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Do Not Buy a Two-Story House In Your Forties
If you buy a two-story house, sell it before you’re in your sixties.
We lived in our single-story beachside home for seven years. It was three blocks from the ocean and perfect walking distance to the beach.
I adored our beachside home. It welcomed me when I moved from Pittsburgh. That house was the only home I ever lived in that could be called “charming.” I knew where all the nooks and crannies were hiding. When I came home from work every day, I felt safe, and all was right with the world.
The house was built in 1926 complete with a full basement! It was one of three houses on our street with basements, all designed by the same architect. Somehow the three homes were twenty-five feet above sea level in 1926. The architect who designed the houses was creative. They’re fascinating Spanish architectural-style homes with terra cotta clay roof tiles, hardwood floors, curved archways, and eleven-foot-high ceilings in the double living room. My husband added a screened-in pool with a jacuzzi and completely remodeled the kitchen. The granite kitchen countertops were to die for. Cooking in that kitchen made me happy.
Then one day out of the blue, my husband announced he wanted to sell our home and move to a golf community. It took everything I had in me not to scream at him. I didn’t want to move. I loved our beachside home. He told me if the house didn’t sell by the time the contract was up with his realtor, we would stay. It was “game on.”
All I had to do was sabotage potential buyers who thought they might want to live in my home. The first was an elderly lady. She knocked on the pool screen door one afternoon when I was sitting poolside with our dog. She apologized for not making an appointment and asked if I could show her the house. Silly woman…I told her that I’d love to, but we had a horrible flea infestation, and the house was being flea-bombed with bug killer again. She’d have to come back tomorrow. I never saw her again.
Two weeks before the agreement was up, another couple came by with their realtor. They had an appointment. I showed them the living room and how beautiful the coquina stone fireplace was. While they were oooohing and aaaahing, I asked them if they knew…
