I like to cruise the web looking at real estate. Yesterday I was looking at some properties for sale in Santa Monica, California where my wife and I lived the first 10 years of our marriage, from the end of 1978 to the end of 1988.
When my wife and I first moved to Santa Monica they had just voted in the most stringent rent control policy in the nation. Two months after moving into our apartment we received a notice in the mail stating that our rent was going from $300 a month to $209 a month. Yeah, we were shocked.
We lived in that apartment for 10 years. Never had an incentive to move since we paid such low rent. That, and houses in Santa Monica were ridiculously high (we thought) and being originally from the midwest we thought that houses were a rip off and we'd just stay in our apartment.
Yesterday I saw a condo in Santa Monica for sale that's about four doors down from the apartment we lived in. The asking price on this 3 bedroom, two bath 1,154 square foot condo is $864,900, marked down from $899,000. And that condo has an offer 'pending'. The last time the condo was sold was in 1986 and it sold for $44,500!
I actually felt sick when I read that. Man, did I fuck up! Not that I couldn't use an extra $864,000 right now. Fuck, I'm going back to bed.
