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Ok, so call me Norty (LOL), I'll gander every so often at the houses I've either owned in the past, or grew up in. Just for giggles. It's especially fun when the house has been sold, so I get to see what changes have been made since I lived there.
What say you?
Have you ever snooped?
Ever been surprised by what owners have done to your old place?
I have looked at the home I grew up in about 50 years ago but it is only Google earth and street view because it was not for sale. It is in a LA suburb amazing what the price with a Zillow estimate. also the sandlot baseball field next door is now a house.
I just looked at the house I grew up in. It looks the same but with new carpeting and paint. All the old built-ins are still there - bookshelves in living room and the full wall shelves and cabinets in my old room. Even the laundry room/pantry still had all the same shelving. There was no photo of the kitchen or bath but I seriously hope those have been redone since my parents moved out in 1992.
Yes, I did. It was very disturbing to see how much it is worth now compared to when I sold it.
I had a 2500 sq foot house built in 2014, sold it pre-pandemic because I signed a very lucrative contract to work overseas. Made some decent money on the sale, so thought it was ok to sell it. I didn’t want to rent it out because I didn’t want the headache and I didn’t like the idea of people living there if I was ever going to go back there and live again. Dumb reasons, I know.
It’s painful to see it continue to gain value. But I can’t stop looking at it. I tell myself don’t look, just forget about it. But then I will eventually look.
The problem is that with housing prices so ridiculously high right now, I’m not sure if I should jump in and have another one built or perhaps wait? The job is going very well, so I want to stay out of the country and keep working, but now I’m concerned about inflation and all my investments have seemed to stagnate a bit, but I keep throwing money into them, because what else is there?
I checked out an apt. I used to rent for $140 a month in 1980. It was joined with another apt. (top floor of a 3-decker) and is now selling for $600K. And they cleaned up all the pigeon droppings on the back porch.
Didn’t think about it, but checked the old house in Texas. They still had the tile I put down, that project took weeks to do. The English roses I planted were still there, also faucets from the guest bath. The wood dog fence was still around, although it showed wear and tear. Other than that, the house looked pretty good.
Also saw the CA house, it looks so different, I didn’t recognize it. Regrettably, there are no interior pictures.
I've only looked at the house I rehabbed in 2015, which was my husband's. He didn't want to have anything to do with it until it came time to sell. Then he was all over it. We had 3 offers right away. Got $1.03 million for it. Approx value now is $1.46 million, so really not a large increase considering it's Silicon Valley. This is the East Bay in the Bay Area.
I'm proud of the work I did. The tenants I evicted left a huge mess in so many ways.
Looked recently at the house we sold in Austin in 2016. I was shocked to see that the value has doubled in only five years and that is without any of the updates it needed. But saddened to see that lots of my gardening had been neglected or removed altogether. Also looked at a house in San Antonio where I spent my teen years and they had done such extensive renovations that I didn't recognize it.
I’ve looked at every house I’ve ever owned (8). For the most part all have been well kept and the updates done enhanced the property. I don’t worry or even think about what they are worth now as compared to I paid/sold them for. Different times.
Oh yes, and it is painful. We built (with our own 4 hands) a gorgeous 3,000 sq. ft. split-level with an unobstructed view of the Front Range (Colorado). The market was bad when we sold it in '91 for $147,000. Last time I looked, it was $750,000. It had been completely revamped, though it was relatively new.
Same thing with our first home in Mission Viejo, CA. Bought for $72,000 in '76 and last time I checked was $800,000 and they had added a second story!
Probably not a productive exercise to look back at that...
Even the really crummy (now) modest house in a now-bad area that we grew up in, had the same increase.
Peas in a pod!
We too built (ourselves) what we thought would be our retirement home on acreage northwest of Denver, overlooking the Front Range from Pike's Peak to Mt. Evans. Several offers in just a few hours, a fast closing date and we were out of there way faster than we thought we would be.
Instead of simply removing the nearly $40K worth of custom, soft-close hickory cabinets/bases we installed in kitchen, walk-in pantry, bathrooms and laundry, they simply painted the existing ones white. Look I get the white cabinet craze, but for what they could have sold those for (they were still like new when we left) it would have offset the cost of white mixed wood ones. Did the same with the solid wood doors, trim and Pella architectural grade windows. But they still left the country cabin decorating theme I did in that house. It sold 2 years later when they got transferred to Wyoming.
We were just out there last week taking care of my mom's estate and took a drive up there to visit neighbors. The new owners black-topped the driveway (about 100 yards long and a good idea really), took out the steel farm gates to get their giant Class A in there more easily and who knows what all else.
I planted 70+ trees over the 16 years we lived there and they are all still living, so that's good.
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