"What-If in the Past Is Fiction"
Thu., May 14, 12:00 PM
It is now nearly four years since my neighbor (Miss Neighbor-Next-Door) fell and was hospitalized. I summarized the story a couple of months ago here. In the past couple of weeks a For Sale sign did appear in front of her house; it now has a Sale Pending sign attached. If they progressed that fast, either they lowered the price a great deal or else some developer is planning to “flip it.”
I checked the real estate specs online. Miss Neighbor-Next-Door is the original owner of the house. I think the building is undervalued and the land overvalued, but that’s probably a matter of personal opinion. I am watching this sale with interest because I know that someday in the not too distant future, we will be trying to sell this house.
However, I know a few things that appraisers don’t know. (Including a few shady practices of local real estate agents — not that they cheated me, but I believe a few other people might have been, um, treated less than honestly.) For example, the Cheesebox is the only house on this block that was built by a different developer; the other developer produced houses of better quality. I know that partly from seeing them. I have been aware of it since we bought this house, however; a house down the block with less living area and fewer rooms sold for a substantially higher price.
People who come and look at my house and yard think that the property stops where the brambles begin, so they rate the area as about equal to the other tiny lots. Houses on this block have fifty-foot frontage and are rectangular, going straight back to the same line. Our property is described in the deed as going all the way out to the salt marsh; the west border is irregular, and there is about another tenth of an acre we could reclaim. (Husband, of course, only saw it as more grass he would have to mow, so he let the brambles grow!)
A few years ago, when real estate prices were so inflated, I wanted to sell the house. The other joint owner — naming no names, of course — wouldn’t hear of it. Whether we had moved to a warmer climate or stayed in the area, we still would have been better off than we are now. “What-if in the past is fiction,” as I have mentioned a few hundred times.
And so I watch Husband go up and down the stairs, always with someone to guide him and, we hope, catch him if/when he falls. He will be in the same position Miss Neighbor was four years ago, except that he has family to look out for him. And he just doesn’t get it!
