So you think you can inflation? No houses anywhere! (Part 7)
Welcome back ya'll. This is the story of how I came to be living up here in the woods on this mountain.
To catch up, here's part 6: ""The toilette paper-apocalypse and the lung-butter that comes with it."" And if you need more than that, here is the start of all this, Part 1: "How I wound up on this mountain..."
If you are current, below is Part 7. I honestly have no idea how long this unrefined drivel will continue. The only way to find out is to continue.
Here's where we're at, back in the day, which wasn't that long ago, but feels like it was. It may have been a Tuesday, these things often happen on Tuesdays. In "the day" houses used to be at the very least a little more affordable. You know, "I can afford it now that I'm 40 affordable".
The kind of affordable that you know in 30 years, if you are still alive, you'll have paid off. Just in time to retire and / or die. Give up the ghost and let the next of kin have a better life than you did. Wealth build and shit, as these rich folks always say. Then you could have a mortgage. No the best goal in life, and also not the best interest rate on the mortgage, but it means you can have a home. However, it's that kind of mortgage that makes you terrified to lose a job. And it scares you too, because you like having a house, bills paid, and a place to shit, shower, and sleep.
This was when we owned the corner house in this story. And even though I owned houses previously, the corner house was the first one I owned that I got instant equity out of. Of course we added a lot to it, but the mortgage was super affordable and we never missed any payments, in fact we were a little ahead.
After the previous houses we'd owned, we started looking real close at the investments we put our money into. Our first house we owned for 4 years and banked a good 54k on when we sold it. That 54k became the 20% down for the corner house. The difference was, we didn't have to redo the electrical, the plumbing, the roof, or the yard on the new one, they'd just been done. And of course, the best part, it had a detached garage. When we put it up for sale, we stood to get a cool 140K+ equity out of it.
Now, just hold on, let me explain before you argue...
COVID 19. That is all. It was the VID that nearly doubled our equity.
I'm no real estate mogul, in fact I just wanted to have enough to get the house I wanted and have a nest egg left over. That was our goal. While we were planning the world was coughing, feverish, and the Government told us "help was on the way!". Which we sure as shit didn't buy. But, interest rates dropped, which in turn opened up the markets to all kinds of "deals" and "breaks" for home buyers. These shady kinds of dealings were the same dealings that got the world into the shit with the banks in 2008. 2008 kind of felt like a test run for this- the next five years will tell.
Anyway, shawdy got low, low, low. Those interest rates became super affordable. A lot of people were working from home because of the VID, and also, building supplies were not easy to come by. Because of the VID. In other words; there was a demand for both houses and the supplies to build them. The problem was, manufacturing and supply chains were all shot to shit. And, there was an unfortunate fire at an epoxy resin plant in Texas, so the prices of OSB went through the roof.
As a reaction, people made a run on houses, demand went up, and supply went way down. Problem was, it wasn't just people buying the homes, it was corporations. Which they turned around and rented for exorbitant rates which created more competition, which drove prices up and so on. This behavior drove the cost of a home that costs 150K all the way up to around 400K. Which is where we are at now, in 2026- housing is an expensive commodity. It has become a luxury not a need.
Shit, even if you want to live in a van down by the river, that vans going to cost you over 100K, and you will have to knife fight some gen z kid for a parking spot down there, possibly, use the Walmart parking lot instead. Which means you will be camping with a mixed group- septuagenarians on the road while they "snow bird", or people like "American flag speedo man" with his harem of RV prostitutes, and exploding meth Tupperware. On the upside if you need anything the Walmart is right there.
Knowing all of this, we were still committed to building our dream home... we had no idea, oh the things we didn't know. There was an upside to all this interest rate jackassery, the upside was that we were getting enough from the sale of our home to put the 20% down on a new place.
So, despite the VID, we moved forward with the prep and sale of our home. No one can tell you how difficult it is to sell a home while finding a home to rent while you build the home you want- all at the same god forsaken time. The key is, perfect timing, which I don't have, but my wife does- especially because in a former life she worked in mortgage and real-estate. This really helped. Another thing that really helped was that I landed a GIS job with the county assessors office. This was not intentional but we would not have the home we have now if it hadn't been for that job. It gave me a whole new understanding of how land deals work- the whole shebang! Parcels, easements, boundaries, surveys, permits, all of it. At least those things here in the PNW. And oh boy, was it an eye opener.
Up next, Part 8: "That's my gawd-danged well you she-bitch!..."
Cheers!
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