Now's The Time to Invest ! ( . . maybe)

The husband and I are shopping for a wee investment.

Well not so wee -- as it is a house we are looking for. (We feel blessed to do so.)

But at the same time we are big chickens, so I'm not exactly sure how we will fare in the World of Trump. We don't reeeelly want to spend very much, yet we still want something solid.
There is lots to understand about the California market, and one of those things is that you can't buy a nicely new, eighty-two thousand dollar, 2-story farmhouse charmer with a basement, like you can in Louisiana and Ohio --or wherever the heck else it is I keep reading about that has such places. (In fact in California, you don't even get basements -- at any price. Even our malls hover 10 feet about ground level.) (Maybe it's so we can look down at the rest of you? But whose laughing now, right? At least you guys have somewhere to go during your hurricanes and tornados. For earthquakes we all bite our nails and congregate at the local SmoothieKing!)

Well we went shopping last week---and the city in which we are looking has a lot of fixer uppers in our price range. In fact I'm just thrilled when the houses we look at have 2 to 3 of their exterior walls intact, and electric versus candle light. (At one house I saw this cute little family of rats runnin' the wheel just as hard and fast as their little bodies could, to keep that power going!)

I mean, we must be looking at the bottom of the real estate barrel, -I'll tell you that much.

One place had two bedrooms (that was if you decided to keep the curtain in room-divider position) and one bath (that was, if you didn't mind bathing in the sink). And it had it's own kitchen! (That was if you were a wiz with the hot plate and toaster oven).


I take umbrage with the fact that I've never had new carpet in my life, and my 10 year old car doesn't believe in brakes or FM radio, (if the steering pulls anymore to the left I'll be in my right mind) ---and yet a new house would get all the 'my' house and car money.
Buuuut, it'll be the price we'll have to pay if we want to become Ma and Pa real estate.

One house actually didn't look too bad cosmetically - which made us wonder what was brewing underneath. If only my husband owned an old work shirt, he could crawl around and check it out a bit. Oh Wait! I Forgot! He Does!! 32, Do-Not-Touch work shirts, 8 pants, and 6 old pairs of hole'y shoes. One pair with Power Ranger heads that light-up, belonged to our son -- though it's irrelevant that they don't fit my husband. They're Good Shoes!

Upon finding out the plumbing in this looker of a house would work just as well if we stuck a straw under the front yard and blew water through our mouths to the showers -- we passed on it.

Listen, it's not easy investment shopping. I suggested we invest in the GoldDigger 5000 motorhome instead - you know, for making more memories in -- but with no response from my hubby. Though he would, I reminded him, be able to fit more work/camping shirts in it then any 'old house we might buy!
Yes, I suppose it's true, --the long term value would be better in a house that's not on wheels.

But what do I really know? I'm a consumer, not a professor.

( . . . For the record.)