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Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Quickies: Love In The Age Of Realty
Your Curmudgeon has two friends who've been engaged to one another for half of forever, and who keep putting off their nuptials. Most recently they were scheduled to tie the knot this month, but as of today it's been postponed yet again. No doubt they love one another, and no doubt they'd like to get properly hitched, but there's this one little obstacle they can't seem to overcome.
Let's call him Smith and her Jones. (Not their real names.) They're both white-collar workers. They're both in their early forties. Neither has children; in fact, this would be the first marriage for either of them...if it were ever to occur. They're both pleasant, neither has any atrocious habits or disabling flaws of personality that would render him unfit as a life partner, and your Curmudgeon is quite certain neither of them has "something going on the side."
Except with their real estate holdings, that is.
You see, both own houses. They've come to depend on their houses in many ways. Yes, yes, that's not unknown; the stories of persons who marry in middle life and can't quite fit all their crap into a single household are legion. But Smith and Jones depend on their homes to keep them out of the poorhouse.
It begins with the tax break. Smith has owned his house for nearly twenty years; Jones has owned hers for about fourteen. Both bought during buyers' markets, with the consequence that it would cost either of them more to rent a modest apartment than he pays in mortgage, interest, and property taxes -- and that's exclusive of federal and state income tax deductibility considerations. But it doesn't stop there; both of them rent bedrooms to college students, sub rosa. The income from those rentals washes out Smith's property taxes completely and Jones's almost as well.
Then there are the "sentimental" considerations. Unless you've owned your own home for a significant stretch, these will strike you as irrational. But to your Curmudgeon, who's owned his home for twenty-seven years, they seem quite reasonable.
Finally, there's the question of who gets to move. Shall he join her at her place, or shall she move into his? We're talking about folks with actual lives -- and full closets, attics and basements to prove it. Neither is anxious to notify his tenant that the hour of his eviction is at hand. Neither is anxious to sort through his junk, box all his books, dispose of his furniture and trundle what remains across town to a new depository. And don't suggest that they both sell and buy a third, larger place; your Curmudgeon has already made that mistake, and the scars are just barely closed.
The thirties and forties are those periods when a singleton with some extra income decides to stop waiting for Mr. / Miss / Mx. Right and buy a house. Few singles appreciate the impact on one's marriageability of already owning real estate. It might make you seem attractively stable to potential spouses...for a while. But beware! If you fall in love with someone who owns her own home, your three-bedroom kingdom might come to seem a ball and chain rather than a comfortable retreat from the wider world. Worse, you might just become the subject of a semi-snarky column written by a career crank with a twisted sense of humor, who calls everyone he knows Smith or Jones...though not to their faces, of course.
Comments
The house thing makes perfect sense to me.
One thing that planted a seed of doubt (one among many) in a recent failed relationship was the other party announcing that she would consider getting married and moving in to my house “a nightmare”, because it failed to meet expectations on one or two criteria.
Having owned and lived in the house for 11 years (the longest I’ve lived in any location in my life), and having - literally - built half or more of the house with my own two hands, I naturally looked askance at this pronouncement.
Additionally, as the party who was gainfully employed, and fiscally sophisticated, the idea of paying a 6% commission to sell the house (in the pricey Boston-area market), and then either moving to paying to have moved four ? five? more ? thousand books, and several metric tons of tools and shop supplies, struc me as insane.
I remain in the house.
Posted by TJIC on 12/05/2006 at 09:43 PMThere is, of course, the idea of maintaining both houses, and either alternating time between them, or having them for different purposes (one primarily as home office/home gym, the other for living, or what have you). The thing is, if they wanted to get married badly enough, they’d find a compromise, but I suspect that it’s a case of people revealing their real desires in what they do rather than what they profess. It may simply be that they are too comfortably themselves to add another person permanently, with all the compromises and changes that entails.
Posted by Jeff Medcalf on 12/05/2006 at 11:50 PMThis actually happened to a family member of mine. He and his girlfriend, both divorced owned their own homes, they could never reach an agreement as to which home they would live in. The whole thing became a battle of wills, and eventually the relationship died in part due to the house thing. Granted there were probably deeper issues there, but the house thing was the biggie on the surface.
It was sad really how it happened.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/06/2006 at 12:46 AMFor what it’s worth, my fiancee and I are in a near-ideal situation…I was renting an apartment I didn’t especially like, she owned a house five hours away but nothing here…and she’d recently come into a substantial inheritance. Between her capital and my cash flow we were able to qualify for a mortgage and move to Indiana together.
But the hassles of moving remain. It took me most of September to haul my stuff out of Chicago one carload at a time. She STILL has stuff in Michigan, although her brother has agreed to buy that house from her, and we’re pricing movers now.
We’ve both agreed that once we’re properly settled into the new place (which we both love), WE’RE NEVER MOVING AGAIN! If terrorists nuke Chicago we’ll either die or grow tentacles, but we’re not going through this whole moving nightmare another time no matter what.
Posted by Matt on 12/06/2006 at 03:03 AMMy girlfriend’s house is much nicer than mine, but she doesn’t have room for any of my stuff.
My home is overstuffed, particularly with books and musical instruments.
The bigger sticking point, though, is our respective housekeeping styles - she apologizes for the mess if she has a single box with papers on the floor in her home office, whereas you sometimes have to move books and papers to find a place to sit in mine.
Posted by wheels on 12/06/2006 at 04:10 AM“Except with their real estate holdings, that is. “
Heh. Ah…. love in the 30’s and 40’s.
This sure didn’t happen 100 years ago when people got married at 15.
Still, it does weed out the post graduate ‘dog that don’t hunt’.
But yes, having properties would be alot like having another relationship - s’pecially if there is a mortgage to pay and alot of maintenance (like an old building). The more lucrative the location (for renting, that is..) the harder it is to part with the properties.
The person now has roots in a specific location and can’t move across town (or to another part of the country) just because their spouses career needs to have that happen. So there is another obstacle
...for people who have properties - alot of times thats their nest egg for retirement. Poverty in their old age is a horrible spectre.
So there is definately a major tug of war that goes on in the hearts of people who would have these material investments.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/06/2006 at 07:20 AMI agree with Jeff. Too comfortable indeed. It is sad Heather. Romantic notions of life companions fade (if not dissipate entirely) with age.
For added insight, consider the following cascade:
Money (or possesions) can’t buy happiness?
>>Shrug<<
Close enough.Posted by Pascal (the derivative) on 12/06/2006 at 10:08 AMLooks like there’s something to be said for marrying when you’re young and penniless after all…
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/06/2006 at 10:21 PM
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