A Real Bargain

161 Crawford Road
Downingtown, PA

This is our former home in Downingtown, PA.  It is located in East Brandywine Township, four miles outside of Downingtown, on 6.875 acres of a wooded hillside.  Bill and I brought the land in 1976 and had the house custom built to our specifications in 1980.  In the twenty-five years we lived there we added many additions, like the sun room (see picture above), brick terrace, and extensive landscaping and three ponds filled with goldfish.

Because I couldn't keep up with the ever increasing Pennsylvania school taxes and the other county taxes which were rising at the rate of 20 to 25% a year, I put the house up for sale in January of 2006 for $695,000.  Four days later I had an offer of $640,000 which I laughed at and refused much to my later regret because this was the beginning of the downtown of the housing market.

I eventually sold the house for $500,000 in November of 2006 and moved to our newly built house here in Delaware (where I am typing this blog from).

The new owners of our old home (a couple from Florida with two young daughters) bought our house at the great bargain of $500,000 and promptly refinanced it for $567,000, thus netting a tidy profit. I had sold the house for less than its value just to stop the pain of carrying two mortgages.

The new owner upgraded the house by putting in a new master bath and finished off the room above the garage for a home office.

For whatever reason, he could no longer keep up the monthly mortgage payment (I think there was a family discord but I don't know that for sure), so he simply abandoned the property in early 2009.  The property has been sitting vacant for almost two years now.

All of my lovingly planted shrubbery was left to grow and grow.  The ponds fell into stagnation.  I don't even want to think what happened to all the happy fish who used to reproduce in those ponds.  That was one of my problems, what to do with all the fish I was producing.

Last August the house went into foreclosure.  It was auctioned off.  I don't know who the new owners are but I do know they have been trying to sell it for the past six months.  They are selling it "as is."  Well, let me tell you the "as is" just means the grounds were let go.  No leaves were raked, no branches picked up, no shrubs trimmed.  The inside of the house is just as solid as we left it, even more so because I put in many upgrades, including $4,700 for all new top of the line granite counter tops in the kitchen (what was I thinking)?

The past few months Bill and I have been watching the price of our former paradise (which Bill still loves) go down and down.  Here is the latest price:

Folks,                         THIS IS A BARGAIN!

 $379,900?  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

If I had the money (which I don't) I would buy this in a snap!  I'm playing the lottery.  Maybe lightening will strike and I'll win the BIG BUCKS!  Then I would make Bill's dream come true, he could go back home to the place he has never stopped loving.  

Bill sitting on the terrace he built late August 2006, a few months before we moved to Delaware

Hump Day

The day started out quiet enough. I decided to take advantage of the early morning cool temperatures and bake a couple of dishes. One was zucchini boats and the other was a cornbread casserole. We had dinner at a friend’s house last week and we just had to have that recipe. I sound like the beginning of the song “MacArthur Park.” Whatever happened to Richard Harris’s singing career anyway?

Bill came back from Lowe’s and wasn’t too pleased that I had heated up the kitchen. His solution was to open the oven door to let the heat escape. It old him there was a fan in the oven that cooled off the oven but Bill dismissed that outright. So we heated up the kitchen some more while he “cooled off” the oven.

It wasn’t too long before this quiet hump day turned into something else. My boss called me and asked if I could come into work this evening. Monica, the assistant manager who was scheduled for tonight, has food poisoning. I checked my calendar (like I have a full dance card) and I found that I was free. So I’m going in tonight plus Friday and Saturday on the 7 am to 3 am shift. When I applied for this hotel front desk job I said I was flexible and would be available on short notice for emergencies and to fill in when my co-workers needed time off for vacation or other activities. When I worked at the Hampton Inn in Lionville, PA I was frequently called on to fill in for my co-workers. I don’t mind and in fact like this kind of work schedule. I just don’t want to work full time, five days a week, 50 weeks a year. I like this “fireman” type of job in which I’m called on in emergencies.

After heating up the first floor of the house I retreated to my home office and got caught up on reconciling my bank accounts and paying bills. There are always bills to pay. When I see all the bills for the services that are necessary to keep this small modest household going (without children or pets), I often wonder “How did our ancestors manage?” Plant some corn and can up some vegetables and fruit for the winter and use an outhouse. It always amazes me the high cost of maintaining a basic lifestyle these days. And of course, the bills keep going up while my income goes down. This is called “The Squeeze.” I am so thankful that I have a job that I like and I get paid well.

While I was paying my bills this morning, I heard my Westminster chimes doorbell go “bong, bong.” My neighbor Shannon was at the door. She was with her adorable little baby, Rylie. As I opened my front door I could feel the heat and humidity rush in. Shannon wanted to ask me if we were having trouble with our air conditioner unit. We weren’t. She said hers had conked out and they were quoted $1,600 for repairs. And it make matters even worse, their air conditioner wouldn’t be operative until next week. Her husband works the night shift at the local hospital and sleeps during the day. What we call the “Vampire Shift.” I used to work that shift as a night auditor at the Hampton Inn in PA. I hated it. She said he has to sleep downstairs in his office because it’s too hot in his second floor bedroom. I would think so.

Shannon’s concern was that the houses we live in this development (Ryan Homes) are only four years old. She said some of the other neighbors are having similar problems with their air conditioning units. Thank God we don’t have a problem with ours, yet. She brought up a good point, these air conditioning units should last longer than four years. At our previous house in Pennsylvania, our air conditioning unit was twenty five years old. Something doesn’t seem right here.

We talked for a bit. I told her of my initial problems when I first moved in here and the toilets didn’t flush all the way. I called about it and was told that they were “short flush toilets.” Well, that’s all good and well but I needed the toilets to FLUSH ALL THE WAY. I did get that problem resolved after some back and forth. Since then I’ve had a few minor problems but nothing major like the neighbors on either side of me. My other neighbor had horrendous problems with his heat pump when he first moved in. He was receiving $900 monthly electric bills because his heat pump was running continually. He finally got that resolved and the builder reimbursed him for his electric bills.

So now I'm back at my computer updating my blog before I eat and take a nap prior to going in to face tonight's guests at the hotel. "No we don't have a pool and yes, breakfast does come with the room." I can say this mantra in my sleep.

To quote Mr. Rogers, “Just another day in the neighborhood.”

Another Day Ends

As I was getting ready for my daily walk at the end of the day, I looked to the for horizon and saw this wonderful sight of the sun shining rays through the clouds. That's what I love about living where I do, out in the open. In Pennsylvania I lived in the middle of the woods, which has its advantages but one of the big disadvantages was that I never saw a sunset. Oh how I missed seeing sunsets. For the twenty five years I lived at the Crawford Road property the only way I could see a sunset was through a forest of trees.

What sold me on this property was its position to see sunsets. In November of 2005, as I was leaving Delaware, I stopped at this Ryan Homes development on the east side of Route 1 to check the available properties for sale. At the sales office I saw a corner lot on the map. I asked if I could see it. Jerry, the sales representative, told me how to get to it. It was about 5:30 pm. I had to rush to the lot before it got dark. As I arrived at the lot the sun was just setting. I was sold. The lot was in the perfect location to view sunsets. It was ideal.

I went back to Jerry, borrowed $50 from him to put as a down payment on the lot and thus began one of the greatest trials of my life, selling our home in Pennsylvania and building a new home in Delaware. That story will be a book someday. The whole ordeal of selling our home in Pennsylvania was the most traumatic thing to happen in my life, short of a terminal illness.

Now, three and a half years later, I'm settled in (albeit with a mortgage that won't be paid off until I'm 95 years old) and I'm loving this home. Today, looking at those rays of sun shining through the clouds, was just another verification that I made the right decision. I am supremely happy.