Well, today is the day we close on the sale of the house I grew up in. It feels awful to sell a house that's been in my family for almost fifty years. awful, even though it's the best possible conclusion: selling to the renters who have taken very good care of it for ten years. Plus I'm selling in a good market, and when you add ten years of rent on top of what we're getting with an as-is sale, I think even my Dad would approve of my financial decisions.
It's totally possible they turn it around in to their own rental property and then will sell it for double in a year, and that's fine. I know they've painted every possible surface and might not even wait till closing to change the flooring. If things fall through, as they do at closings, then free flooring for me, I guess.
But I doubt that will happen. It will be anticlimactic, and hopefully the market will still be down so the money can be converted to off-price stock, and my late Dad will be even more pleased. Funny, this is the first time since he died in '88 that I have imagined my Dad judging me from the beyond. It's probably the biggest investment I've made, and it stemmed from when he assumed a skimpy $27,000 loan in the '70s.
I wonder why I'm so concerned about my imaginary dead dad being pleased. Why am I not just pleased with myself like a normal person? I suppose it's because I feel guilty trading my history for cash. But cash isn't cash, it's security. It'll keep us in our homes when we're old, I hope.
Plus, it's not like I'm auctioning away a family farm that's been our family's homestead for generations.
So I shouldn't feel guilty, right? But I still do.
guilty or just sad at the end of an era. Sometimes it is very hard to tell the difference.
Posted by: kathy potvin | May 28, 2022 at 08:12 AM
kathy potvin - i think you are right, it was sadness. i say that because I figured out how to feel better about it: remember the bad times. Overall, the time spent there was some of the worst in my life. i felt quite cheery about it all when I realized that.
Posted by: theQueen | May 28, 2022 at 09:07 PM