Matt and I bought our house a year ago. Our home is 7 miles further south and 20 years newer than we would prefer. With Austin’s current growth rate (welcome, Californians!) we had 2 choices in our price range: buy a newer house further away than we would like or buy the vintage fixer-uper of our dreams just east of downtown in a less than, ahem, stellar neighborhood. We chose the former.
Last week The New York Times ran a profile on a few families who took option B. It was awesome and I will rehash it here, with commentary. Get out your popcorn!
Meet your neighbors. This graffiti covered storage shed / possible meth lab is neighbor to the first home we’ll be visiting today. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with a customized padlocked shed every now and then, but really, these graphics are less than sub-par.
The outside of our home on tour: once a shoe manufacturing plant, this 16,000 square foot (yes you read that right) building was built in the 1800s. Before the Ms. Griffith moved in, it was home to pigeons and a colony of bats. Ms. Griffith admits to falling asleep to the sound of gunshots every so often.
But, in trade, she gets this:
and this
oh, and did I mention this:
Ms. Griffith has put over $400,000 into the home knowing full well that the conditions may never improve enough for her to see a return on her investment. Aside from the gunshots, this home is in San Antonio, which, according to me, is problem #1. (Sorry readers in San Antonio, I still love you, just not the Riverwalk or Eva Longoria Parker)
Next we are shown the exterior of the Hulser home, built in Connecticut (much better than San Antonio) in 1839. Apparently the train is not the worst thing about this residence as we are not shown the inside.
These lovely antique dealers saved 35% off of their home’s estimated value just for agreeing to put up with this:
Who doesn’t want an abandoned gas station (haunted adventures!) and a trailer park (party!) as neighbors? I say it’s A-OK when you get to rock like this:
And just a little OK when you rock like this:
You’d think all that money they saved on the house would have allowed them a larger curtain budget.
That was mean. Your house is lovely, boys. Moving on
This fancy couple said I Do to the occasional transient junky in exchange for life in this renovated church. Because of it’s proximity to a nearby community center they often have unexpected sleep over parties on their yard. Hey, who doesn’t like a party? You? No? Well, what if I told you that the inside of the home looks like this:
Are we singing different songs, yet? The couple bought the home for just over $1,000,000 in Santa Monica where comparable homes usually sell for double the price.
This 10 room Federal style house is neighbor to boarded up buildings and empty lots. The $350,000 home in the Bronx is in one of the cities most unsafe areas according to police reports.
The Diaz’s, who purchased the home in 2004, have doubled the purchase price by hauling off trash, setting up surveillance cameras and making the old joint look like this:
ho-hum, but that’s not the point. Where do you all stand? Would you be willing to put up with trains, gunshots, fire stations or trailer parks if it meant that the home of your dreams was within your reach?
What if it also meant that you may never have the hope of reselling your home? Or that you could only resell at a loss? That your home is no longer an investment, just the satisfaction of your dream-home-desires?
I’m very torn on this issue and often wonder, despite how much I like my home, if I did the right thing. I’d love to hear what you all think.
Related posts:
I was just reading this thinking it was post-worthy!
When I moved to Wilmington, I FELL IN LOVE with a house in a really, really bad neighborhood. I saw the house online and told hubs I wanted to go see it. He said we can see it but you can’t buy it; you could never go outside after dark without getting shot.
Zoiks.
Of course I fell wildly, madly in love with it but it is in the serious hood. It sold for half what it would go for in our neighborhood and it was drop-dead gorgeous (so to speak).
I still daydream about it.
Yep, I’d totally live in dangersville for Ms. Griffith’s 16,000 sq ft building. She is living my fantasy! Since I was a teenager, I dreamed of a converted commercial building in which one floor would be totally devoted to roller-skating and indoor fun. { A la Rob’s Fantasy Factory! } BUT…….. kids change everything. Schools, friends, playing outside, etc. And so we live in a ranchypoo in a staidsville.
Love this post!
My answer is obvious… I love my little home; I love my hard to love neighborhood and neighbors (admittedly, after a few years of not loving a few of them) who now go out of their way to make us feel like we belong; I love that I have less fear of being the target of crime than I would have in some well-to-do neighborhoods where people who live there are targets for theft (fortunately for us, but unfortunately for some, the crime in our neighborhood is gang on gang, drug dealer on drug dealer); and finally, I love that I am within biking distance of many of the city’s great art events, bars, coffee shops, taco places, small farmer’s markets etc. I can certainly understand the concern over resale value and school systems, but for what we paid and for what we want from our home and neighborhood this is perfect.
I think I would put up with the crime levels. I hate how inflated real estate gets in the “desirable” neighborhoods. And I regularly fantasize about turning these two massive old factories into super cool apartments in Bridgeport, one of the worst cities in not only CT but the whole country. I’m holding out for my dream situation though – a beautiful cottage in Southport, right on the water (file under, “Your Dreams, In”)
Thoughtful and funny, just the way I like my morning reading!
Well, you know I live a mile or two closer to town than you, in a house that’s significantly older, but I do not enjoy the Texaco on the corner, cursing those damn kids and their music driving up and down the street (boy, I am old!), or listening to ambulances pick up the deceased from the old folks’ home across the major street that runs perpendicular to our lane.
I love our house, love the yard, love being able to walk around the corner to the market or across the street to pick up Vietnamese — but like you, I also wonder if I did the wrong thing.
ps: I would live in that giant bat colony in a heartbeat if it weren’t in San Antonio.
Boy, this is a tough one. My husbands works at a non-profit that does urban redevelopment – going into crumbling neighborhoods, getting grants, renovating homes for the folks that live there in an attempt to add a little value to assets people already have and bring neighborhoods back from the brink. It’s pretty social-justice-y, and as a result, we’ve always lived in the city, putting our money where our mouth is, so to speak.
But not all our money … we just can’t bring ourselves to buy in the city, and a lot of it is the very reasons of which you speak – abandoned buildings, dicey neighbors, dubious re-sale value, pit bulls, vagrants, and a very uncertain civic future – Ohio is a state people leave, after all. It’s a daily struggle adjusting to the little abrasions of urban life, and I have sympathy for people who just can’t bring themselves to do it when the suburbs are calling.
We’ve come to realize, for us, a home of your dreams really isn’t unless it is somewhere you love, and as much as we like the Cleve, and as much as it abounds in interesting large cheap warehouse properties and semi-derelict mansions you could transform into crazy-awesome homes, it’s just not for us. At this point, I ‘d be willing to trade future dream-house for dream locale. That said, you seem to be in spitting distance of a place you really love, so it’s a bit of a different scenario.
I draw the line when it comes to gunshots and people sleeping in my lawn. A little crime is good – it keeps families and their screaming kids out of the neighborhood – haha. I like to sleep in on weekends…
This is SO my current life dilemma. I’ve been bugging you two with photos of my dream house for the past few weeks, only to have LB visit it on his interview trip and tell me it’s located on the corner of a 4-lane divided street across from a brand-new firehouse. It was an immediate “no” for him, but I’m still dreaming of that two-story great room and kitchen the size of a gymnasium.
My newest find? A 3100-sq-ft penthouse in a 1967 faded-glory building near the governor’s house downtown. There’s no yard for the Pea and it’s in a dicey school system, but the owners chopped $100K (!) off the price two months ago. Kids grow up in apartments in NYC with no personality damage, right?
Raina, the penthouse sounds amazing! Who needs a yard when there are parks nearby? And with the 100k you’ll be saving, you can send the pea to private school (although, for the record, I am generally a huge proponent of the public school system).
Amy, I think you and I have the same line.
I’m right there with you, Karly, literally (3 blocks down, people)…I wish downtown were closer! But I also get a taste of the urban goodies on the East Side with Jeff: midnight rants, sirens, and friendly crackheads, with the city just a walk away. Must say – when I come home, I’m glad I didn’t have to worry about whether my possessions disappeared while I was out.
I’ll take this fencesitting on the best of both worlds, until I have to make another nesting choice, which could be sooner than I think. The next place may need to be a little more fixer-upper, and definitely more urban. Back to packing!
We basically bought our dream house which happened to be in what they call a “transitional” (read: dicey) neighborhood. Put it this way, when I saw that first pic, I had to do a double take because I thought it was a piece on my neighborhood. There’s definitely some sketchy characters and questionable transactions going down in the vicinity but we don’t mind because we dig our house.
From the right bank: I’ve seen pics of your house on your blog, you could probably drop that joint in the middle of chernobyl and I’d still move in.
Don’t know if I could deal with people sleeping on my yard or hearing gunshots at night, but I certainly love the idea of a fixer upper. That’s where all the fun is!
Down in my part of the world, generally if an area that is still close-ish in proximity to the city is a run down and cheap – the artist move there and create interesting hubs, so then the yuppies move in – the prices of everything become ridiculous and they complain about the noise and ruin it all! the circle of life!
We live in a great mid-century modern home in our city’s downtown and we have put a lot of love into it. Part of our time in this house we lived next to incessant punk party goers, dogs that our left chained to a fence that bark all day and night, people living in their garage, and other unpleasantries. For the past few years however the latter conditions changed for the better and we have lived in harmony with our street. I guess I feel that your dream home isn’t really a dream if you hate where it’s at. Then again I could be wrong…
I had read this article and it set me thinking. I am definitely a location, location, location type person. I like my apartment, and I’ll always care about my home, but I’d never want it to be a fortress against the world. I want it to be part of the world. I live in New York City in a small space and I don’t have a car. The outside is as important as the in.
That said, I’ve always been fascinated by people like that woman in San Antonio. They are living their dream! It’s just a different dream from mine.
hmmmm, i did the i love this apartment but in a bad neighborhood thing and it turned out horrible. i got robbed multiple times and i did not sleep well at all bc there was loud sounds and lots of bad juju from the people outside. the outside is just as important as the inside. i will chose the neighborhood over the house for piece of mind.
we bought our little mid century place in a transitional…no…i don’t even hope for that anymore. its more like a low income neighborhood where there are as many houses boarded up to keep meth-heads out as there are houses occupied by multiple families with 5 cars parked on the lawn.
the whole town is pretty terrible – so its like apples or oranges when it comes to actual neighborhoods. we just went for a house we loved that was priced right and seemed to be on a fairly quiet street (instead of the full on ‘hood) and was a good commute to work. The commute thing is actually the biggest decider for me.
We’ve lived in some pretty terrifying places (Downtown LA, Long Beach, Inglewood) but have never really had any major issues besides wanting a more walkable and convenient neighborhood. Maybe I’m just used to living in bad neighborhoods and know what to expect. Like my old neighbor warned us once “You better hide your shit”. So we do.
I always have the hope to upgrade to a better neighborhood one day, but would rather be in love with the thing I’m paying my mortgage on than what surrounds it (which could always change…)
I don’t know, I still have hope people will fix up their places and improve the neighborhood. A few youngish couples have moved in and seem to be trying too.
What’s up with the crap on SA? It was a good read until you go negative? Oh well.
Oh Kev, I have nothing but love for my fellow Texans (except Eva Longoria Parker), I just have to give non-Austinites a hard time.
I’d rather live in a truck in a happy neighborhood. Peace is worth more than a house full of stuff. My happiest memories of my youth were when I lived in a VW van with no roof, and we’d fall asleep looking at the stars and listening to rippling water in the mountains or tuning in to old-time radio plays. Then when I was a teenager, I lived in an old delivery truck, sleeping on a Victorian fainting couch. Now I’m grown up and have a huge house and spend all day cleaning it from one end to the other. Years wasted in this way. I have a beautiful forest for a back yard and have been in it maybe ten times in the last five years.
We just bought a place in a pretty sketchy area of Chicago–our building is sandwiched between a parole office and an overgrown, empty lot. So far, so good. It helps that it’s super close to the train and downtown and not far from my old (much more stable) neighborhood.
People make comments about worrying about getting shot on their way to our place, but I love the peace and quiet (and parking!). It helps that we’re in a six-unit building too. I’ve met all of my neighbors and they’re really committed to living in the area and making in their home. It’s funny, one of the people in our building who is trying to sell her place said she usually meets two kinds of people: those who fall in love with the building and those who drive up, take a look around at the block and then speed away without even getting out of their cars.
We definitely have to worry about things–absolutely chaining our grill, making sure the alarm is on, etc. But it’s a big city and at least for now, I’m glad I’m getting to know a new part of it.
I did what you did when I was a was a newlywed. Our house was beautiful and the yard was huge gorgeous. Gunshots were a weekly occurrence (including once sitting on our back patio and hearing the tinktinktink of buck shot hitting the metal roof over our heads. Charming. But we were able to live with some of the more colorful aspects because we really liked our house.
Once home invasions started occurring on a regular basis, and we had a baby, we felt it was time to move on. While I of course would hate to have anything horrible happen to me or my husband, I don’t know that I could live with the guilt if something happened to our daughter. We were able to sell our house before the market imploded and the next time we buy it will be with eye toward a safter hood.
House Flipping aint the same as it used to be.