Second Quarter Life Update
Staying Alive and Moving on, 2023 Edition
I’ve been wanting to release more juicy stories of sex, work and shame from the vault of my brain, but then a bunch of events that started in April have sent us packing and I’m still trying to catch my breath and unpack it all.
I’ve been wanting to move for years now. I still love Portland despite it’s reputation so I knew I wanted to stay in the area, but I’ve been in same house since I moved here in 2015. It was never meant to be a forever home, it was the fourth house I put a bid on after three months of active searching and I was tired of living out of a suitcase in a furnished studio. I poured about $225k over the last eight years into that little old house and I certainly improved it (and it now makes me money as a rental) but it always felt cramped, especially with the two of us working from home. I’ve also thought I’d get used to living a hundred yards from a four-lane road that’s really a race track— but either cars and motorcycles have gotten louder and the drivers douchier or I’ve gotten more sensitive to environmental noise as I’ve aged. So I’ve been obsessed with finding a home with newer construction on a quiet street for years. My partner moved in with me in October 2020 and they didn’t want to move out to a new place, which created tension as I threatened to just move out by myself and buy little one bedroom condo for me and make them rent the whole house out (which they couldn’t afford anyway, plus that would be just dumb.) So I was secretly going to open houses in the area for the last few years and I even dragged them along to some. Like Goldilocks trying all the porridges, or Melissa trying to find a partner on OKcupid, there was always a major flaw that made them not quite right— either way were too much of a fixer (that’s the problem with old charming houses, the ones that are in our budget are money pits and I learned this lesson the hard way.) Or It’s a sweet house but near a hella noisy street (I made a promise to never live within a block of a double yellow line road ever again.) Or it’s in an area that’s not very walkable/bike-able to stores or anywhere (I don’t have a car and I like the “urban fabric” of my ‘hood, I hate the sprawling car-centric suburbs.) And the most pervasive flaw: The house is in perfect condition, it’s 3 bedroom, 2 bath with a garage for storage and a little yard. It’s updated with a well-designed space on a quiet walkable street near bike lanes, shops and restaurants. OMG it’s absolutely perfect, I want it I want it I want it! Let’s put a bid in before all these other people at the open house snatch it up! Wait it’s how much? $850k? (ends up selling a month later for 1.2 million.) Queue the wahh wahhhhh trombone sound. Yes, even with Portland’s reputation as a shit show, the market here keeps rising as Bay Area housing veterans like me keep moving here.