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These days you can either live in a place where houses are affordable, or live in a place where there are jobs. Ah well.
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Two people in the hot spring pool below Knox and Rodrigo have gotten out and are drying themselves, readying to leave. Val puts her book in her bag and Audri observes, “oh good, one of the hot springs is free.” The ease themselves into the pool, and Audri says, “god, that feels good. I love coming here. Although I’m rarely organized enough to make enough time for it.” Val asks, “are you a student at the university?” Leaning back, Audri says, “yeah. Studying social services. It’s important work. You?” Deflated by her own life, Val looks away and says, “I work for Sweetcan’s Pecans. Mostly marketing. It’s a stupid and pointless job really. But it bought me a house, so, no complaints.” Now it’s Audri’s turn to look discouraged, and she says, “I have heard of this era of america where buying a house was possible.” Not to be outdone in the “feeling discouraged” department, Val says, “that makes me feel both old and lucky. And it’s kinda’ sad that i’d prefer to be young and unlucky.”
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I know this is supposed to be science fiction, but I have a hard time suspending my disbelief of house buying.
Oh it’s real, if you bought before 2008.
I bought in 1987 in the UK, paid off my mortgage in 2012. But yeah, my nephew and niece have had to buy complete dumps in undesirable areas to get started in housing.
I’ve seen it done! Not lately…
From what I can tell, most people these days fritter their money away one little subscription or fast-food trip at a time and then are surprised when they can’t afford something big.
Those of us who learned to be frugal still find it about as possible as it’s always been.
My youngest is currently buying her second house. She’s only 33, but she saves like crazy to get what she wants. She was only 25 when she bought her first house. As she found out, you have to start small and work your way up. She bought her first car when she was 18, two weeks before she even got her license. Want to guess how hard it is to buy a car when you don’t have a license yet?
Lost it at Social Services… its important work. Unfortunately most of the Social work I’ve seen in California has been the opposite of helpful.
Just the property taxes are more than most people can pay every month here too.
Don’t feel alone. Portland (Oregon) has house taxes that rival those of California. And yes, my 3rd house is a fixer upper, as was the 2nd.
Only, good luck finding anyone skilled enough to help you fix up the thing.. unless you give them $35K to start.
Sigh…
Social services IS a needed thing, but in my life, it’s never been a ~good thing. Or helpful.
And I’ve only had experiences of 1 or 2 ppl in a hot springs, if I rented it. Otherwise, there’s always room for 1 more.