Wednesday, May 19, 2021

Seller's market


A house in my neighborhood just sold for over $3 million. 

For discretionary purposes, it's the not the house pictured above. But if you squinted it could easily be mistaken for it. 

And when I say in my neighborhood, I mean if I teed up a golfball on my roof and took a good full swing and accounted for my nasty slice, I could easily knock out a window in the entryway turret. 

It's 2021, why are people putting in turrets? And what self respecting architect would agree to such a medieval monstrosity?

Moreover, and the buyers should've been made aware of this, that excessive vicinity to the Siegel house should have knocked the price down into the high two's. 

But it's a seller's market and if people want to overpay to live near me and thus inflate the price of my decaying California ranch home, with the creaky wooden floors, plaster crevices that are getting wider by the day (thank you tectonic shifting) and the screaming neighbors with their unruly barking dogs, who am I to complain?

When we purchased the house more than 30 years ago and for less than 1/10th of the $3 million tag, you could not have convinced me of its outrageous potential. Even after we added a second story and doubled the square footage for our growing family, I was still hesitant about sinking money into our humble Culver City abode.

But, my wife was right. And I say this grudgingly, she always is. 

Well, except for the dated black and white linoleum we used to line the floor in our laundry room, almost always right.

Before you make overly-rosy conjectures about my net wealth, you should know there was a refinance, to expand my growing real estate empire, and the bank owns a chunk of my home. And will for a good long time. I should never have gone with that low rate 100 year loan.

Moreover the equity is in the floorboards and the non-functioning air ducts that fail to cool my daughter's bedroom during the hot summer nights.

In other words, my wallet isn't stuffed with "fuck off money." Yet.

Meaning when I get a request to dumb down the copy or lose a joke I took great pride in or even insert a headline that ends with a preposition, I'm more than happy to oblige.

Until a house in the neighborhood goes for 4 mill.


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