Up For A Sale

Last night, a “Coming Soon” sign went up in our front yard, announcing to the world that we will be listing our house for sale in a few days.  We put it out just in time for the trick-or-treat block party, so we could let all of our neighbors know at the same time.

We’ve had 19 wonderful years on our little cul-de-sac in New Albany.  They began when our kids were both little tow-headed tykes under 10, when most of the lots around us were unsold and undeveloped, and when the newly planted trees around our lot were scrawny little things.  The years rolled by, the boys grew up, the empty lots around us filled with houses, and the houses filled with families.  Now Richard and Russell are adults and our North of Woods development is a mature neighborhood with towering trees and the happy sounds of children playing.  It’s hard to believe, but Kish and I have now spent one-third of our lives here.  That’s longer than I’ve lived anywhere else.

Through it all, this frame house has been the dependable physical center of our family.  We bought it when it was being built and we had the chance to add the features we wanted, and we’ve been the only family to live here.  It’s never given us a single problem.  As empty nesters, though, we don’t need a four-bedroom house any more, and we’ve concluded that it’s time to hand this happy home off to another family with young kids that is looking to become part of a terrific, family-friendly place with great neighbors.

As for Kish and me, we’re intrigued by the thought of returning to the more urban lifestyle we had when we lived on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. back in the 1980s, to a smaller place that better suits our two-person, two-dog group.  After 19 years, we’re ready for a new adventure.

Closing The Loop

New Albany is a good place to live in that is getting better all the time.  However, it does have one drawback — it’s new, and that means there is still a lot of vacant land on which to create subdivisions, plot out new lots, and build new houses.

This fact poses issues for the owners of existing homes who want to sell their properties.  In the current bad economy, the market for real estate is soft everywhere.  When new homes are constantly coming on line, it just makes the market for selling existing homes that much more challenging.  In that respect, New Albany is different from Upper Arlington and Bexley, both of which are established Columbus suburbs where every inch of available ground has long since been the location of a house.  In those communities, if you want to build a new home, you have to buy an existing home and tear it down to do so.

So, for current New Albany homeowners, the familiar sight of yellow construction equipment, pallets of bricks, and building supplies is a double-edged sword.  We know that adding more new homes is going to affect the market for our homes, but we also know that the ultimate goal has to be to build New Albany out so that the market becomes more fixed.  If you’re like us, and don’t have a house on the market right now, you want developers to close the loop and get the new builds done before you put that “For Sale” sign in your yard.