Housing

~ MaryG

What personal belongings do you hold most dear?

I guess the thing I can’t live without is my house. I mean, I could, but it would be tough.

People, of course, matter more than anything else and are irreplaceable.

I feel badly that home ownership seems to be out of reach for so many people—especially in Massachusetts. I love my state, but the lack of affordable housing is a major problem.

Our first house looked a bit “overgrown” when we drove by a few years ago.

My husband and I had very lucky timing. We bought our first house in 1995 when our daughter was 6 months old for 155K. It was an antique house with lead paint, no garage, a leaky fieldstone basement, a horrible old kitchen over a crawl space and 1.5 bathrooms. We sold it 9 years later, in 2004, for 385K with some moderate updates (including the kitchen). It went up 148.5% in 9 years!

It was just plain luck. If we’d waited 5 years, it would’ve been mid-housing crisis and things would not have worked out so well.

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5 thoughts on “Housing”

  1. I remember getting into a conversation with my students about a month or so back and several of them expressed how they’re very concerned that they won’t be able to afford a house when they’re older.

    It’s kind of tough when I’m trying to send these kids out into “the real world” and this reality has already dawned on them

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  2. Moving in to your first house must have some fond memories…

    Many people are leaving the west coast in search of affordable housing/living. With remote work now possible, that may be a solution for some. Housing prices are just crazy

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