Never Throw Away Your Junk Mail
Never throw away your junk mail from your email inbox without reading it first! Or the secrets to the history of homeownership in your family!
My family used to vacation on Cape Cod in Hyannis, Massachusetts. I have very fond memories. One summer we spent a whole month there in August. It was our family’s first real paid vacation away not staying with friends or family. A first time out of the city away from broken lives, broken buildings and the upfront immediacy post riots of the Civil Rights movements. 1967- 1968 , I would say: Harlem was changing. Lenox Avenue looked and felt very very different.
When my mother had wanted a single-family house in the early sixties. She envisioned probably suburban New York City, Queens, maybe Westchester County; probably settling for a Brooklyn brown stone. My dad was less likely smitten and vowed we would never leave the urban landscape. He didn’t believe in white flight and even less in black middleclass flight. Commenting often that the world comes to an end when everybody is on the dole, captivated by drugs and alcohol; folks have no jobs and young black folks never get to see men put on ties and uniforms and get to go to work every day preferably at good union jobs with benefits. So that’s why we would not be buying a house anywhere outside of Harlem.
The compromise we struck from leaving the high-quality- middle class enclave of rental property called Riverton for homeownership was for our nuclear family of four to move to the first all-black cooperative in Harlem at 485 Lenox Avenue in 1963. We lived on the 12th floor facing Lenox Avenue. We had a garage with underground parking, a terrace, two bathrooms and my brother and I had our own rooms. It was heaven and we could paint each room whatever color we wanted, and my mother and I put up a muilti-colored tile backsplash in the kitchen. My mother had an interior decorator Mr. Pringle. He discussed every detail and was never bored with my mother’s questions, and color choices. My father and Mr. Knibb, and Mr. Johnson laid down the lovely wood floors and built the maple wall unit with the stereo. Pride of place.
Clayton Apartments
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Today post riots and street name changes 485 Clayton Apartments has been transfigured to Malcolm X Blvd. Today folks rent out the apartments, rooms and Airbnb, something we could have never imagined back then.
Fast forward to buying my own home, my brother buying his, my ex-husband buying his (combo-residential and commercial space); both children buying theirs.
This morning, Jewel Robinson now a broker in Portland; a New York City transplant like me sent me through a business auto send mail service an evaluation of the first home I bought in North East Portland in the way back of the beginning of the 21st century.
I no longer own that home today or any land or home for that matter, but I approached Jewel first when I thought I was ready to sell that home, leave Portland and move to Southern California, the land of endless sunshine after facing 43 continuous days of rain In the temperate rain forest.
I also had a strong need for family and connection and contacted Jewel to help me sell my own. First HOME! My visions of holding on and building wealth and using it as a rental property or escape pod for return to Portland if my plan B simply didn’t work out.
Jewel was a friend of my youth. Her dad and my dad were friends. We had last connected on that island in Hyannis. Her family vacationed there too. She remembered me as one who nurtured her first crush that attraction would not be limited to the opposite sex.
Today I don’t own a home; not even a blade of grass. I have a legacy of sorts, but when I received this robotic email from my friend. It felt like angel godspeak of seeds planted of what if, now what, and what might I want for myself today.
“Shoulda, coulda, woulda,” and regrets seem an inappropriate response to longing and keeping house, a place of one’s own. It reminded me of all the things I have lost, given away or didn’t realize the value until it was long gone and out of my grip.
Jewel ultimately did not list and sell the house for me. Too complicated, and not worth the time or money she might receive I suppose for the value and what would be involved. I had already left Portland for Southern California. I had not wanted to sell the house, but I couldn’t figure out how I might keep it and not live in it. Another young agent who I actually never laid eyes on handled all of the details and I made a modest profit. As I recall it was my sanity and less than $10,000. The house I had bout for 112,000 in North East Portland, my gateway to first time ownership now 20 years or so later was my symbol of lost potential and wealth.
Is that how you build generational wealth? Just have staying power and don’t let go? No matter what don’t let go? My daughter says leaving is what I do and when I look back while it may be an accurate assessment from her perspective: I repeatedly wander down the aisle of path not taken. It didn’t feel at all like cutting my losses and running.
Whatever can I learn from a harsh lesson that at the time, inaction didn’t serve me. And taking the action to sell seemed like the best choice option. Immediate gratification of day trading or the long steady pull of wait and see, this is my home and I am not going anywhere and what might I have to pass along and anyway where will I live are all questions best answered in hindsight.
So, if I hadn’t sold my house back then, according to my email in my inbox from my friend, my net worth would be $238,687. Since that amount is well beyond what I have now. I promise if I ever buy another house. It will be my last house, the one of my dreams and I will stay; I will not sell; no matter what! When I die, I will leave it to my daughter, or maybe the granddaughter, the one with the babies, the one who doesn’t own a house. Thank you so much Jewel, you are a treasure! I will never throw away your junk mail. There is sage and wonderous wisdom therein.
The estimated value of your home is
$372,000
Tune value
350k400kJan ‘18Apr ‘18Jul ‘18Oct ‘18Jan ‘19Apr ‘19Jul ‘19Oct ‘19Jan ‘20Apr ‘20Jul ‘20
That’s up 109% from when you bought it. Nice!
📈 97217 is in demand and picking up
Take a look
That means the net worth of the home to you is
$238,687
If you sold your home today, this is approximately how much you would put in your pocket.
How is this calculated?
WHAT’S IMPORTANT NOW
Set up a safety net fund by cashing out around $84k
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