On the Street Where You Live

“This is the kind of street you can get mugged on.”

My husband no longer talks much and his days of wry observation had appeared to be in the rear view mirror, but as we waited for the realtor outside a home my friend was touring, Bob blurted out the answer to our question.  Was this home worth the money they were asking? My friend had been probing me for an answer on just this topic, but I am growing weary of the searching in a real estate market gone mad.

All of my receptors and Spidey sense are frazzled. It is like being inside of a fun house where up is down and there is no clear way to go. Houses are double the price they were a year ago. The inflation is astounding and anything halfway interesting is gone in no time.

As I sat there looking at an interesting home on my right, my eyes kept going to the poorly maintained wall on my left with chipped slump block and fading paint. On the other side were homes that had not been lovingly renovated and did not have nicely manicured lawns. The street had the feeling of once having been an alley behind the homes just to the south that one day folks decided to do just one more row of homes before the change in feeling. It did feel creepy, but I could not bring myself to voice an opinion. Then Bob piped up with the best description of all.

It was the kind of street on which you ran the risk of a mugging. Easy to hit, grab and run with a nimble enough over the wall into the neighborhood to the north.  The realtor arrived and Bob opted to make the walk into the house rather than sit alone outside as he had at the previous three houses, thus solidifying our decision.

It was a gorgeous redo. The best finishes we had seen in the six weeks of house hunting. The friend, realtor and I oohed and aahed our way through. I could not stop commenting on the wood floors. Then we went into the backyard. It too was untouched just like the neighborhood to the north. The house sat as an anomaly sandwiched between physical danger and a twisted ankle.

As Bob and I walked to the car, he said, “Glad we’re not staying. Let’s go home.” I thought how lucky we are to have a wonderful home that was purchased when housing in Arizona was cheap and not today when even the dicey places are gone in three days.

The right house will show up. I just keep repeating the mantra from an old Spaulding Gray show, “You can change the house, but you can’t change the location. You can change the house, but you can’t change the location.” I think we need to take Bob with us more.