In 1990 I bought my second house. It was a major fixer purchased for 73 thousand dollars. The property became my family home for 16 years. I sold it in 2006 for 272 thousand dollars. About three years after I sold it, in 2009, it was foreclosed upon. Since then it has been sold between banks, almost sold to a private investor in a deal that wasn't completed over unpaid liens, and finally ended up on an Internet auction where I bought it for $79,000. In 1990 I had to put $27,000 into the house just to make it livable. Thousands upon thousands more in the last twenty years, both by myself, and the owner I sold to, have been additionally invested in improvements to the property. Even in today's market I have to feel like it's a good buy, especially at 28% of what I sold it for just 54 months ago! Who'da thunk the world would change so much in a span of less than five years? And so again I own my old compound. After the cabin, and being an outlaw, and a year of helter-skelter in West Sacramento, I feel like Bilbo hobbit after his big adventure. It's good to be someplace comfortable, back in the compound. Ain't life wonderful. I haven't felt this good since I was in Hawaii. The property I bought last Spring sold and closed on Friday the thirteenth (May), too. Good-bye depression, hello something to do and cash in the bank. It's taken a year but the transition from the mountains is now complete. In time I will return to the mountains, and do it all again, there, too. I'm already looking for that avenue. I feel so very, very, grateful to have landed on my feet again. Like a cat, smelling like a rose. Isn't life wonderful? Soon it will be time to look for the next adventure. Anyway, I'm alive and it's all good, hope the same for all of you.
