Confessions of a reluctant property owner

May 19, 2005

Dear Leslie,

I never meant to get into real estate. I liked being a renter. If the surroundings didn't suit me, I could easily move somewhere else and did. From my college years until DC and I bought our house 10 years ago, more than 25 different apartments and houses were home. One house in California was a cabin with a woodstove in a little redwood forest in the middle of town. Being there was an idyl for a time. One California apartment was really just a walled off room with a fold-out couch and a microwave oven. I got out in a hurry.

You can't move so easily when you own. Bankers, real estate agents and homebuyers get involved in your life. Usually they're very nice people. They answer all your questions, give you money if you promise to faithfully repay it and more for 30 years, and show you around the "For Sale" world.

Real estate will tie you up if you let it. At this moment DC and I are selling one of our rental houses, renovating a strip mall DC wants to put her office in, and deciding how to renovate two buildings in our neighborhood we bought in partnership with another couple.

Almost all of these properties have been purchased in self-defense. Experience taught us that we wanted to control who our next-door neighbor is and that one way to get drug dealers out of the neighborhood is to evict them.

I know that real real estate people have much much more going on than we do, but even being a very minor player in the real estate game makes me uncomfortable. Playing Monopoly, I buy Baltic Avenue and hope to stay out of jail.

DC, on the other hand, enjoys making deals. She hires and fires carpenters, plumbers, sheetrockers, all the workers renovations require. She's nice to them, but workers who betray her trust get their bags packed.

The world often seems divided between owners and renters, Republicans and Democrats, white-collar workers and blue, people who live responsibly and those who welcome whatever the day brings. The gulf between them can be more easily jumped economically than psychologically or maybe emotionally.

Owners may think renters want to be owners like them, but that's no universal truth.

Ownership certainly is a lot less expensive than rentership.You also get better treatment.

A few months ago, DC and I wanted to rent a big-screen TV for a party at our house, so I called one of those places that rents TVs along with black vinyl couches, stereos and computers. The price was affordable, but the manager wanted me to provide an extensive list of references and their phone numbers. Asking myself if I wanted a rent-to-own business calling up my family members and friends to ask if I could be trusted with their TV, the answer was no.

So here I am, the reluctant mini-baron of South Lorimier Street, a very popular guy.

I don't remember ever complaining to a landlord about anything when I was a renter. Now renters call me and knock on my door. I hand the phone to the mini-baroness or call out, "Someone here to see you."

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.