Wednesday, August 2, 2023
Good morning. A one-topic missive that may be of little interest. But it's my story for the day.
Well, we shot ourselves in the foot. Figuratively. Consciously. Intentionally. For a good cause. My son Elliott and his wife Martha are buying our house. I have lived here since 1989 and Kathy has lived here with me since 2011. My great-aunt and great-uncle bought the house in 1940. They had no children; my mother, their niece, was the apple of their eyes. Naturally, when she married and had her first child—that would be me—she brought her baby to visit her favorite aunt and uncle. The family celebrated some of the holidays here and I would sometimes visit for a weekend. So I've been in the house since I was an infant and the house has been in the family since 1940. Not a long time by the measure of the great manor houses of England but a long time by the measure of most American urban neighborhoods. (I have a friend who relates that the house he and his wife live in now that they are retired is the 11th one they've lived in during his working career.)
I'm pleased that Elliott & Martha are buying the house. But we don't have any place to go—at least not yet. We are now in the housing market.
This is only partly as dumb as it sounds. Or as out of the blue. Kathy and I have been talking about moving for a couple of years. The arthritis in her knees makes stairs an increasing challenge, so a house with functions in the basement, the main floor, and the second story becomes less attractive as the years go by. In the meantime, Elliott & Martha confronted a housing market that put any home they'd want out of financial reach. It's at the point here, and perhaps elsewhere in the country, where people bid higher than the asking price and waive the inspection. (The house next door to us was on the market for $425K and sold for $475K. That is nuts. And you're buying a pig in a poke if you can't have an inspection.)
So we decided to let them buy ours if they wanted to, for a decent price, and give ourselves the incentive to move before we get any older and more decrepit. Inertia could have kept me in the house until death or medical needs removed me. It's better to move.
We urged them to look around at other houses first. They did so for the last few months but were getting frustrated as they looked because they didn't even have time to think about an offer before a house was sold and they were reluctant to buy without an inspection. Even though we told them months ago that they could buy our house, we agreed they should look around to see if they could find anything better. Martha, understandably, was a little reluctant about moving into the house that her husband grew up in and wanted to look for a house that would be new for both of them and that they could fashion as their own. Elliott didn't disagree with that approach. Kathy and I understood completely.
The problem, they discovered, was that houses they could realistically afford were either in neighborhoods they didn't want to live in or in a condition that would require a lot of renovation and updating or that were simply too small. (They plan on having kids, so getting a house no larger than their apartment wouldn't be very good planning.) It became apparent that our house, for the price we were charging them, was the best deal they were going to get. And they could waive the inspection 😊.
It probably helped them think about the option when we kept reassuring them that if they bought our house, they could do whatever they wanted to in terms of decorating or remodeling or changing the floor plan—it would be their house, not ours, and we would not expect them to stick to our decorating or room use or anything else. They had already told us, weeks ago, when the purchase was still a hypothetical, that they would significantly rearrange the kitchen and breakfast nook to enlarge the kitchen. It's a great idea.
We gave them until July 30 to decide (this date was set in late winter, in order to give us some time to find a new home before we leave for Florida on January 1). Last Friday (July 28) they came over for dinner and one last walk-through before they (i.e., Martha) made up their minds. A sign of the times: Before they came, Martha had found a simulation program that let her create the floorplan of the house and play around with placement of furniture and appliances. Who would have thought?
There is a benefit to selling to Elliott & Martha. I can leave behind the 15 or so xerox boxes of Legos that Elliott has insisted I save. I can leave behind another 20 or so boxes of various items labeled "For Elliott"; they are things I boxed up while engaging in that seemingly-futile pursuit of "decluttering." (Some stuff I got rid of; some stuff he and Martha can get rid of, stuff I couldn't bring myself to toss or donate.) We can leave most of the tools and such in the garage; we're likely to purchase a townhouse so will have no need for all those lawn and garden implements. I'm leaving them the grandfather clock and some of artwork. And so on.
So we venture into this annoying housing market instead of Elliott & Martha. The next few weeks will be a buzz of activity, looking at homes, trying to decide whether to make an offer (and if so, for how much), or whether to wait for something we like better (that we hope comes along).
I have lived most of my life in the City of Minneapolis, but that tenure is coming to an end. There are no one-floor townhouses within the city limits (at least not that we've found), so we'll be moving to the suburbs. I don't mind that. My kids when they were younger would get snooty about suburban kids; I pointed out to them that the population of the Twin Cities metropolitan area is approaching three million and all those people can't all live within the city limits. What I don't want to do is move miles from the city to one of the exurban residential areas. So we'll see what the market and the fates bring us.
I hope you have been able to enjoy
your summer so far.
Gary
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