Buyer's Market
November 26th, 2023
(note: this is the first installment in a writing project about my wife and I's adventures in real estate. TikTok just isn't in my wheelhouse. Maybe it will be, but for now, I'll write.)
Six years ago, I decided that enough was enough. I was tired of worrying about money all the time. Tired of the cycle of bills that seemed to stretch us every month. Whatever it was that I was doing, it wasn’t enough.
And what I was doing was teaching. And I was tired of being broke.
So, what to do? Listen, I’m not one to rabble-rouse. I’ve been a due-paying union member for an awfully long time and I never took much faith in the pay gains we could make in marching on the Statehouse (all the respect in the world to my colleagues that do.) I was disenchanted with the paltry pay increases that never amounted to any real change in my family's cash flow. I decided that for us, our cash problems were going to be solved in other ways.
I didn’t know what those ways were, and I still don’t, but the greatest asset that teachers have is time. We are contracted to teach half of the days in the year. Summer is the universe's gift that allows us to do something else…. anything else. For a long time, what I did during the summers was mostly hedonistic. The result was a lot of weight gain during summer.
The bottom line is that I just started applying that time towards other goals that happen to pay. I’ve facilitated professional development for other teachers and still do. I wrote a full- length (as of yet unpublished) book. I’ve developed a fondness for selling stuff we no longer need. I’ve blogged dozens of articles and even got paid for some of them. I toyed with landscaping and lawn care. I’ve even made a few bucks playing music.
My life took on a new focus in the form of the house across the street. An elderly woman lived there from before our time in the neighborhood and it became apparent that she had passed away from the comings and goings of relatives into and out of the house. One day I saw one of the daughters wrestling a lawn mower out of the back of her Camaro. I decided to offer to help with the lawn while they handled the emptying of the house.
One day she invited me in to see the place. It had all of the hallmarks of a home lived in for a long time with little to no upgrades: shag carpet, ancient appliances and mechanicals, lots of cracks in the plaster. In other words, oodles of potential.
The moment that I decided to ask her about buying the house was the beginning of a life project that I reckon will never end. It was the first big “take charge” moment in my adult life. I felt that I had the power to act on "enough is enough." Somehow, I felt awareness in that very moment that this was the beginning of a journey that would not only shape my future, but would also ignite an entrepreneurial spirit that I didn’t know I had.
I still teach. And I still love it. But I have decided that the compensation provided in dollars will never rise to the level of true professional pay and I am not going to rely on politicians and societal change to be less stressed about money. I'll continue to teach as long as I can without compromising my family's future. But this new life project will only grow, I am certain of that. And I will need to allow it to do so, because enough is enough.
Floods, termites, haunted shoes. More 0% APR credit cards than I would care to acknowledge. Late-night alarm clocks to apply coats of polyurethane. Harrowing experiences on tall ladders. Birds evicted from attic and asbestos floor tiles. Filthy carpets. Leaks. Theft. Rodents. So much plaster smashing. So many splinters. Electrical shocks. Clogged gutters and miserable hours in crawlspaces and attics. Tool failure. Indecisive, rude, and demanding buyers. But also, innumerable new skills learned. New friends and allies in the real estate and home repair and renovation worlds. And most importantly of all, a new focus for my wife and invaluable teammate, and I.
Megan and I have become a team out of necessity, what with my lacking the organizational skills to manage the bills and a limited eye for style and she with limited tool experience. We have a cast of others including our three sons, who have pulled more carpet staples than they'd care to admit and have schlepped literal tons of building materials here and there (and after all, it's their college tuition all this work is paying for.) We've all gained skills beyond what we could have possibly envisioned. More importantly, we've gained the confidence to march into the unknown scary world of financial commitment where failure is, frankly, too expensive for us.
To be continued...("First Things First: Rip Out the Carpet")