Upheaval

So this is a conversation that is typical of my life in the past week. I am not going to say who is who, I am going to let you guess.

Party 1: You know, I think we are going to have to rip out that bougainvilla in the planter.

Party 2: But I like that bougainvilla!

P1: I know, but since we had to cut it back for the termite guys, and then the freezing temperatures we had, it just hasn't looked the same. It just doesn't look good anymore.

P2: It's coming back, it doesn't look so bad.

P3: (snorting) Really? Stop thinking with your emotions! This is going to be a business deal! Just because it's the bougainvilla you personally picked out at the nursery is the only reason you want to keep it! The buyers are just going to look at it and wonder which one of us has the black thumb!

Sigh.

And really, there is nothing earth-shattering that is prompting our move. We have wanted to move out of here and into a place that had a backyard ever since Mr. P was born. But, as luck would have it, that just so happened to coincide with the biggest five year run-up in real estate prices in California history. Houses that had cost a mere 350,000 (and here in SoCal, that really isn't sarcasm at all) ballooned up to over 750,000 or more, depending on the location and what had been done to it. Even cruddy, crappy houses that had the original plumbing, wiring, kitchens and carpets were going for 600,000 and over, and people (stupidly) thought they were getting a great deal.

I will never understand the feeding frenzy that occurred in the housing market over those four or five years. It was people being greedy, as well as other people not doing their homework and waiting it out, thinking that home values would rise forever.

Luckily, we aren't those people, and prices are finally starting to fall. It's a tricky, tricky game of trying to balance getting a nice profit on our place, while getting enough to put into another one that wasn't horridly overpriced.

Part of the plan is to sell and move in with my mom and dad for a few months while we find another place. I don't want the pressure of having to find another house in the short time frame of the escrow period, and my parents have an empty "wing" of the house with two bedrooms and a bath. That and they both work, so I really won't be seeing much of them anyway.

C'mon, it'll be fun.

Pretend you don't see my fingers crossed behind my back.

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