When I was in my 20s, like most of my peers, I was a renter. Renting was, and still is, the usual living status for a twenty something just starting out in the big bad world. Even so, I made the most of it, joyfully decorating my humble little studio apartment in the earth tones of the day using my brand new Broadway credit card. I added some fun touches, like a half wine barrel for an end table, and some stacked orange crates served as a nifty bookcase.
It wasn’t until I was married at age 29 that I became a homeowner. Soon I realized that owning a place elicited a subtle psychological shift in me. I’m a Cancer—one who, according to the astrological profile of my birth month, relishes hearth and home and strives to put down deep roots. I found that home ownership triggered new sensibilities in me. I puttered in our little garden and painted accent walls the colors of Miami Vice. We put up cool 80s wallpaper in the kitchen and placed plastic pink flamingos along the front yard fence, giving the place our own little stamp of identity. A deep sense of pride began to take shape, of claiming something as our own and working hard to keep it looking spiffy. Now I got that whole American Dream thing.
While an apartment dweller, I never knew my neighbors. There just wasn’t any motivation to get to know the people I saw coming and going in the nearby units. People just kept to themselves, heads down, slinking in and out. But as a homeowner, especially since these were new starter homes and populated by young families, we made friends out there in the dirt lots, all trying to figure out how to lay sprinklers while acquiring a new lexicon of palm tree species, as in, “So, are you planting king palms, date palms, or queens?” In fact, all these years later, we are still friends with many of the now older versions of each other.
After only six years our growing family dictated a move, so on to a nice, roomy four-bedroom place we went. That house served us well, with a nice big back yard and plenty of room for the kids’ friends as they, and their friends, grew bigger and bigger over the years. Fast forward through some of life’s more tragic events, and I decided, now on my own, that it was time to sell and just sit tight for awhile, reclaiming my long abandoned renter status.
At first it was great. The family home had become a burden, with the steady drumbeat of umpteen repairs it was just too much house to keep up by myself. This renter thing felt so freeing, to not have to worry if the water heater goes out or the dishwasher blows up. It felt like a breath of fresh air, having that weight of responsibility off my back.
But eventually I began to have a change of heart. A sense of unease began to seep in about renting—something that was not a feature of my 20s renting stint. Years of being a homeowner taught me about the tax benefits, the sense of security, and the investment aspects of owning a home. Once one knows these benefits they can’t unknow them. I didn’t like feeling so vulnerable, where a landlord could just raise my rent willy nilly, or might sell the condo I was renting right out from under me. I imagined being 75 years old and paying $5000/month by then, ugh! I started feeling uneasy about not having control over my domicile, and began to regularly curse the worn out carpet that I had to live with as a renter.
So, one day about 4 or 5 months ago, I tallied up how much money I had thrown down the rat hole by renting for 2 ½ years. Good Lord! Talk about a wake up call. Why was I sitting here paying off someone else’s mortgage? Real estate prices were starting to get away from my humble shopping range so I decided it was time to put down some roots again before I was priced out.
I began the house shopping drudgery, a necessary evil that seriously left me feeling nauseous after viewing some of the places for sale. It is mind-blowing how much it costs to buy a humble abode in my neck of the woods. I don’t know how my kids can ever afford to buy a home in Orange County at these prices. No wonder so many are bailing and moving to Texas, Arizona, Nevada—states where it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to put a roof over your head. As for me, I am eternally grateful that I was able to get back in.
I am now, once again, a mortgage-strapped homeowner and it makes me so happy! I ended up finding a cute two-bedroom townhouse in the very same complex I had been renting in, and where I had made several new friends. After completing a few renovations to make the place my own (unleashed all that pent up decorator desire from watching too many HGTV home “reno” shows), I now get up every morning and just smile. I feel relief, having arrested my housing nut with a 30 year fixed, and once again get to experience that awesome sense of pride that comes with home ownership and investing your hard earned money into your place instead of someone else’s.
Sure, owning a home comes with its own bag of problems and stressors, which is why lots of people prefer renting. Freedom to relocate on a whim, freedom from repair bills, and freedom from property taxes—hey, I get that! But now that I have recently experienced both renting and owning back-to-back I can honestly say that, for me anyway, there is no place like hearth and homeownership.