Today we did something different and went out looking at homes for sale. That’s right, places to buy, as well as rent.
No, we don’t have a million bucks. Steady income and a lot of nerve is more like it. But nothing has turned up yet that works at all, and I want to cast the widest possible net. We’re working with a realtor, too, so this could turn serious. Mainly, though, we’re trying to stir things up, bring the quantum soup to a boil. Just driving by brings ME to a boil, I tell you what. This morning we saw seven houses, or rather six: the seventh I rejected unseen after 200 yards of heading down a dirt road we were supposed to take for a whole bumpy mile. All I can say is, if someone wants to sell you a house in the “West Mesa area,” run like hell! (Nearby Lower Colonias is an acquired taste too, like chewing glass.)
I want this to stand out:
Have you ever seen a post-apocalyptic Mad Max compound consisting of a semi-circle of trailers parked end to end, joined with a series of decks? Now imagine this without a scrap of vegetation, fronting a huge parking area filled with living and dead vehicles in varying states of decay. Make sure the surroundings are a dead ringer for the most desolate, scary, Southwestern vampire goth flick you ever saw or heard about, and THEN pretend someone wants you to drive past whole territories like this (on a gravel road) before you get to a brand new, unlived-in house that’s going for $xxxK and cost a lot more before they took it off the market last year… I’m sorry. I feel for these people. It looks like a beautiful place in the photos, and it’s obviously custom-built for a particular party — maybe someone died or got divorced — but now it’s a spec house in high desert purgatory. Too bad.
I hope they sell it, actually. After all, the neighborhood might improve beyond where I turned around. It just wasn’t for us. For one thing, I’d need tattoos and a brace of pit bulls, and I really have had my fill of roads that turn impassable for weeks on end. But it wasn’t completely terrible, our little tour. Two houses out of the seven were at least okay, although I won’t miss a wink of sleep if I never see either again.
Here’s something else to think about: one of these offerings had been on the market for 460 days (!), another 322, then 260, 105, and so on. Of those, at least three had been on the market back in 2007, never sold, and were taken off before relisting. There was at least one price reduction between listings of $65K, but of course the house was still way too much. (How DO they take those trailers out of the virtual tour videos??) All this in Taos, New Mexico, an end-destination tourist town where you “can’t go wrong” by buying real estate. Ha-ha. Better watch your step, is all I can say.
My heart really goes out to the owner(s) of the tiny “house with studio” we saw in Lower Colonias, sitting bravely behind a little gate on a dusty “we hate ourselves so much, they stuck us here” hilltop with no landscaping but a magnificent view that only makes you realize how much your place sucks. Besides that, you have to get $300K for it because you refinanced seven times in three years to buy the SUV and pay medical bills, and in a few months the agent will say you have to cut the price again. I can just imagine. But those kinds of places just aren’t really even worth that much. Intrinsically, they’re just not that valuable. I wouldn’t pay $50K for the house we saw, and I’d want a stipend to live there at all.
I can just tell, though: “Let’s buy this lot and build a little place. It’ll be a great investment, I can be an artist, and in a few years, we’ll sell out and buy that ranch in Colorado!”
[sigh]
Except your husband lost his job, or you finally realized that you really moved to Taos (pretty much the same thing), and while you did your best to carry on, an avenging God rained doublewides down upon the land. A vista of aluminum and firewood piles, egad! When we turned around in the driveway, I saw anxious eyes peer out from behind a curtained window… (Are they stopping? Do they want to come in??) Man oh man, have I ever been there, and how the memory smells like fear.
We can do better than that, and for the moment, forget the hacienda trip. My next message-in-a-bottle is for just a studio to buy, and it doesn’t even have to be a house. If it works for the pianos and my sweetie loves it, why not? She certainly deserves it. Either that, or buy a piece of land, THEN build a studio. Hah!
Eyes wide open here. Life is good.
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
You’re tracking a prey elusive in the extreme but of utmost importance to us human creatures at all times and in all places. Shelter, hearth, home – Heimat. The Romans held the gods of the household – Lars and Penates – in higher esteem than even the cloud-dwelling Olympians. These gods were nearer and realer. What’s more important than a place to sleep, to make love or have a good smoke? A retreat from public scrutiny and public stupidity? A lair for the dreaming of dreams and a clubhouse for the carousal of friends?
I have always ended up inhabiting a house whose character and existence I wouldn’t have predicted. The despair of the search was seemingly terminal when the thing suddenly impinged: “Take me, I’m yours.” That was the easy part. Then came the years of scraping, painting, fixing, not to mention the suffering, raging and swearing, until just about every surface was indeed mine. As were also all the aforesaid human experiences of love and hate within the walls of the place, supplying the lacquer of memory.
I make a confident prediction, my friend: A place near to your heart awaits you. Good hunting!
Thank you for your prediction!
I hear you on the house thing. I certainly appreciate your own experience, too. I tend to be less romantic about houses, though. We moved over 40 times before I graduated from high school — during the four years we lived in Abilene, we changed residence five times! — and in the nine years spent in Taos, we’ve had … SIX moves! I’m probably forgetting some. I’ve left out all the personal moves in between those extremes, but there are a great many of them.
Right now, though, it really is important. I don’t care if we own or rent, either, although I’d prefer to own. In my lifetime I’ve had some perfectly splendid rental situations. Most were covered by other adjectives, but what can you do. Anyhow, the importance of the moment has to do with giving my wife and me some kind of ground beneath our feet. That we’re both ready to work together and get on with our lives here in Taos is rather extraordinary, after all we’ve been through, and considering the very strong ties my wife especially still has with more “normal” parts of the country.
So we need a place, yes. And she needs that studio.
I guess we will look places other than the west mesa when we start looking to buy, yes? However – what about an earthship John? No utility bills, great views….
Well, remember I’m not a realtor. I’m just a struggling human with distinct prejudices and a helluva lot of bias. The West Mesa area is a vast swath of sagebrush that’s been open to “development” for a number of years, and remember that in this part of the world, zoning doesn’t really exist. But google “west mesa + taos” and you’ll learn a lot.
As for earthships, I’ve never been in one. They are however reputed to be somewhat humid inside due to reduced ventilation from being so tightly closed — if you move the warm air out, there goes your heat. You’d want to find a good one, then. Personally, I never wanted to live where most earthships are located, but you can find them all over.
We interupt the FarrReport with this :
A Field Guide to Seattle’s Ugliest Houses
The FAR Monster, The Encroacher, The Green Zone
Special and other species ruining your neighborhood.
By Brian Miller
http://www.seattleweekly.com/2008-04-02/news/seattle-s-ugliest-homes.php
Yea, the humidity could be an issue – that and every member of my family thinking we have lost our minds. We will have the same adventure as you soon John – our move is planned for June.
I love reading “in advance” of the things we will be going through in no-time…
that and every member of my family thinking we have lost our minds
Well, you probably are going to have to face two facts: first, that you may very well have “lost your minds” by any conventional definition, and second, that it’s OK if you have…
Why? This is LIFE! It’s not a game we play to win, because you can’t take it with you, and everybody “loses” in the end. The question therefore becomes — for some of us — what is the true essential nature of this experience? So-called normal thinking (and “safety”) does not allow for such investigation. It simply doesn’t. Also, need I mention, one can’t measure what’s sensible based on conventional wisdom, as Western civilization is certifiably insane. Expect plenty of blow-back from those with a stake in the current house of cards, too: such people have an extremely low tolerance for implied criticism.
No matter what happens, you will be surprised. And I could no more go back to my old life than I could grow a second head. I wouldn’t want to, either. The man I was 10 years ago doesn’t exist any more. We tried to go back after just a year and a half, and the resulting relationship hell lasted for several years. In many ways, however, we’re much better off now than ever before, but I don’t mean financially.
That’s what we are shooting for John – we know we don’t belong here and we know we don’t belong back east. We are simply people who love the outdoors, love the slow life, have the need to simplify, and feel the calling of New Mexico each time we went. We are on our way…
Thanks for the thoughts!
David, as I’ve said before, I do think you’re onto something there. From everything you say, I judge you excellent candidates for this adventure… (which is more than anyone ever said to ME, I’d like to point out to the world in general)…
The #1 reason I wanted to come out here was to be in a place where nature dominated man, and not the other way around. You sound like you’re coming from a similar place in your heart, so go for it.
Johannes, the life you depict in your writings always seems to me identifiably that of an American male of a certain age and certain temperament. It never seems odd. I would even call it normal except that no life looked at close (and you do a lot of close looking at yourself) is ever entirely normal. In the fifties, when you and I were growing up, there may still have been norms. We round pegs were pounded hard into the square holes of a culture that was still recovering from war and depression. All that came to an end sometime around 1967. Now trends and styles come and go, replacing each other with startling rapidity. But there are no norms. In sexual conduct? In religious belief? In dress or hairstyle or books read or music listened to or occupations followed? –Surely not. Yet the basics remain – the need for food and shelter, for self-expression and self-respect, for love and friendship and joy in work and leisure. Those practical realities are always with us. Even the most unconventional life is full of them. In a close reading of the collected works of J.H. Farr I find all these things, mutatis mutandis and transcribed to New Mexico. I for one am convinced that, extracted from the mud, with a proper home for the baby grand, and that nifty set of new wheels, you are bound to achieve your apotheosis in that beautiful and harsh landscape. Hurrah for Farr!
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