It's time to rethink the single-family home as the American dream, author says

[Hekate]

74. Agree with your points, BB, *especially* about taking equity out. ,,,

My husband and I live in a high-cost region. It always has been. The house we bought was modest & initially took both our incomes; hubby was shocked when the lender bluntly asked if we were willing to rent out one of the 4 bedrooms. We stayed in that house 35 years & paid it off in 18 years. The sense of security was immense. At one point banks everywhere started pushing home equity loans: I walked past signs that urged customers to do even do this for Christmas presents, and I was aghast.

The last apartment I lived in was clean, I’ll give it that. But rent went up a good chunk every anniversary of my move-in date, unlike my salary. The manager pocketed everybody’s deposit money, so there was that to look forward to. The walls were so thin I knew the minute a smoker moved in next to me. Somebody across the quad had quite a regular sex life with multiple high-volume orgasms. Did I want to know this?

My condo with the concrete walls that I said echoed — one night I heard a terrifying scream from a woman I knew in another building across the parking structure. My acquaintance phoned me and sobbed: “She threw herself off! I saw her — She just threw herself off the balcony!” After the ambulance took the body away I brought the still-shaking neighbor over to my place until she calmed a bit & it was time for her husband to come home from night-shift. The rumor was that the dead woman was given angel dust by her boyfriend.

Then the sunny day I was watering my potted plants outside and heard the young man who lived above us tell his young wife bitterly: “All you know how to do is get pregnant.” It was all I could do to refrain from sharing my own thoughts on the subject, which had something to do with getting a vasectomy, but I figured their day was bad enough already.

Good times. Not. I crave quiet.

Give me a little house with its own 4 walls. Please. Or a big one with lots of bookcases, which is what we moved to at age 70. We bought it from a 90 year old couple who actually were downsizing. That seems about right.