…. or at least, you can’t buy your old home again. The house my parents owned from 1967 to 2000 was a big, old, Pittsburgh house. Built in 1911, 3000+ square feet, above ground basement, attached garage, real plaster walls, 12-foot ceiling in the first floor. Five toilets: sink & a toilet in the basement (enclosed, with a door, and even a mirror, not out in the open); half bath on the first floor; two full baths on the second floor, although I suppose the realtors might count those as 3/4 – one had a claw-foot tub, no shower, and the other had a big tiled shower; and on the third floor, a bathroom with a new in the early 70s when I moved up there for my sophomore & junior years of high school shower. My mother never thought the plumbing was adequate in any other house I ever lived in. Six or seven bedrooms – on the third floor there were three rooms – my bedroom, my dad’s study and a pool room. On the second floor, there were four rooms – two connected on each side of the stairs. My brother and I had had one set – till I moved upstairs – and my parents had the other set for their bedroom and TV room. We never had a TV in the living room – that was just not done. The living room was for talking to other people, cocktails, and listening to music.
My parents paid somewheres in the $30,000s for it in 1967. My mom sold it in 2000 for $175,000 – she complained a lot about all the people who looked at it who really didn’t like or understand old houses.
The other day I was wondering if there was a property look up for Allegheny County, like there is for Madison, and sure enough. So I plugged in our old address, and the people my mom sold the house to sold it in 2008 for $315,000. I kept looking at that and trying to figure out how in heck they got so much for it – and then I checked the date – they sold in June of 2008 – a.k.a. right before the economy collapsed. I feel sort of sorry for the people who bought it – it’s still assessed at $179,000. I guess they’re the definition of underwater on their mortgage, unless they made a huge down payment in ’08.
The ancestral manor in Pittsburgh PA
