Note of the Living Deb

The most interesting thing to me at today's neighborhood association meeting was when some realtors said that a year-over-year average housing increase of 10-12% "is standard for stabilized neighborhoods." (They gave us data since 2012 showing increases in my neighborhood of 18%, 19%, 16%, 3%, and 10%, respectively. This was to demonstrate that the craziness is dying down.)

Um 10-12%? Everybody and their dog always says over and over again that housing is not a good investment because it tends to match inflation. (Although the forced savings can make it a good idea for many people.) Our inflation rate has been more like 2-3%. My raises also have been more like 0-3%. I don't see how increases of 10-12% could be considered stable.

Many people mentioned that they could not afford to buy their houses at today's current rates (and their current incomes). The same is true for me: I bought my house in 1996 for 61.5K; my salary was less than 20K at the time. My house is supposedly now worth about 300K; my salary would have to be close to 100K to be comparable. I cannot imagine ever making even half that much in one year even if I were working full-time.

They said the problem is that Austin has been the fastest growing city for a couple of years (though googling shows that is not true, our population has definitely been growing). Rent is also crazy high. So apparently many people are having lots of roommates.

Austin is responding by re-zoning to increase density. For example, most people in single-family homes are now allowed to build accessory dwelling units (ADUs), aka granny flats (my favorite term!) or garage apartments or mother-in-law apartments. They are hoping this will lead to more affordable housing becoming available. People worry about parking problems and the reduction of impervious cover (which could lead to increased flooding).

I feel a little like it is my civic duty to build one of these on my property. And also it could help me afford to keep paying my property taxes (which are high in Texas).

My house was built in 1955. It has many of the awesome things from that time period. For example:
* big fenced-in yard for your dogs to play in
* driveway for your car (everybody has one these days!)
* fire-resistant asbestos shingles
* indoor plumbing
* automatic washing machine
* refrigerator
* natural gas oven and stove with huge fume hood
* open floor plan
* big windows in just about every room (small window in the bathroom)
* built-in closets (six of them!) plus a big pantry cabinet in the bathroom
* easy-care laminate counters in the kitchen
* easy-care vinyl flooring in the kitchen, dining room, and bathroom

Since it was built, various owners have helped bring it along into the future. Things I know about:
* central heat and air conditioning (thank you, thank you)
* concrete patio

When I got the house, I immediately had it weatherized and fixed up a few things. But this weekend, we brought it another step forward in time and installed a bathroom ventillating fan.

There's really not much else to say. It works. The bathroom doesn't steam up like crazy during showers anymore, even if we don't open the window.

Spanish of the Day

In our next unit, we cover "the family." Which means we have to memorize a huge list of words for various family members. I do not like memorizing. So I tried to find a fun unit on families out there on the internet. I had no luck. So I just started looking up a bunch of the words to see if there were any interesting connections. I already knew this one from my friend and classmate, Paul, who is a police officer for his side job:

* esposo - husband
* esposa - wife, handcuffs

But here are a few more:

* sobrino - nephew
* sobrina - niece
* sobrar - to be leftover, spare, more than enough, superfluous

I don't know if sobrar is related to sobrino/a, but if it is, it's like nieces and nephews are extra children, in case you need someone to finish the rest of that birthday cake or huge watermelon.

* cuñado - brother-in-law
* cuñada - sister-in-law
* cuñadismo - nepotism, old-boy network

Robin and I actually are in the habit of explaining certain kinds of crazy goings-on in town as due to someone on City Council's brother-in-law.

* nuera - daughter-in-law
* yerno - son-in-law
* yernar - to make one a son-in-law by force

We just don't have a verb for that in English (that I know about). (We do have the phrase "shotgun wedding.")

They also have the words for "twin" in my book (gemelo, gemela; obviously related to gemini). That's nice. We still have to look up "triplet," etc. ourselves.

Here's another interesting one:
* suegro - father-in-law
* suegra - mother-in-law
* consuegra - mother-in-law of one's child

As if the mothers of both children are conspiring against them. (All for their own good, of course!)

For the past, well, couple of years really, I have been observing the remodeling of the apartment complex that is adjacent to my property and that I walk through the center of on the way to and from the bus stop. It's rather large. (Directions to my house could include the phrase "turn left at the first opportunity that is not an apartment complex." Twice.)

I've been impressed with all the work being done. I can't actually judge the quality of the work, because I am an ignoramus. But they replaced the flat roofs with sloped ones which makes the roofs less likely to leak and which leaves a big space for heat to collect into in the summer which is not a living space. All windows and doors were replaced. All carpets were ripped out. All interior walls were ripped out as well as exterior walls that weren't brick, and insulation was added. All the porch rails were redone, and some of the porches were given additional reinforcement. Then they re-did all the landscaping they had destroyed with neglect or heavy machinery. So much work was being done that it seemed like they might actually be making it good. Certainly more that was required to change the appearance from a dated one to a more classic one.

They had an open house yesterday, which I went to out of curiosity. They look decent but not high-end. That surprised me. I figured that with all that work they might be putting in granite countertops and charging $1500/month for a 2-bedroom apartment. But no, just regular stuff, including industrial grade carpeting.

The floorplans aren't great, like the 1/1 has a two-door bathroom (just like at my last apartment). There are two barely useable counters in the galley kitchen, but one side has an open bar, so a helper can have some room to work from the other side. They have walk-in closets, but these contain water heaters. The re-did all the wiring and plumbing. They used to have chiller cooling and gas heating, but now they've split it up into all individually billed sections and made it all electric. So sad. But then for their small 2/1, they are charging only $730/month. To put that into perspective, if I were looking for a 2/1 apartment now, I wouldn't hope to find a decent one anywhere near where I work for less than $900. It's hard to believe they've done all this work and are charging so little.

Maybe it's like the summer I moved into Tri-Towers: they were renting for extremely low rates because they had just remodeled and apparently they had a bad reputation before, so they wanted to fill the place with folks that would spread good reviews. (The place was fine, though the kitchen was poorly designed and there were too may fires/fire drills where you just had to run down several or tens of flights of stairs and then not come home for a while.)

I also learned that they will be marketing these to students. So maybe my bus route will get better again.

I also had a pretty good hotdog.

Today I received from my mortgage company an update on my current mortgage customer services. Because they appreciate having me as a customer and want to thank me for trusting them with my home financing needs. Would you like to hear my fabulous options?

Choice #1: Get Cash

"You could get up to $78,924.64 simply by refinancing now with a new 30 year fixed-rate mortgage; assuming a rate of 6.125% APR, your monthly payment (principal and interest) would be approximately $756.18."

Mmm, cash. Well, it's not enough to retire on, especially if I have 30 years of mortgage to pay off. But my current rate is 6.625%, so I could use the money to pay off my current mortgage--is this one of those mathematical impossibilities? And with closing costs added in, it would cost just the same!

Choice #2: Save Money

This is my personal favorite. By refinancing with a new 30-year fixed-rate mortgage I could save "up to $8.87 per month" with an estimated monthly payment of $276.32. Now since my current payment (P&I) is $505, I would be saving over $200, not $9. But that would only be for the first seven and a half years. For the following 22.5 years, I would be losing $276.32. Um, no thanks.

Choice #3: Purchase a New Home

"Have up to $71,032.18 ... to put toward the new home you choose." Yep, if I buy a new house, what I really want is two 30-year mortgages.

Oh well, it's so nice to know they're looking out for me.

It took me a while to get there because I had to take a bus home from work and then drive there. So that took 90 minutes.

But she wasn't there yet. So I stood in the doorway for a while enjoying the shade and the breeze.

Then I walked up to one end of the street, back down to the other end of the street, and back to the house, looking at everyone's gardens. It was not a particularly creatively gardened part of the world. But I did see a couple of shapely pots on their sides, and a mixed mass of plants all trimmed to spheres.

Then I enjoyed the breeze some more.

Then I read the flyer for a nearby house for sale. The price is down to about $150,000 for a 2,000-square foot home with two living areas, a formal dining room, and a dinette on a corner lot with a large fenced backyard with a playscape and two porches. I could see the front porch; it was almost like a front step. And some bedrooms, of course, including a huge master bedroom.

Then the neighborhood yippie dog ran up to me. "My street! My sidewalk! My house!" I went back to the driveway I was waiting at. The dog followed. "My driveway!"

You do not own the entire known universe, little yippie one. Get over it.

I started pacing in a nice, predictable way. Eventually the yippie one got distracted by a little kid. He quit barking and observed. Then he became interested in a smell on the concrete. Then an interesting taste on the driveway--don't ask me, I don't know. Then plants.

Finally someone called him in. He looked when she first called, ignored the boy when he called, and then came the second time the woman called. He was wagging his little tail like crazy looking all cute.

Then I tried to think of any place interesting nearby I could go to for a while. I really didn't want to go shopping. I didn't feel like getting gas though I was down to half a tank. But then I got to stop waiting.

**

This one tool at works make no sense to me. It can see a deficiency, but can't see how big it is. So we just guess that it's small? And sometimes we have the same rule twice? And when only the first one was waived, the second rule also quit showing any problems? I finally emailed the users and asked them how they used this tool and what advice they would share.

I waited five hours before going home but got no answers.

**

I got tired of waiting for an answer to another question I had asked two weeks ago, so I sent another e-mail saying which of the two assumptions I was going with. I just about finished re-working the documentation to go with this assumption when finally someone told me I had picked the wrong one. So then I re-worked the documentation again.

You know, I like writing and explaining things, but only if I can understand them myself at some point before I'm done. Which is why I never sought a job in technical writing. I'd heard that the engineers are too busy finishing the item to tell you how it works, and by the time a working version is ready for your experimentation, your how-to booklet is already overdue. Well, at least I can experiment on my product, but I still don't like this. It's not motivating. And there was a a welcoming breakfast for our new Registrar this morning, so I got to eat continuously all day! Donuts! Yogurt! Sweet rolls! Muffins! Mmm.

**

I found and started reading June Carter Cash's autobiography, but so far she writes a little poetically and depressingly for my tastes. When I can figure out what's going on, it's just sad. I'm still waiting for the good parts.

I've decided my PDA is too expensive because it keeps breaking and I keep having to get a new one. However, I really, really loved some things about it, so I am going to try to find other ways to do those things.

First, I bought a new address book. My old address book from high school was just not designed well enough. My new one is not perfect, but it has a lot more space, it's smaller, and it's prettier. (More space, yet smaller? That's because the old one wasted a lot of pages for gift lists, birthday lists, and other odd things I never used much.) Also, it cost only $2 and came with a matching note pad, note pad holder, and tiny refrigerator magnet picture frames. I resisted it last week because I didn't need another address book, but then I re-evaluated my situation.

Now I've decided to take one of my blank books that are too pretty to toss and turn it into a price book. This helps me pay attention to how much things cost at different places, so that wherever I'm shopping, I can stock up on things that are a bargain at the place I'm at. I'm still trying to decide how to organize it. Purely alphabetically? Or will I find a way to continue to use categories like grains, dairy, protein, and toiletries? I have decided that I'm going to cut the page edges like they do on address books, so you can flip directly to where you want to go.

Another thing I miss is my section of restaurant reviews. I think I may have to build a hipster PDA for this. That's just a stack of note cards clipped together. You use one card for each place and can easily add a new place and take out old places and keep things alphabetized. So many restaurants have business cards, I may trying to make use of those along with other tiny business-card-sized cards. I'll have to see if there's enough room to write all the comments I want to write. If not, I guess I can just add a second card.

The last thing I miss is my list of things I'm looking for such as certain books if I find a good price. This category also includes measurements such as the size of my air filter and the size of my windows and the sizes of pants I wear in different brands. I haven't gotten around to thinking about a solution for that category yet.

**

Last week I gardened for forty minutes. Yesterday I counted nineteen bug bites from that adventure, just on my left leg below my knee but above my ankle. Remind me again why people like gardening?

Today I gardened forty more minutes. I got rid of some more johnson grass, beggar's lice, and that sticky weed that I've since heard referred to as "velcro weed." I also cut down a few evil trees, some of which I have already chopped down before, which have new branches growing out the sides of the old stumps. That's so not fair.

On the other hand, my rose garden was still virtually weed free.

**

I've been seeing more buildings around town that are being built in that style of one big building covering a whole block with shops on the ground floor and apartments above. If only those could come with parking and be more soundproof than apartments I've lived in before, that would definitely be my favorite lifestyle. I'd love to just have a patio garden and walk most places. But I also enjoy being able to jump around in my house and sing along with recorded music at any time of the day or night without worrying about bothering my neighbors. And I really don't want my friends never to visit me just because there's no place to park. And none of them live anywhere near good mass transit systems, partly because most of my friends are going the suburb route and partly because we don't have any. One couple does live near an edge of town that has some okay bus routes, and one lives in central condo.

Oh, right, I also hate condo fees and condo associations. I guess I'll keep working on this gardening thing.

Maybe the best idea is to own an entire fourplex or sixplex. Then you are the condo association! And the condo fees are much more predictable.

**

Woo hoo! Another one of my friends has started journaling online! (You never know what's going on during 24 hours of technical difficulties; the universe may be changing.) Mac the Mike begins by not setting your expectations too high: "Expect regular updates on when i cut my toenails, etc."

Today I learned how to turn my water off at the street. I am actually strong enough to do it.

I should have learned this as soon as I bought my house, in case leaks sprung and I wanted to stop them, but no. Because you need a special tool. But now we have this special tool.

So, at my house, you go out toward the street and find a square metal plate at the street end of the front yard, at the property line between me and my neighbors to the south. Robin brings out a hammer so we can use the claw in the keyhole-looking part of it to pry the plate up, but then I find that I can just slip my fingers under there and lift one end as if it's on a hinge. Then I scootch up to carefully flip it over onto the grass when suddenly my foot drops six inches into the ground and I lose my grip and it goes over not quite so gently.

Then I pull my foot out of the hole and remember that there used to be a little round metal cover over this hole, which has a concrete pipe inside it. I don't know what that's for. (I guess a neatly mown lawn is good for safety reasons.)

So, under the square metal plate are two water meters with two metal bars attached. I jump to the conclusion that the meter closer to my side is mine and the meter closer to my neighbor's side is theirs.

The special tool is the shape of a capital T at the top, with a little bracket at the bottom. The bracket perfectly fits over the bar attached to the meter. Then I start turning it clockwise/right (righty-tighty, lefty-loosy--and turning off the water means tightening it, right?). It takes quite a bit of my muscle, but not more than I actually have. After 180 degrees, it stops. Voila! The water is turned off.

Oh, I'm sorry, is suspense building? We just needed to replace the rubber gasket thingies in the kitchen faucets. You know how you bring your old parts to the hardware store to make sure you bring matching new parts home? Well, this would not have worked if I had been doing it myself because our old gaskets had a very different look to them due to the years of gouging and splatting that had been happening to them. Let's just say the older ones were much more decorative than the newer ones.

Boring as it seemed, I really should have watched/helped my dad do more of this kind of stuff. At least I observed cooking and learned embroidery (which is close enough to sewing to be helpful) when I was a kid so I can feed myself cheaply and make minor clothing repairs.

I once read somewhere that it's no more difficult to buy a house today than it was in the 'fifties, but it seems like it because we're expecting more from a house.

As a person who lives in a house built in the 'fifties, I have a relatively good perspective on this issue.

My house is much smaller, though more centrally located than the newer houses. It's cheaper to air condition and maintain, but in return I don't get the walk-in closet, separate laundry room (just a washer connection in the kitchen and laundry lines out back), or the 1.5-2 car garage (depending how big your cars are). The smaller square footage is really only a problem if you have a lot of space-consuming hobbies, such as:
* ballroom and other dancing
* carpentry/woodworking
* photography with tripods and lightboxes
* sewing
* quilting
* computer repair
* collecting (books, cars, collectibles)
* cooking
* jewelry making (casting)
* house guests
* space-intensive games
Yes, each one of these hobbies belongs to Robin or me or both.

Other friends also like to have space for:
* children
* large parties
* swimming
* pet ownership

When I bought my house, I could afford it only with a roommate, although I could go without a roommate if necessary for reasonable stretches by not adding money to my savings (besides retirement) and by putting off charitable contributions. Now that I've had the place for almost ten years with a fixed mortgage, and now that I've gotten a couple of big raises, I could afford it alone if necessary, and it will be paid off in just over seven more years, which will make it even more affordable.

Still, I really, really am wanting more space.

I'm writing about this topic because two people I know have recently brought up the subject of affording a house and how people do it.

Here's how I did it.

First I went to college. Then I got relatively low-paying jobs anyway. I paid off my student loans, then saved up for and got a car, then saved up for a house. When I had an extremely minimal down payment saved ($5,000 in 1996 in Austin) I started looking around to see what was available. I saw an ad claiming that you could have a house for the same cost as rent. I was paying $395/month at the time for a good-sized one-bedroom place. So I knew the real estate agent couldn't do it, but I called her anyway, just in case I was wrong. (And if I wasn't, she might re-word her ad.) But really, there aren't any one-bedroom houses (or not many anyway), so it's not a fair comparison.

I found out that you can almost get a condo for that amount, plus condo fees. I looked into it. The condo fees were too out of control for my tastes (at one place they went up $200/month for six months because they got sued), so I said nevermind.

Then the real estate agent asked if I wanted to see houses in my price range. I said, "No!" Then I said, "There are houses in my price range?" I was a approved for a loan of $60,000 (plus $3,500 in closing costs) and the median price in Austin at the time was $100,000.

I had four requirements: 1) affordable to me, 2) convenient to my workplace (a college campus near downtown), 3) solid foundation, and 4) big living room. Most houses she showed me were too far away or in too much disrepair. One was only 700 square feet, too small. Unless it's laid out well. Finally I agreed to look at that one. It had two tiny bedrooms, a tiny bathroom, a tiny kitchen, without room for a kitchen table, and which could not even be remodeled to have a dishwasher, a large living room with skylight, and a one-car garage. It had beautiful wooden floors, and the windows in the living room and kitchen helped it feel spacious. It was in good shape and had character. A campus shuttle route went right past it. And it was $60,000.

I decided to make an offer. But first she had two more properties to show me. One was too far away. The other was bigger and better than the 700-square-foot one and offered for $64,000. I thought that if I used my extra $1,500, I could afford to pay $61,500 for a house, so I offered to pay that, and the stove with the for-sale sign on it had to stay with the house.

My offer was accepted. Then my bank decided to give me a loan for the whole $61,500, so I got to have a little extra cash after all.

Always make sure you have extra cash! I used mine (the $1,500 plus more I saved up) for a refrigerator, curtains, a new roof, and weatherizing the house within the first months.

I was single at the time and attracted mainly to computer geeks. I figured if I eventually married a computer geek, he would have more money than me and want to live in a nicer place. I decided that would be fine with me. I could keep my place to rent out to college students and move into a nicer place with him. Meanwhile, I would live in this perfectly fine place with roommates and could do so indefinitely if I never got married.

This plan totally worked except for the part where I marry someone richer than me. (Although even after my large raises, I'm still making less than virtually any other college-educated person (including my boyfriend), so it could still happen.) I got pretty good roommates and so had no problems both being happy and being able to afford the place.

In the 'fifties, I guess I would have been more likely to be married younger, raising a couple of kids while hubby worked too hard. The kids would be in the other bedroom. Maybe with bunk beds. If they were of different genders, then we might feel we needed to turn the study into a separate bedroom at some point. We might have a doggy in the back yard. I'd sew the kids' clothes in the living room, but have to put everything away each night.

**

And now it's time for me to finally learn to do an LJ-cut. I almost deleted all of the following, but it might be interesting to someone.

Let's do a little comparison between my house and modern houses. By modern houses, I mean houses built in the last 20 years or so in my part of the country. Specifically, I'll refer to two houses of relatives and three houses of friends.

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