At the end of this month, I will have lived here the longest I've lived anywhere.
That's fourteen years.
I was born in Memphis, Tennessee but don't remember anything about it, since we moved away when I was a year old. That was to Pueblo, Colorado, which I also don't remember. My earliest memories are when I was 3yo at our house in a southern suburb of Denver. When I was four, we moved to a suburb far north of Denver. After nine months, we moved to a different northern suburb. That's where I grew up, staying there from the age of five to eighteen.
I moved out of my parents' home the weekend after I graduated high school. That was to an old Victorian-style home, made into four apartment units, in central Denver. After a year, I moved to a different apartment in central Denver. That's when I was able to save for a horse, which I bought for my 20th birthday. I wanted to be closer to where my horse was boarded, so I moved to the suburb furthest south of Denver. I was there about two years.
In 1981, I moved into my boyfriend's condo in eastern Denver. In 1982, he bought a 2800-square foot house in an upper middle class neighborhood in southeast Denver. I was there until 1984, when we had a friendly break-up, and he paid for my first year of attending the Race Track Industry program at the University of Arizona in Tucson. I was there for three years, and I enjoy telling people that I had a car without air conditioning throughout that time "and I lived to tell about it".
After graduation, I moved back to my boyfriend at the large house in Denver. That didn't go so well, and we broke up a second time a year of so later, in 1989. I moved into an apartment-turned-condo in the southeast corner of the metro Denver area, and I was there three-and-a-half years. It was a nice apartment, with all the modern amenities, being on the third and highest floor, and being next to a park where I'd walk the little poodle dog I'd adopted.
By 1992, the economy was going well and a lot of Americans were becoming first time homeowners. I was one of them, as a 31yo single woman, and I acquired the necessary down payment by selling my collection of Kirk/Spock fanzines. I bought a 40yo 1100 s.f. ranch house just off the major interstate that ran through Denver. It cost me $57,000. When I moved thirteen years later, it was fully mortgaged for $200,000. I was always amazed at how much financial institutions were willing to give you money if you owned a house.
I decided to move just because I was ready for something different. I wanted to do the "new house" thing, even though I didn't have any money for a down payment. The was a house-building boom and the mortgage industry no longer cared about a down payment if one met other qualifications. I looked at the 1360 s.f. ranch model I eventually bought at various new neighborhoods being built throughout the greater metro area. I also looked at it in a couple of neighborhoods in Castle Rock, the first sovereign city south of the metro area. I didn't like how the neighborhoods were so crammed in. Then I discovered a new neighborhood being built on a mesa, where the lots were a quarter acre, and the backyards unusually large for new homes, as well as the houses being well spaced apart. I signed the paperwork for the intent to purchase that very day. I picked out the lot and custom amenities that were options and was told it would be ready in about two months, which would be late March.
So, I drove down to see it a couple of times during the construction process. At one point, I drove further east -- where I'd never been before -- and was delighted to see that it was mostly rural area. I couldn't be happier with how things turned out. What I didn't know was, at that time, the county was the third wealthiest in the U.S. by median family income. That meant high property taxes, but I would manage.
The closing took place on March 30, 2005. The price was $215,000. I got into tremendous debt, shopping for new furniture and getting the landscaping done; plus, the old house wasn't selling. I decided to rent it and that was pretty much disastrous. Long story short, I filed bankruptcy a few years later, and then the economy went bad. So, it took a while to recover, but I'm very grateful that I didn't give up on living here. Another house on my block, and of the same model, is now up for sale for a whopping $375,000. This house is, essentially, my retirement savings. I expect it to be at least another ten years before I retire, so it should be worth quite a bit more by then.
It's also just plain a very, very, very fine house. I like living here.
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