Our house has been for sale for 16 days and it hasn't sold yet. Our realtor tells us to be patient. "It's a buyer's market," she says. Someone should just step up and buy our house. It would be the neighborly thing to do.
Our house is a small ranch house with four bedrooms and one-and-a-half baths. It has a basement where we wash and dry clothes, seek shelter from summer tornadoes, and cool off on hot days. My son's bedroom is down there. It's the biggest one in the house.
We own a big lot. It always took me an hour to mow that thing with your standard self-propelled lawnmower. Great spot for kids. When we moved in, a tire swing hung from the box elder tree. Our daughter loved playing on it. It fell down one miserable winter night. By then, my daughter had grown and lost interest. We used to host a Fourth of July bocce party. A bocce purist would have found our rules quaint or just plain wrong. Nobody ever got mad at a close call due to the ref being my very intimidating 5-foot-2 wife. When the kids were teens, they inevitably traveled to FireworksLand just south of town. They brought back rockets as big as the Saturn 5 which we let them illegally launch. We hoped they wouldn't burn down our neighbor's shed. They didn't.
We worked all winter and spring whipping the house into shape. I'm partially disabled and use a walker so I could beg off the big projects, ones that involved moving furniture and panting ceilings. I did help my son paint the bathroom, so there's that. I gave a lot of unsolicited advice but it just made my family angry so I stopped when they locked me out of the house.
One thing not mentioned in the real estate ads: we have a full solar array on our roof. It's saved us a lot in the last two years (and it's all paid off). My June bill from Black Hills Energy was 73.62. That all was natural gas, taxes, and fees as we used 194 kWh of electricity and generated 418 kWh. We have 448 available kWh in the bank. We would have a miniscule e-bill if we had an all-electric house which may not have been available in 1960. Each Wyoming Legislative session includes some lamebrain bill to punish solar users. They get defeated. It's a favor to the coal, oil, and gas lobbies who swear that solar will turn us all into communists. I have conducted a non-scientific poll of those who live in this house and no communists thus far. There's only two of us. But still...
I must talk to our realtor on Friday. Why isn't solar advertised with the house's other amenities? I'm curious.
2 comments:
Mike,
Good question on the Solar. Looked at the listing online and says nothing about it. I think one of the 36 pictures shows the solar panels, but nothing mentions it. Very odd. Maybe you agent does not want the coal company mad at her?
Bob
Bob: We had a nice chat with our realtor and gave her some more talking points, primarily the rooftop solar. Our next door neighbors are the only other house in the neighborhood with solar. We also asked her to emphasize the fine location, within walking distance of our very fine greenway and three city parks. Also, the northside boasts good schools. I am not really walking these days but a young family might find these attractive.
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