It’s almost January 1, which means not just the beginning of the year, but also the month that I plan to resume my condo hunt. When I started the search over the summer, I was real excited about it, in the same way I get excited about most every other new thing in my life. But damn, this article in Sunday’s Boston Globe sure does make the process seem a lot less fun than it was over the summer.
Over the past two months, I’ve been in touch with my building management company a couple times about the increase, not just in noise, but in the lack of respect for neighbors in my building.
First there was the flute and violin playing next door, then there were the doors constantly being propped open, and then there were the parties two weekends in a row where college students would hang out right outside the front door of the building until early hours of the morning, talking loudly and smoking.
And it’s not that I have a problem with them smoking, per se, it’s just that the weather was nice those nights and my windows were open, and the smell of the cigarettes wafted up to my apartment.
And worse, on Columbus Day, I left the building and found all kinds of trash — cigarette butts, empty cigarette boxes, crushed cans of beer — in the flowerbeds outside the front door. Continue reading
I knew I hated September 1, but I forgot just how much.
Luckily, for the past few years, I’ve been able to avoid all the chaos of moving day. But today it seems like it’s everywhere.
All down my street there are moving trucks and trash piles on the sidewalk.
People are packing up and leaving my building (and few people are moving in, it seems). And worse, I actually had to go into the belly of the beast, into Allston, where my new landlord‘s office is. Continue reading
To paraphrase the oft-quoted line from The Godfather: Part III, “Just when I thought I was moving out, they pull me back in.”
Or, as Effie White sings in Dreamgirls, “And I am telling you, I’m not going.”
I could keep quoting movie lines, but the fact remains: I’m not moving. At least not yet.
Today I reached an agreement with my new landlord to stay in my current apartment until at least the end of March. They wouldn’t let me go month-to-month or sign a six-month lease.
So, my condo search is on hold for a while. Continue reading
Everyone has their favorite way of marking when seasons change. For example, does summer end on Labor Day? On September 1? On September 21? On Rosh Hashannah? When baseball season ends? When the Red Sox’ season ends? When football season begins? When the new TV season begins? Well, if you look around, you may see signs that summer is coming to a close are all around.
One of the biggest is that the gate to the parking lot at the Allston Shaw’s on Comm Ave. is now closed and you need to get a ticket before entering. When the college kids leave town, Shaw’s opens the gate permanently and laxes the restrictions on parking in the lot. But the gate going down means the students are returning. And sure enough, there were plenty of them all over Shaw’s Sunday night. Ugh. It means do your grocery shopping earlier (by all means, before 4pm on Sundays). It means the streets and the T are going to get more crowded. It means … summer is ending soon.
Another is my annual excursion with Dave and Scott (and their families) to Rye Playland and T.G.I. Friday’s. We started doing it back in 1992 before we (and five other friends) left for college, and we’ve made it a tradition to go sometime in August every year. This past Saturday we rode the Dragon Coaster and all the other rides for the 16th straight year. (Sixteen!) Amazing, I thought, that we’ve been going there that long and the park is basically exactly the same as it was when we first started going. It means people still enjoy an old-fashioned good time. It means Dave, Scott, and I are all still in touch. And it also means … summer is ending soon.
And then there’s the whole moving thing. My apartment building is emptying out. It’s largely because of the excessive increase in rent, and I’ve heard that come September 1, the place will only be about half full. That’s crazy. My across-the-hall neighbor is gone (bummer). My next-door neighbor (the loud one I don’t like) is gone (woo hoo!). Who knows who’s moving in (or when I’ll be moving out as well), but it means the place is going to be quieter for a little while. It means I have a better chance of doing my laundry whenever I want (for at least a couple weeks). It means soon there may be new people moving in — here and in other buildings all across the city. It means … summer is ending soon.
But living in Boston, I choose to go with the Head of the Charles as my marker for the end of summer. After all, the season starts late so it should end late too, and while the temperatures do get cooler in late September and early October, there’s always at least one weekend where we get a last gasp of warm weather. It means there’s still plenty to look forward to. It means there’s no need to worry. It means … summer isn’t ending just yet.
Well that didn’t take too long, did it?
Just a little more than a month into my Great Big Buying Real Estate Adventure and I’m already frustrated and getting tired of the whole thing. And it’s not some Gemini, easily-distracted, novelty-is-over thing. It’s that after a few weeks of going to open houses, and two weeks of one of my brokers flaking out on me, and attending a disappointing first-time home buyer seminar, and just the general unappealing inventory of apartments I’ve seen, the prospect of buying a condo seems less exciting to me than it did a few weeks back. Alright, maybe that’s not entirely true. I do still sorta enjoy going from apartment to apartment on Sundays, seeing other people’s places, and soaking in the whole “real estate porn” aspect of it all. But when all you see are nice places that are too small, or big places that aren’t very nice, well, it gets a bit tiresome.
The way I see it, and I know this isn’t a unique P.O.V., is if I’m going to buy a place — make the investment, put down roots, call a place “mine,” etc. — then I figure I should, at the very least, upgrade from what I have now. And I have a pretty nice place now. Sure, it’s lacking in kitchen counter space, but it’s got plenty of sunlight, a ton of closet space, a built-in air conditioning unit, a super location, and enough living space that I never really get stir crazy hanging out here. So you can see why I’ve stayed for five and a half years. Places I’ve seen so far, a handful have had nice kitchens (something I want), but were basement units or were too small. Others were spacious, but really old. (One I saw on Sunday had, among other undesirable features, an a/c unit from the 50s, and what looked like formica cabinets in the kitchen. I like the prospect of a fixer-upper, but that was a little much.) Basically, each week I feel like I’m just seeing more of the same.
And the first-time home buyer seminar that I attended last week didn’t really help me to focus my search. Sure, I learned some stuff, but I didn’t love the sales pitchiness of it all. And I haven’t appreciated that one of the brokers I’ve been working with has now, for two weeks straight, told me he was going to show me apartments and then couldn’t get access to a single one. I thought people were desperate to sell? And then there’s the whole thing, as reported in yesterday’s Boston Globe, where apparently, it’s becoming a landlord’s market again and higher rents are becoming the norm (as is the case in my own building). Makes me increasingly want to own rather than continue to rent.
So these are just some of the reasons I find myself drawn to places like this one in Watertown. Do I want to live way out there? Not really. Do I want to get to work by taking a bus to a bus, or a bus to the commuter rail to the subway? Not at all. Do I want an almost-complete lifestyle change? No. Heck, I don’t even like that side of the river. But do I want a nicer apartment? Yes. And can I see myself being happy there? Yes, I think so. Would living in a place like this mature me a little? Possibly. Can I grow into it? Yes. And most importantly, can I afford this? Probably. So it sort of worries me that I am as drawn to these apartments as I am, seeing how I really do want to live in an area like Coolidge Corner where there are places to walk and people to see and things to do. I’m an edge-of-the-city kind of guy; I need to be close to where the action is. But looking for an apartment will change your thinking sometimes, I guess, and to get what you want, you have to make choices. Argh.
So, I keep looking and hoping that I’ll find something with a desirable location that has what I want. I’m in no rush, despite the rent increase, and I don’t want to settle. Hell, it takes me weeks sometimes just to buy a shirt or a pair of pants.
And that’s the state of the search. Knowing me, this will all change a week or two from now. Or maybe it won’t. Either way, it’s a process, an adventure, and a project. Stay tuned.
Ninety-degree-plus days mean one thing to me: ice cream.
And so because my walk home through Coolidge Corner means walking right by J.P. Licks, I decided to stop for dinner on the way home (at Quiznos) so I could get some ice cream as I walked down the street.
One bad sandwich later, I got to J.P. Licks. Sort of. The line was so long that it stretched the full length of the store, out the door, and down Harvard Ave. past the entrance to the Coolidge Corner Clubhouse.
That’s a long line.
But I was determined, so I got in line and worked my way to the front. Continue reading
It’s been a long time since I’ve moved apartments — five and a half years to be exact — and I can’t say I missed the process. Sure, I still haven’t decided if I’m going to move or not, and that changes almost daily, but after making a few inquiries Thursday with some agents, I’m definitely erring on the not moving side.
Why is it that speaking with a real estate agent makes me feel like I’m 23, stuck in the herd, and just a quick buck? Probably because for at least two of those things, it’s true. Continue reading
Forget that Garbage song “I’m Only Happy When It Rains.” Today I identify more with the Carpenters, who sang, “Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.”
And when it’s a rainy Monday, that’s even worse — especially after a good weekend. So in that spirit, here’s a list of some of the things on my hate list right now: Continue reading
Martin's Musings 