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I sold my house today. It was the first house I ever owned and its an emotional day. I bought a fixer upper in Baltimore the year before the financial collapse and today I sold it. This is what I remember from those 14 years, a thread.
I bought the house in September 2007, almost exactly a year before the financial crisis happened. At the time I was told the housing market was experiencing a brief dip and now was the time to buy. Little did I know what was coming.
I knew I was buying a fixer upper, but this place needed serious work. My agent told me "this place is going to sell fast, you need to put in a full price offer today". My agent provided an appraiser who said the house was worth exactly what I was offering. What a coincidence!
I knew what I was getting into. The house was built in 1927 and was outdated and needed a lot of work. I was young and thought I wanted to spend all of my free time repairing an 80 year old house. This is what it looked like when I bought the place.
The first project was the kitchen. It was in pretty bad shape so we gutted it and redid everything. In hindsight I would have done a lot differently, but it was a major learning process for me. I ate only sandwiches and microwavable food for these 6 months.
I spent a lot of time fixing odds and ends during this time. I loved climbing up on the roof overlooking the city
During this time I went to tons of estate sales and cleaned the place up a ton. In the end it felt like home to me and something I was proud of.
One of the best things about having a house was hosting people. Once I got the house fixed up I was able to give people a place to stay. I was single and the house had 4 bedrooms so I hosted quite a few touring bands over those years.
I had @ColiseumBand stay with me whenever they were in town recording, they were always super fun. @Lemuriapop also stayed with me while they were recording "The Distance is So Big". They took photos for the liner notes in my sun room.
I told Lemuria in exchange for hosting them they had to take me to Australia as their roadie. So in 2014 I went to Australia for three weeks with them and had the most fun on the most wild adventure. I got to see all the major cities in 21 days.
All my neighbors were awesome. I remember reading @Baltimoremag one day and realizing that my neighbor @dwatkinsworld was featured as the best new writer. I remember watching @MeetThePress and there was D getting interviewed by Chuck. D teaches and has written many books since
I moved out in 2015 and was renting out the house since. Every time I'm home I drive by and look at it, but haven't been inside since 2015. I have dreams that my tenants ask me to come by and fix it up and I get to see what it looks like.
When I decided to put it up for sale I had the inside painted and the floors redone and everyone tells me how great it looks, but I never got to see it in person. Yesterday I signed all the paperwork and today I was told its official and it's their house now.
I don't know if it's easier or harder to not get to go see it one last time. I put a lot of myself into that house and had a lot of "firsts" there. I hope it brings as many good memories to the person that bought it as it did to me. Photos from 2008 and the night I moved out.
