One of our more laid back Memorial Day holiday weekends is now in the books. Unlike most of the past decade, when we would either go to the lake or host a pool party, we had no major plans this year. We did have some friends over for dinner Friday, but it was cold and rainy that night so the adults stayed inside while the girls got into the pool for just a bit after I cranked the heater up. Almost all of our local family were traveling to one place or another so that eliminated the option for a gathering of relatives.
We did get some things accomplished, though.
S got the inside of the pool house painted yesterday, with some help from L.
Oh, and we bought a new house.
Wait, what?!?!
No, we did not really add another property to our list of holdings. Rather, we helped my in-laws buy a new place.
They’ve been in Florida for five years now, I think. Covid shutting down most of the things that drew them to Florida – thank goodness they live in an area that takes it seriously – and helped them to realize they want to be closer to most of their family. They looked at a few places in December but weren’t 100% sure about making the move back then. They visited in April and looked some more, but with the market so hot they couldn’t find something that met their needs before another buyer snatched it up. They looked into building but between delays and higher costs, that did not seem like a good option.
In a perfect world they would have hung on another 6–12 months and hope the market cools and more inventory opens up. But the Florida summers are a lot for them and they had their realtor keep a search open for them.
A couple places popped up this weekend. S took M to drive by a couple Saturday morning and S thought one was a possibility. She called her stepmother, talked it through, then set up a viewing with their/our realtor that I tagged along for. The house was a model home in a new neighborhood. We really liked it. After walking through and discussing with the realtor, S FaceTimed her stepmom and gave her a tour.
They made an offer that night and it was accepted Sunday afternoon. Looks like my in-laws will be back in Indy in about a month. I believe their plans will be to still get out of Indy for a few months in the winter as long as their health allows them to.
It was kind of fun to see S get that house shopping look in her eyes. Especially when it wasn’t us who were buying!
And, for the record, I do not understand the housing market at all. It makes no sense to me how it can be so blistering hot when the economy has been battered for the past year and the US population is fairly stable. Where are all these people coming from? What happens to the old homes/apartments/condos that these people are leaving?
We refinanced in February and our closer said he was genuinely worried about what’s going to happen in a couple years, after pretty much everyone is locked into insanely low interest mortgages and rates finally rise. No one, he suggested, is going to move unless they absolutely have to.
I see his logic, but there is no rational explanation for why the market is so hot now, so I’m starting to believe that, like the stock market, the housing market operates under different rules than all you finance types learn about in school.
Oh, one other thing happened this weekend: I got my first cold since before Covid hit. M brought something home last week and I was the first to pick it up. Like a couple years back, when I went two-plus years without a cold, it has knocked me on my ass. I suppose I should get tested, but since we’re not really going anywhere right now, as long as it passes in a couple days I don’t really see a need to do that. It’s just been a bad cough and sore throat for the past three days, but my sinuses are beginning to fill up so I guess I’ve got a couple days of that to look forward to. L started sneezing last night.
During the Indy 500 we took the girls to a new area downtown to eat lunch outside. We sat down just as the flyover was passing overhead, walked around a bit, then got home about halfway through the race. I promptly turned the TV on, laid down, and napped until there were 10 laps left. Which, given how fast and uneventful the race passed, was pretty much all I needed to see. Pretty cool to see Helio Castroneves finally get his fourth win.
Now it is summer. The girls all get to sleep in today. C starts her summer school gym class tomorrow, meaning she and I will be back to the 6:50 alarms for the rest of June.