Lesson Learned

 

I don't own it anymore

Sometimes I lay in bed and think back about stupid things I've done, and there are a lot of them. One that often pops back up is the purchase of my first home here in Chicago. It was a two flat in a working class neighborhood, not far from all the cool places I liked to go to. I don't sit around dwelling on the stupid part of that first building I bought. Instead I like to think that it taught me lessons in life. A lot of lessons. First lesson was, how not to purchase real estate. My partner, Paul and I, found a wood frame two flat for eighteen thousand dollars. We did not get an inspection before closing. We did not check to see if the building had termites, bad plumbing, crumbling walls, or how it would be heated in the winter. It had the first three things, and didn't have the last. There was a stain on the wall of the living room under one of the windows. For three years I assumed it was a stain until I went over one day and touched it. It was a termite tunnel that ran from the window to the floor. That explained the sagging floors. For heat, all each apartment had was one gas space heater for the entire place. When the temperature outside dropped to around zero, heating was almost impossible. Near the space heater it would be hotter than a fart in Florida. Meanwhile, in the kitchen and bathroom twenty feet away, it was cold. Very cold. So cold that the water pipes in the walls froze causing some real problems when the thaw inevitably happened. There was another lesson I learned from owning that two flat. How to deal with tenants. My first tenant was fine. He paid his rent and didn't bother me much. However, when he wanted to move he subleased to a couple of nutbags who brought their furniture, ten years worth of stuff they forgot to put in the garbage, and a giant great Dane dog with them. When I went upstairs the first time to collect rent I was shocked. I was left speechless. From the front door, through every room, was a narrow path. This path was lined with garbage stacked waist high. By garbage, I mean real garbage that should have been picked up by the big blue city trucks. These people were hoarders who had brought their hoarded crap to my house, moved in, and then refused to pay rent. Yes, I never did get rent from them. I had to evict them. That was the next lesson I learned. Evicting somebody is fraught with drama and is expensive. So I learned to do background checks. My final lesson was, don't sell too soon. In 1978 I was lured by the Siren's call of California. I envisioned warm winters, sunshine, and an easy lifestyle. So I sold my house and moved to California where I found out that winter wasn't all that warm, and neither was the summer in San Francisco. The lifestyle wasn't all that easy either. Meanwhile, back in Chicago, the old neighborhood was rapidly being gentrified and the old house was sold and resold at steadily rising prices. It was finally knocked down and a new brick home was built there. It sold a few years ago for over a million dollars.