Well, this is it. Movers come at three today to pack, and early tomorrow we ship out.
The lovely Nina and I have lived in this three-story house, on the park block of Ninth Street in Brooklyn, since March of 1982. We started out as tenants, then gradually took over the place. When the aging lady on the first floor, who had lived here since the early 1900s, finally had to go, her family decided to sell, which would have meant we had to leave, if Nina hadn’t devised a plan to form a partnership with the other tenant in the building to buy the place. Back then this was a pretty iffy neighborhood — lots of muggings and car break-ins, so real estate values were low, but even so, we had very little money then, and just barely managed to scrape together our share of the down payment. We and our partner put a tenant in the unoccupied floor.
As the neighborhood improved, the market changed. For a while, co-ops were much more valuable than private houses, and so Nina had the idea to form a co-op corporation, which raised the value. When that changed, and private houses were preferred once again, we bought out our partner; the rising values meant we could finance all of this without coming up with any extra money down. (Have I mentioned that my wife is a genius?)
So: we ended up living in the top two floors of the building, with a tenant below, for all the years that our two kids were growing up at home. When they moved out after college, we made a duplex out of the bottom two floors, and Nina and I moved to the top floor (where we’d started out as tenants all those years ago). Meanwhile this neighborhood, Park Slope, became thoroughly gentrified and Starbucky, and the value of these old brownstones improved handsomely.
When our tenants announced this spring that they were having another child, and were going to move out, Nina and I decided it was time to “up sticks”. After losing one buyer because of a fuel-oil smell in the basement (caused by our neighbor), we made the necessary remediations and put the house back on the market. And now we’re moving out: decamping to our modest little dacha in Wellfleet while we plot the next chapter of our lives.
It would have been 40 years in March. I can’t say I’m sorry to go. I grew up in a rural area, and as I’ve gotten older city life has become less and less pleasant for me
— and of course I am sharply at odds with the harsh secular religion that has completely taken over this neighborhood. I have little to tie me to this place any longer.
But still, 40 years is a long time!
I should be able to get back to blogging once the move is over, and we’ve had time to recuperate.
7 Comments
That’s a fascinating little saga.
Congratulations to you and Nina on your arrival at this day. To distill those 40 years into a few paragraphs leaves a lot of living and memories unspoken for. How fortuitous a progression the neighborhood underwent that prospered your family.
We (Jeannie and I) have a very different setting but a somewhat similar overall profile. We’ve owned our modest craftsman style bungalow in a sleepy little town north of San Francisco since 1989. When we bought, it was the dog in the neighborhood, and we had to scrape every resource available to swing the down payment and then mortgage. I was a contractor, so was able to slowly do the upgrades needed and legalize the unpermitted alterations that had been done by the previous owner. Jeannie had a family therapy practice in a private part of the house. After our daughters moved out, and a bout of cancer altered our trajectory, we were offered an opportunity to take on a live-in host/caretaker position of a spectacular estate in Carmel right on the ocean. We rented out the little house in Sebastopol and lived in Carmel for 7 years while we paid off the house mortgage. We moved back in 2013, just in time to keep the house from falling into deferred maintenance hell. That was eight years ago today. After buying and flipping a residential property one county north a few years ago, I retired.
While Sebastopol is as blue as can be, we are a total mismatch. It used to be a sleepy little apple town with familiar old-timers and stores on main street. That’s all gone now and forgotten by the current denizens.
But our home is on a hill with a lovely view and generous backyard, tree-sheltered all around, and all paid for. I’ve got my shop where I putter, building furniture, guitars, ukeleles, and fixing what breaks. Got no plans to move unless we are driven out. Daughters are looking into buying land a county north, so we will have a bugout option if that works out.
Well, happy landings, take your time, take care of each other, and no more shoulder injuries! I’ll check in on the blog from time to time, you always provoke some thoughtful reflections in me.
Excellent news Malcolm! The inner workings of real estate can be challenging and very rewarding as you have just explained. And yes, Nina is no doubt a genius. I got that impression a few years ago. The ways to work real estate are one of the few avenues us average folk can use to come out ahead financially today. A rapidly appreciating neighborhood is a big help as well.
Congratulations. We did the same. Kids were gone, no tie to the local area as no kids are in school and our lefty friends are so hard to be around as all they ever do is snark a condensending attitude to others. We moved to a place we had as a getaway for many years. Its going okay. We don’t have to lock doors and most are friendly around town even if you don’t wear a mask. It’s nice to be gone but going through 40 years of accumulated stuff took several months.
That’s amazing, about your neighbor who lived most of the twentieth century in your brownstone. She must have had some stories to tell.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL2bRtnAi6U&t=203s
Assuming all went as planned, now comes the joy of unpacking…
Good luck to you two!