! We will stay put as long as we are able.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • I am starting to like the idea that someone near me is looking longingly at my house. If that person is reading this, I would be happy for some assistance with the landscaping maintenance in the backyard. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  5. As a single person, I’ve never made enough to actually buy a house, the only one in my family unfortunately. The vagaries of the advertising and photography fields over the last 50 years, as well as the fact that these fields were also “heading down hill” during that period of time, hence “non-growing” salaries, made it impossible. The last modest house I bid on in the mid-90’s, with my 20% down payment, would have cost me 85% of my monthly take-home, between mortgage, taxes, insurance, and utilities. In most of the places I’ve lived, people rely on two incomes to buy a house, one paying for the house, and one paying for the rest of living expenses. I never met my “significant other” to accomplish this, but she looks a lot like the woman in that Budweiser advertisement!

    I’ve lived and worked all over tho, and I have had a “my house”, in almost every place I’ve lived: Petaluma California, Oak Park Illinois, Arlington Virginia, St. Paul Minnesota, Wauwatosa Wisconsin, and Zionsville Indiana. I don’t know if it makes any sense at my age, to even buy a house if I ever won the lottery, but I have six or seven set aside if that ever happens!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • I think most guys would love to meet the girls in the print ads of that era, haha.

      It seems like getting the first house is the key, because they have usually gone up in value and help you afford the upgrade. Or else that they get you acclimated to never having a spare $10 bill.

      For the first time in my life, I am starting to wonder about life in a condo, that would get me out of exterior upkeep.

      Like

      Reply

      • I actually have a very, very well off pal of mine, who has lived in a condo for 30+ years, and her condo fees have gone up exponentially over the years. She’s now paying almost what I pay for rent! She says you’re still on the hook for anything that goes wrong in your space, including plumbing problems, electrical problems, interior window leakage, etc. If your plumbing breaks, and floods the unit below you (which happened to her), that’s on you so your better have comprehensive insurance! She’s realizing in her retirement, that for the cost of her condo fee and property tax, per month, she could lease an upscale apartment and not be responsible for anything! That’s what she is looking at…

        Liked by 1 person

  6. With us it’s different. My wife worked for the previous owner and would often talk about the features about the house that she loved. It was built in 1959 and all on one level so her elderly mother could get to any part of the house with no trouble (now we don’t have to do stairs, either). The kids were into reading the Anne of Green Gables books and instead of Anne’s House of Dreams, this was Margaret’s House of Dreams. Well beyond our budget (at least 35% more) when the lady passed away she gave instruction to her son that he was to sell the house to us at whatever price we could afford, which he honorably did. Almost twenty years ago.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  7. I currently live in the subdivision I liked when I was a kid. I grew up in the country but our school bus used to drive through this subdivision when it was being built in the mid-60’s. The houses were all different styles, the lots were large and the trees were enormous. It had been a ravine at one time and they filled it in and left all the trees. But I don’t live in the house I really liked, which is just down the street and around the corner, but on the river. It was big traditional red brick two story, with a swimming pool in the back yard……my idea of heaven… sitting in your own pool and watching the boats go by. When it went on the market about 30 years ago, the couple behind me bought it for $400,000. But then about ten years ago they had to fill in the pool as there is a fault line running along the river bank all down that street. I’ve never been inside it, so maybe I wouldn’t like it, but if it ever came on the market again, I would definitely go and look. I also like the red brick house behind me, and could have bought it (and used it for a rental) for $269 ten years ago. But practicality-wise if I move it will be someplace smaller and one floor with minimal yard. But why would I move when I have everything decorated here the way I want. That first ad looks like a southern plantation or maybe Greek columns? The ads are cool…except for the cigarettes!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • It’s funny how advancing age can play with your idea of what makes for a desirable home. My half-acre wooded lot and the full basement are a lot less appealing to me now than they were when we had 3 kids at home.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  8. JP, well that’s good you have reconciled yourself to the fact that you are content with your house and see the benefits of less terrain to mow. Look how many more squirrels you would deal with in your attic, or otherwise, with more mature trees than you have now. 🙂

    I can’t say I covet a bigger or nicer house as it is just me living here and, like you, I don’t want to take on more house maintenance. But, if I could have a dream house, it would be in a quaint little town, with a population so small that I knew everyone. That would be my idea of perfect living accommodations. I once wanted to move down South, having worked with Southerners, all transplants from the Deep South, the entire time I worked at the diner through college. Part of it was Southerners were nice, friendly people and part of it was the desire to have warm weather year around, but warm weather states have their own share of weather woes too sometimes, so wishful thinking was best left in my head as I have enough weather worries and angst living in Michigan.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  9. You’ve hit on something interesting here, J P (backed up by comments from others). My wife and I have lived in five houses in our 38 years together, and in every case I can think of a particular house nearby we thought we desired more. But I take comfort in the fact the actual moves were for more practical reasons than “we want a nicer house”. Sure, there was talk (and even effort) put into pursuing those nearby dream houses but ultimately I think we came to our senses when we realized just how beyond our means we’d be living.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Then there is (to me, at least) toting all of your belongings just a few hundred yards. You still need the big truck, you still need to load/unload it. You only eliminate the easy part – driving to another city/state.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  10. I’ve never had too much interest in other houses wherever we were at the time; I’m a “garage guy”. My wife and I have had 9 different houses, done a lot of remodeling and renovations over the years. Our last house, while modestly sized, had a 4 car garage, and I loved it. For you see, I have accumulated and inherited a plethora of tools, equipment, neon signs, and other paraphernalia; “man cave” type guy stuff, that’s special to me. Ultimately 5 years ago we had to relocate locally into another school district due to residency requirements of a promotion in my wife’s career. At that time we downsized and now have a small 2 car garage. We did this as the move was to be temporary, as after retirement we knew we were planning to leave Illinois. (haven’t completed that yet)

    I’m the guy that George Carlin wrote his comedy bit ‘stuff’ about – “You’ve got stuff at home, stuff in storage, …, You have to buy a bigger house to keep all your stuff in….” Well, upon downsizing I have stuff in a storage locker in Missouri, stuff in friends barns and garages around central Illinois, and I’m sure some stuff in places I cannot remember. I’m not dreaming of a bigger house, just a bigger garage – for all my stuff!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. You know I’ve been pondering this entry since I first read the title, but it initially had a different connotation for me. My parents “last” house, and longest owned, was sold by our estate about a year after my Mom died. My Mom really wanted that house, and went back and negotiated with the owners after it went off the market in 1972, having not been sold for the asking price. I came back from the east coast to watch over her after my Dad passed, and also maintained the house, including patching walls and repainting for the estate sale after her passing. From when my parents bought it, until it sold out of the family, was almost exactly forty years. Lots of family history in there, and considered “Our” house, as in the families house.

    In the ensuing thirteen years, the house has been sold, or gone into receivership at least three times; a sad state of affairs. The house was in a great neighborhood when my parents bought it, but by the end, it was in a changing “bridge” area. It was also on a block with a lot of larger two story houses, surrounded by nice little post WWII two bedroom ranch homes. When it sold, people searching for a house in that neighborhood were not going to be able to pay for one of the nicer homes, so the home was sold a lot under value, and still, the family we sold it to eventually let the bank take it back. Since then, there have been more sales, and it was eventually bought by someone who “rehabbed” it to flip: Turning a quaint mid-century modern house into some sort of disgusting Frankenstein mash-up of cheap “euro-style” white melamine cabinets, and bad bathroom “redos”. I couldn’t even look at the real estate photos of the last permutation, and to this day, refuse to drive by it as just too sad an end for a treasured house.

    You really can’t go home again now. Even tho both my parents had passed by the time the house sold, I didn’t feel “orphaned” until the family house passed into other hands.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • You remind me that I recently saw something online about how the big house made famous in the movie “Home Alone” has been thoroughly rehabbed in the style you describe. I never lived there, of course, but had a similar reaction to yours about your family’s place when I saw the pictures.

      Like

      Reply

  12. We live in an area where large plots of land have been turned into developments at different times since the 1980s.  The development directly adjacent to ours is “our neighborhood” – the one consisting of custom-built houses (in our neighborhood, there are four basic designs, differentiated by the color of shutters and siding). They are all large, well-landscaped and, of course, just beyond our price range. With each passing year, however, I find myself less enamored of those houses – aside from their three-car garages.

    My parents built their house in 1966, and my mother still lives there. For years she wanted a bigger house, but now, at 85 years old and alone, she realizes that her one-story, three-bedroom house is perfect for her. She doesn’t have to worry about stairs, the utility bills are bearable and the lawn can be mowed by my daughter in less than an hour.

    Meanwhile, the neighbors from my childhood have either died or moved out, and a new generation of families with young children again make up the neighborhood.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Our neighborhood from the late 50’s boasts of custom-built homes, but if you squint you can see variations on maybe 4 different plans over and over. The former “our house” is one of maybe 35% that don’t appear to have a twin anywhere in the area.

      We were among the younger couples with kids when we moved here, and there were still quite a few old-timers who had built these houses living near us. Now, having lived here for over 30 years, we are the old-timers.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Leave a reply to Chad Wallace Cancel reply