Damn, what a nice fixer-upper! Think I'll make an offer ...
Crosby, Stills & Nash – “Our House” MP3/download
As you may or may not know, I like to sprinkle my precious audio Grove with stories about everyday topics to, you know, keep it REAL. Normally I reserve these posts for topics HAPPENING NOW that can’t wait another minute, but today I’m going to flizip the scrizipt and write about a subject I’ve been thinking of often amid the many twists and turns of my strangely blessed life: The debate over buying a home and whether, in this day and age, it makes any sense.
Although I’ve been tempted more than ever lately to take the deep PLUNGE and buy a house, as Corpus Christi’s dwellings are riDICulously cheap (we’re talking 100K here, folks), I still feel the answer is a resounding NO, NO, FUCK NOOOOOOOOO.
I’ll tell you why: I am a travelin’ man, a wandering minstrel, a … run-around Sue (if Sue were the Sue from that Johnny Cash song), if you will, and the idea of chaining myself to a piece of property when the housing market simply isn’t hitting on all cylinders is about as attractive to me as ripping my own balls off, boiling them in a pot and eating them on a bed of moldy rice and triple-Habanero sweet-and-sour sauce.
Because, you see (and as I’ve told anyone who will listen), in this day and age you don’t buy the house, the HOUSE buys YOU; those who threw down a fat, drippy wad of cash on a house thinking they were going to MAKE BANK have found this out the hard way. Many have been forced from their homes altogether while the majority of the rest are stuck where they are FOREVER (seriously), or if not forever, for the forseeable future. Me? I’m an explorer. I don’t want to be chained down any more than I am, having a wife and daughter, and one of the most exciting things in my life thus far has been the many new and wonderous locales I’ve had the opportunity to trevail. Buying a house wouldn’t guarantee my trysts with randomness have to end, but they’d put a damper on the prospect, to be sure.
Back to the buying-a-house-for-profit idea: A select few have managed to turn profits on homes near in-demand areas like, say Fort Collins, Colo., and Pullman, Wash., but for the most part the idea of raking in the dough via a new home is foolish and naive, like those guys who still insist the energy drink they won’t stop talking about (and trying to get you to buy) is going to make them rich someday. It ain’t gonna happen, Tex; it ain’t gonna happen.
Why would I sacrifice my MOBILITY (the key word I want you to take away from this entire diatribe) for the slight, left-field chance that one day I’ll be able to make a little money off it? Why would I assume that the region I live in is so pristine I’d never want to pack up my wares and hitch my wagon someplace else? It’s ridiculous, and even worse, people who buy homes tend to get really BORing really fast.
A friend of my wife’s in Glens Falls, N.Y., for example (Naomi-something-or-other; a nice gal, actually, until I started challenging her on the idea of home ownership), used to come over to our (rented) house and talk incessantly about her mortgage and equity and … shit, well to be honest I always drifted off and thought about psych-era Bee Gees when she’d prattle about her “home by the lake,” but I do know she had this way of subtly needling us, trying to prove to us somehow, someway, that her life-strategy — plopping down hundreds of thousands on a house and living in jerkwater Glens Falls forever — was best and our way was INSANE.
But I could hear it in her voice — she was jealous of our freedom, our ability to seek out greener pastures at the drop of a fedora, and she and I KNEW it. Once, when I was giving her a ride home after a drunken night of partying, I let her have it: I told her I didn’t want to be chained down to a house just to live up to an American ideal that’s been corroding for years. I told her I couldn’t imagine living my life in the same town I grew up in. I told her I’d rather eat a bilge rat than face the possibility that, if I want to go somewhere else, I won’t be able to unless I accept pennies on the dollar for a home I’ve put my hard work into.
I told her all of these things, in no uncertain terms, and she was, I must say, speechless. I’m pretty sure she’d never even CONSIdered the fact that, now that she’d bought an abode in her hometown, it would be very, very, VERY difficult for her to ever do anything besides linger around upstate New York and do the same shit every day for the next 30 years (which to me, quite honestly, is the equivalent of a slow, agonizing death).
I’ve imparted my “wisdom” on others and garnered the same reaction: What, dude? I tried telling my bro and bandmate Adam Robillard (we were/are Duo Bomber, now and forever, though the guy has gotten married and dropped off the face of the earth) that buying a house in an area where you don’t plan on staying for at least the next decade is folly and, in my eyes, he never quite looked at me the same again; he was pissed off because he thought I was acting arrogantly, I think; either that or something else I did set him off. In any event, he wasn’t willing to listen to my speech about the Obama tax breaks for homebuyers (which have to be paid back, natch) and insisted several times that he was going to buy a house for cheap and FLIP it and bounce it like a hackey sack.
And hey, more power to him; Robillard is/was one of the coolest dudes I’ve ever hung/jammed with, so if he doesn’t want his newspapermen friend to preach to him about the ills of home ownership that’s his deal. But I will say this: When you work at a newspaper, you read a looooooot of articles, and that information tends to sink in; I was only trying to help a friend out by revealing the other side of the, “Gee whiz, look at the size of that TAX CREDIT” coin.
Last I checked Roby was still renting the apartment he lived in when I knew him, but hey, I’m sure he’s taken steps toward buying a home since then and, again, more power to him. He knows what he’s doing …
But again: I just don’t get this American obsession with home ownership. It’s nothing but a recycled dream, lingering like other influences of the Boring ’50s and insisting that, to live the American Dream, one must purchase a home, make small-talk with neighbors, get a riding mower, gain a solid 20-30 pounds and hell, maybe even purchase a nice hammock.
I say it’s bullspit. The Dream is Dead; I say, rather than waste your hard-earned moolah on a money pit, why not invest in the things that truly matter (no, I’m not going to tell you what matters; that’s your job!)? Take it from me, mobility is much sweeter than the lingering smell of rotting trash.
