People are categorized several ways. Gender. Race. Religion. Political affiliations. Socio-economical classes. And so on. There's one categorization that remains untapped. Call it the Gypsy Paradigm. There are two classes with this Paradigm: Nesters and Fly-by-Nighters. Generally, women are nesters; men are fly-by-nighters. Thus why I call it Gypsy. Gypsies are known to move from town to town and only settle for short periods of time in anyone location.
Like birds, Nesters fly into a tree and declare it their home. They build a nest; raise their eggs and when the baby birds leave, eventually grow old, fall out of the tree and become cat food. Women tend to be more like this. They want to set-up a home, have a family, grandchildren, grow old (outlive their spouse) and then die.
Fly-by-nighters tend to fly from tree to tree, limb to limb, branch to branch and yes, nest to nest. They tend to hit it and quit it and leave no forwarding address. Men are typical of this behavior. We always joke when people ask us about how many children we have. The answer is always the standard, "{Insert number}, that I know of". We are famous for that. Women know how many kids they have. They were there, albeit sometimes only semi-conscious, but there all the same.
Ask any man about his "castle". He might correct you with it's his wife's house and not his castle. The concept of man and his castle went out of fashion five to seven centuries ago. Ask a woman. Her reply is it's her home. Sometimes you might find one that says it's our home when her spouse is present. Let's face it. The house is always hers. In a divorce, the majority of the time the house goes to the wife. Homes are people nests. And nests for the most part are guarded by the female.
Woman placate or pacify us by allowing us a room. Our man cave. I could never live with my girlfriend. There's no available room for a man cave in her house. The cats have the big room off the family room. The dog has the run of the rest of the house and my half of what would be the marital or co-habitable bed. And she would never live in Philadelphia.
I have come to the stark realization that I am no nester.
What brings me to this revelation? Thanks for asking. Two words: Home Repair.
Fifteen years ago I got the idea in my head to purchase a home. Not a manly think to do as I've described above. Five years later I sold it for nearly no profit. I purchased another home right away. Ten years have gone by and I realized that I must have been out of my blanking mind. Why?
Let's see.
Ten years ago houses were a commodity. It was a seller's market. People were outbidding each other on houses for far more than those houses will ever appreciate. Thus, why a few years later there were so many defaulted mortgages and repossessions. I was lucky. I did not pay far more than what the house was worth. Just a little more than what it was worth. Okay. No big deal. Again, not really a nester, but I did allow myself to fall into that trap for a second time. I planned on giving it ten years and then move on. Ten years should be enough to gain some equity and value. Wrong.
Over the ten years I slowly threw in nearly 50% of the purchase price to get this property updated to the latter 20th century. Improvements have not been made since the 1970s. If you were into retro-slum, you would have loved this house. I did not. During the first five years of my Philly home ownership, the market took a dive and my home became valued less than what I owed. I don't think the improvements were taken into consideration. I started receiving mailings from re-financiers to lower my mortgage payment by refinancing even though my home is worth less than what I owe. These financiers tend to lump together all homes from the same neighborhoods regardless. Comparing my home to others on my block or even in a four block radius, my home is the flipping Taj Mahal.
Like birds, Nesters fly into a tree and declare it their home. They build a nest; raise their eggs and when the baby birds leave, eventually grow old, fall out of the tree and become cat food. Women tend to be more like this. They want to set-up a home, have a family, grandchildren, grow old (outlive their spouse) and then die.
Fly-by-nighters tend to fly from tree to tree, limb to limb, branch to branch and yes, nest to nest. They tend to hit it and quit it and leave no forwarding address. Men are typical of this behavior. We always joke when people ask us about how many children we have. The answer is always the standard, "{Insert number}, that I know of". We are famous for that. Women know how many kids they have. They were there, albeit sometimes only semi-conscious, but there all the same.
Ask any man about his "castle". He might correct you with it's his wife's house and not his castle. The concept of man and his castle went out of fashion five to seven centuries ago. Ask a woman. Her reply is it's her home. Sometimes you might find one that says it's our home when her spouse is present. Let's face it. The house is always hers. In a divorce, the majority of the time the house goes to the wife. Homes are people nests. And nests for the most part are guarded by the female.
Woman placate or pacify us by allowing us a room. Our man cave. I could never live with my girlfriend. There's no available room for a man cave in her house. The cats have the big room off the family room. The dog has the run of the rest of the house and my half of what would be the marital or co-habitable bed. And she would never live in Philadelphia.
I have come to the stark realization that I am no nester.
What brings me to this revelation? Thanks for asking. Two words: Home Repair.
Fifteen years ago I got the idea in my head to purchase a home. Not a manly think to do as I've described above. Five years later I sold it for nearly no profit. I purchased another home right away. Ten years have gone by and I realized that I must have been out of my blanking mind. Why?
Let's see.
Ten years ago houses were a commodity. It was a seller's market. People were outbidding each other on houses for far more than those houses will ever appreciate. Thus, why a few years later there were so many defaulted mortgages and repossessions. I was lucky. I did not pay far more than what the house was worth. Just a little more than what it was worth. Okay. No big deal. Again, not really a nester, but I did allow myself to fall into that trap for a second time. I planned on giving it ten years and then move on. Ten years should be enough to gain some equity and value. Wrong.
Over the ten years I slowly threw in nearly 50% of the purchase price to get this property updated to the latter 20th century. Improvements have not been made since the 1970s. If you were into retro-slum, you would have loved this house. I did not. During the first five years of my Philly home ownership, the market took a dive and my home became valued less than what I owed. I don't think the improvements were taken into consideration. I started receiving mailings from re-financiers to lower my mortgage payment by refinancing even though my home is worth less than what I owe. These financiers tend to lump together all homes from the same neighborhoods regardless. Comparing my home to others on my block or even in a four block radius, my home is the flipping Taj Mahal.
I decided enough was enough. I was tired of being a nester. Before the neighborhood slides into total hell, I was going to sell. I swore I was not going to spend any more money on this money pit. Well, that didn't last long.
Once I looked over the property I noticed that there were some things, even when sold, I would be responsible for to repair to satisfy an inspection. I dropped another Grand on concrete wall repair in the basement and the removal of the no longer needed wall air conditioner and repair of the wall in the dining room. (I paid $6k for a new heating and central A/C unit seven years ago.)
Like the snowball rolling down the hill growing as it gathers more snow aiming straight to the ski lodge below, I must stop it. That is, the outflow of money. I need to paint part of the wall and attach the matching border over the repaired area. (Ten years ago we painted the dining room in a two-tone light over dark separated by a Fleur de lis-like border about waist high.) I must do this by as little money, time and effort as possible. Well, needless to say, after ten years, I can't find the extra border I purchased. It hides surreptitiously in the basement. I decided to enlist the advice of my real estate agent. If anyone knows what home improvements should be done, she would. I told her of my predicament. She told me to remove the rail border and paint the whole room one light color. Well, so much for cheaping it out. That's a no-go.
$100 later, I've picked up enough paint and supplies to redo the dining room and the second part of this project: paint the garage and laundry room walls. (That's where the other repairs were made.) I am taking a break to write this as I have completed step 1 - removing the old border and dusting down the walls. Step 2 will be taping off and cutting around baseboards, ceiling and windows. Step 3 is the Mac-Daddy, painting the room. Ugh!
When I'd rather be taking wing like the Fly-by-Nighter that I am, I will be working the weekend trying to refurbish my nest to someday pass it on to another nester instead. Breaks over. It's back to work.
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