Heat and Dust, and Consequences

It appears that my condo simply will not sell with my tenants still in it, and not without a thorough painting and re-carpeting and a few other fixes. That's just to sell at around market value, maybe less. That's the straight talk I got from my realtor early yesterday morning when I went out to meet with him at the condo.

I realize that I'm lucky compared to people who are losing everything now, owing money after selling. I have equity after 20 years, though much less than I should have because of refinancing to survive during all my years of being a starving freelancer. I do have a line of credit to draw on to pay for renovations. I have no savings. After the tenants move out this summer - and for however long it takes to sell the place - I'll be paying the mortgage, etc. there while also paying full rent for my own place when I move out from living with K. Rents are very high here; things would have been tighter even without adding the condo to cover. Alternatively, I could continue to rent it out for another year (or two, or three) while the place slowly falls apart, opening up my wallet up whenever anything breaks. I'm disinclined to continue to be an absentee landlord. I'm also disinclined to share another apartment when I move. I'll be 50 this fall. Can I please now have my own place to myself?

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I dragged myself out to a movie event last night, meeting people first at a local restaurant. I'm so glad I went. I forgot about everything else. We saw the 1983 movie Heat and Dust at the Harvard Film Archive, which has been running a series on Merchant Ivory Productions in India. James Ivory was there (he's about 80 now, and still producing and directing movies) and spoke before the film and answered questions afterwards. Like the movie itself, he took awhile to get warmed up during the question session, but he had some interesting things to say about how he came to shoot films in India (he and Ismael Merchant, who died in 2005, did several films in India), how he is written about as an English filmmaker (he's American), his collaborations with Merchant and the writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and so forth. He said that he could never shoot films in India today (presumably, like the ones he has shot) because India has changed so much.

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Visiting the heat and dust of the film for two hours or so was a welcome little vacation from the freezing cold in Cambridge last night. The wind chill must have been in the single digits, this in the last few days of March. Sigh. At least we were fortified for our walk over to the HFA by the good hot, spicy food we had at Tanjore, chosen for its ability to accommodate a large table of people, but fortuitously Indian. Also by chance, I took with me on the T the novel I'm reading, Brick Lane, about Bengali immigrants living in London. It's more about the life of one Bangladeshi woman and her family and community than about culture clash (at least at halfway through), but the most similar theme between it and the movie is the status of women (see Roger Ebert's review), their romantic choices as acts of dissent, and the consequences of those choices.

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I woke this morning dreaming not of India but of my condo living room, filled with scaffolding, ladders, drop cloths, and dripping with paint. I could smell the latex.

Comments

[zhoen]

Yeah, I thought adulthood meant having my own place. Sadly, life doesn't work that way.

I thought James Ivory British, guess I'll have to go look him up.

[marja-leena]

Oh my, you do have some tough decisions to make, during a difficult economic period there. Sometimes I wonder about the joy of home ownership with all the works and costs. Wish you well with this.

I too thought James Ivory was British. I loved the movies he made with Merchant.

We were out for Indian yesterday too, followed by a brave walk in very cold wind and rain. On the drive home along the highway, high up in elevation, it was snowing hard! We've had two weeks of freaky cold weather with hail, thunder and snow. March is going out like a lion.

[leslee]

Zhoen: Yeah, no guarantees in life.

Marja-Leena: Yeah, it is scary. Although after finally getting some sleep, it looks a bit better to me. If I'd been renting all this time I'd have nothing. I will get something out of it eventually. Somehow I'll manage. Hope the bad weather clears up out there for you. Seems like you've had some lousy weather off and on for quite awhile. We're all pretty sick of winter here!

[joanna]

You're right, you will get something out of it eventually, and you already have, you know? Equity would've been nice, but it financed your life while you did things you wanted to do. I don't know what to tell you about the market. Down here, it is taking a good long time to sell.

[leslee]

Well, I think I'm going to have to keep renting it out for now since I can't afford to pay for two places while it sits and waits for a buyer. But the tenants want to stay, so I shouldn't complain. Looks like it's the lesser of two worrisome propositions.

Also, a couple of people have suggested I talk it out with a financial planner, so I'm going to do that.

[Mouse]

Oh dear, I DO sympathise. I am considering moving back to England at a time when the housing market in France is in the doldrums and no sign of a tailwind to move it along.
I often wonder at the benefits of being a home owner and I am pretty sure I should have rented rath than being a corner of France but, old habits etc
Good Luck with whatever you decide...
On the bright side, I am now VERY envious.
Snow, Cambridge, Harvard Square AND indian food! Please stop before I turn green
(Maybe I should have stuck with that Bostonian after all)

[Mouse]

rented rather than BUYING

I need a proof reader!

[rr]

Such difficult decisions. I used to think that when I was a "grown up" life would be obvious, sensible and simple. Now, of course, I realise that childhood is where it's at :-)

[leslee]

Mouse: Some of us have to go against the grain, no? Good luck with your decision, too.

RR: Ha ha ha! Yeah, well, I guess some things become more obvious, others...