To: posthumousone who wrote (15128 ) 3/18/1998 9:44:00 AM From: Bonnie Bear Read Replies (1) | Respond to
gosh, gary. I just sold a beach house in Half Moon Bay. I did the " I'm thirty-year-old-engineer-with-the-beachfront-house" thing ten years ago. I couldn't stand 250 days a year of 55 degree fog. Everything rusted instantly- the innards of my cars, the nails holding the house together, the silverware, tools. Nothing would grow in the yard from the salt spray. And then there was the hour-and-a half-one-way commute through gridlocked traffic (that's when there was no accidents on the road). I found a smaller house close to work, less than half the price, that backed on a city park, I could pay cash if I wanted. The 100 grand equity in the beach house in 1989 appreciated to 130 grand in 1997, I realized that I could shave about 15 years off my early retirement age by not owning that house and finding some decent-yielding real estate investments in the stock market- even bonds. Weekend trips to the uncrowded beaches of the North Coast are less stressful than the ordeal to get to my old home on a typical Friday. Are you sure you want the house at the beach? I've been there, can I talk you out of it? I always have those regrets that I should have hung on to it until the same beanie babie mania of the stock market hit beach homes. But enough was enough, I wanted out.
