Moving Sucks and Writing Paused · 5:09pm Sep 28th, 2018
So, deadrose and I are in the process of moving from the Emerald City, to a much less interesting city fifteen miles south, because this house got foreclosed on (thanks to my landlord dying and his heirs being unlocatable), and that city being about the only place I can afford to move to (housing costs here are insane, thanks primarily to Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, and a city government that bends over for them at every opportunity), which is still even moderately convenient for work. Not that the Emerald City is all that interesting these days, but that's another rant entirely.
Moving sucks. Even in the best of circumstances, it sucks. It also reminds me just how much junk I have that I should have gotten rid of ages ago. And since I'm moving into a place half the size of my current home, the suckage is squared.
Add to that having to deal with disabilities and injuries (relatively minor, but it still definitely hurts and slows me down). Epic suckage.
I had planned to be out of here by the end of October, but it's looking like that is not going to be happening. Fortunately, the deadline isn't until February, but I do not want to be moving in the coldest, wettest part of the year if I can possibly help it.
The only upside is that I'm moving out of an iffy rental house, into one that I own. Which reminds me, the process of buying a house, especially as a first-time buyer, is a whole world of suckage all it's own. Fortunately, the end result is worth it. At least, I hope it is. Time will tell.
Needless to say, all the writing and reviewing that I had planned to do over the next couple months is on hold, or progressing at a snail's pace. I'm mostly only working on stuff when I have free time at work now, and thanks to recent changes with my employer (another level of suckage), that free time is substantially less than it used to be. So things are getting very, very delayed. Oh well, hopefully once the move is done and things at work settle down a bit, I'll be able to get back to this stuff.
Buying your first? house is exciting! I know; I almost did it. Then I chickened out. Turned out it could've been the fastest $100,000 I ever made--the people that bought it, sold it 3 months later for $100,000 more.
If I read it in a story, I'd call it unrealistic.
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Yeah, housing prices in a lot of markets are bloody insane.
I was actually looking at buying the house I've been living in, but couldn't afford it. My landlord bought it for $177,000 a little over 10 years ago, it sold for $426,000 in June. During the last two years we've lived in it, it's gone up about $10,000 a month. Ridiculous, especially for the crap shape that it's in right now.
I closed on my new house at the end of July. It's already gone up $10,000-15,000 since I bought it. A few quick and inexpensive upgrades to the insulation and windows, and I can easily add another $10,000-20,000k to the value. That's just because it is so far outside the city, and in a "less desirable" mixed neighborhood. Majority-white neighborhoods a similar distance outside the city are selling for easily 25-50% higher prices, for houses in worse shape than mine.
That's mostly because between Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, there are an average of about 300 or more, per week, moving to the city.
Too bad you didn't get the place, that sort of huge instant equity is hard to come by. Mine is only estimated to go up by about $50-60k over the next year, but if the big tech corps keep importing people, it may top that. I've got some other upgrades planned which will probably raise the value by close to double that once I can afford to have them done.
Real life always seems to be weirder and less believable than fiction.