Location! Location! Location!

I did it again.  Thinking that I was getting in on the ground floor of something that was SURE to be big, valuable, perfect in all ways, I ended up trapping myself.  I'm talking real estate here.  Or, am I?

When I bought my home in Cary, North Carolina, at age 40, I felt like I was caving in to the societal pressure of owning a home.  I'd managed to avoid the pressures of marriage -- except for those four years I was married in the late 80's  which don't really count -- and children but home ownership made sense.  I'd been living in a great apartment in downtown Raleigh with my two cats for years.  Happy.  Then I got a dog. A dog is too close to having children, I've since discovered, because with a dog you have to walk it and if you are lazy like I am that means you need a yard.  So, I bought a house just so I could have a yard just because I had a dog.   Lesson learned: stick with cats.  

The house I bought was in Cary because I couldn't afford the house I wanted in downtown Raleigh.  Raleigh was just beginning to be popular to those "other outsiders" -- Yankees -- and all of the inner belt line communities were out of my financial reach.  As I watched Raleigh go from Mayberry to slightly hip (only slightly) I reasoned that downtown ANYWHERE would follow suit.  So, I bought my tiny little 1950's cottage in downtown Cary.  I spent so much money remodeling that place.  I learned a LOT about power tools, plumbing and electricity and interior design.  I stayed so busy working on that house that it took me a few years to realize how completely bored and isolated I had become.  No, downtown Cary did not 'turn around' and become hip.  Five years after my purchase, with a completely renovated home, incredible cottage garden and vintage appliances to complete the look, I was still the only house in my neighborhood not occupied by "White Trash".  There was still nothing in downtown Cary that resembled a decent bar or restaurant and I was totally separated from my friends who still lived in Raleigh.   I knew I had reached a new low when I became friends with the two Mormon boys who stopped by one day.  I am not joking.  I was their 'go to' for a cool non-alcoholic/decaffeinated beverage on hot mission days.  Lesson learned:  when you know the Mormon kids by their first names you are officially LONELY!

So I sold the Cary house and moved to Wake Forest.  Yes, I'm groaning too.  Why?  Because I was SURE that this unique riverside community would gain value and turn around.  Wasn't Wakefield (just to the north) already metastasizing into another bloated Yankee Mecca?!?!  I'd be in a condo alongside other like-minded childless folk!  Ah yes.  I'd buy this place that needed work, put to use my considerable power-tool skills, walk my dog on the lovely trails by the river and then sell it for a hefty profit.  

Then the market crashed, owners defaulted on their loans, short-selling to families (with children!) who could no longer afford those McMansions in Wakefield.  The value of my home plummeted leaving me with not one but TWO mortgages and, finally, my dog died.

But the realization I've come to is not that I have a shitty real estate antennae.  That's true too but the epiphany I'm having today is that the friendship I had with a neighbor would never have existed if not for my isolation.  It wouldn't have existed because in our native habitats we would never have known one another and other than proximity, we have very little in common.  I realize that the reason we stayed friends, long after the relationship should have passed into the "casual acquaintance" category, was because there wasn't anyone else around.  That just like I dug up the Cary driveway to make room for flower beds that I later abandoned, I've spent years trying to fashion this neighbor into a suitable companion TOTALLY IGNORING who she really is.  Not that who she is is 'bad' or 'wrong' or anything judgmental.  No, just that she and I are as different as I am from a 19-year-old Mormon virgin.  

I can't sell my house yet but I can come up with a list of improvements that need to be done so the condo is 'turnkey' when the market rebounds.  And, I need another list -- a list of the things and activities I love, that speak to me, that stir my passion, people I truly enjoy, who enhance my life and don't just occupy my time.  

It's power tool time.