I don't want to be known as a shopper. Actually I like window shopping and hate going into brick and mortar stores, really clicking on the Internet, or making the telephone call to place an actual order.
I shouldn't have found myself in this position, and yet...
To keep it simple, I will say this began in March of last year when I put an apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on the market. The weekend of the first open house was a disaster. Bear Stearns had imploded that week.
It was a small apartment. In most other places it would have been worthless. The granite foyer or kitchenette, the large marble bath, the "French" open city two exposure view were the only amenities.
It was a pretty apartment. At one time it owned my soul, but I had become obsessed with selling it and getting out of Manhattan. I was convinced that apartment prices were going to tank and there was going to be a recession that was going to hit Manhattan hard.
My own friends laughed at me. They put it down to one of my quirks such as my insistence on paying cash and buying a small apartment rather than a large one with the mortgage money that was constantly being offered to me, though I never applied for one.
I finally closed on the apartment in October at a reduced price (soon after Lehman Brothers went bankrupt). I got to keep the money that didn't go to the realtor, taxes, or the building.
While the apartment was on the market, I had been living in a friend’s townhouse in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I was going to buy a condo; then I decided it should be a townhouse. From a townhouse it was a natural progression to a house with a deck, a sunroom, and outdoor space.
I found the perfect one in the ideal location. It was a FSBO (for sale by owner) and they wanted more than I was willing to spend, though less than I had made. I had other resources, though. After a lifetime of not listening to stockbrokers, I had begun to listen and was regretting that more and more each day.
A house in North Myrtle Beach — a nice, small city with friendly people and fewer foreclosures than Florida — seemed like it would be a solid foundation for a new life.
Where would a resident of Paris who left during the war want to be during the liberation? I felt that way about New York during the election. I went there and partied as if it were 1999 because really those were the last great days in the city. It was the best New Years in November I have ever celebrated.
Article comments
1 - Joanne Huspek
I think you are not alone. There are plenty of people buying things, houses, stuff for them. I liken it to fiddling while the place burns down.
2 - JST
I felt really guilty buying an SUV last year. Even though it was a 2004 and gas prices had started to plummet.
Of course now, gas prices are rising again.
At least your purchases aren't harming the environment.
3 - cooper
I think the title shall be yours. Someone has to support the economy. It might as well be you, if for nothing else than you write about it so well.