Just for fun, I looked up my old house on Zillow the other day. The one in Vancouver, WA (I need to specify since I’m so damn fond of moving). It was new construction in 1995, and my ex and I bought it for $130,000. When we divorced in 2006, we sold it for $249,900 – a 91.3% profit. We were thrilled.
It’s worth quite a bit more today…
Half a million dollars?!
In my mind, that’s a mansion. Not a 30 y/o home in a crowded subdivision governed by an HOA.
It’s hard for me to be objective given the tangle of memories, both good and bad, that are forever attached to the place. But even brand new, it was shoddily built; the contractors obviously cut corners wherever they could. Cheap pipes, inefficient ductwork, poor insulation – and that’s not counting the cursed L-P siding we replaced, to the tune of $17K, after less than ten years. I’ve owned two other houses and a townhome since, and all have been much better quality. The idea that this home could sell for over $500K boggles the mind.
And is a great reminder why we left the Pacific Northwest.
I fell down the Zillow rabbit hole after we went kayaking on Saturday. Paddling around 1,365-acre Rock Lake in Lake Mills, we passed dozens of gorgeous homes overlooking the shore – some on steep bluffs, others practically at the water’s edge. One of the houses had a For Sale sign, so I looked it up on Zillow. The $1.1 million asking price is a little more than we can swing (in this lifetime or the next). Dare to dream though. I would love to own a house on a lake.
It was a hot and muggy day, and we hadn’t been kayaking in close to a year, so it felt great to get out on the water. But holy cow, we should have eased back in, because we traveled across 2/3 of the lake and were out there for almost three hours. Needless to say, we were pretty tired afterward.
You know what cures fatigue? Tropical drinks, chips and salsa, and ’80s cover bands.
We balanced our kayak adventure by hanging out at Island Bar & Grill for a good four hours, heat and humidity be damned. I’ve mentioned this place a few times recently. It’s becoming our go-to; you can’t beat the location, right on the Rock River, or the patio and tiki bar. Though the experience is a little different in the middle of winter.
It had been a long day, but we were home by 6:30, a fairly reasonable hour. Good timing, too; strong thunderstorms rolled in a couple of hours later and lasted, off and on, until after midnight.
More storms this morning woke me up shortly after 6 a.m. But I’d crashed early last night, and had to get a Puerto Rican pork shoulder going on the Traeger early, so I wasn’t too upset about nature’s wake-up call.
Mark My Words 
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