Nowadays many people talk about houses as investments and advise buyers not to get emotional about the home buying process. While I'm happy to work with buyers seeking to aquire real estate solely for its investment value, the truth is, buying a home to live in often is about emotions.
After all, when you buy a house to make it your home, you're charting the course for you and your family and friends. This house will be the place where you celebrate holidays, where your memories are formed, the place you come home to. The good and the bad - this will be where it happens for however long you live in your home. Your home will be your haven.
You'll care for your house. You'll put your own stamp on it. Inside and out you'll make it your own. And the house will make its mark on you. For ever after, the house will play a role in all your memories of the years you lived there.
To Make A House A Home: Four Generations of American Women and the Houses They Lived In by Jane Davison and Lesley Davison is a fascinating look at the central role that our homes play in our lives and how our view of home has changed through several generations.
To Make A House A Home is a 1994 reworking of the 1980 book The Fall of a Doll's House by Jane Davison. Davison's daughter Lesley has added vintage illustrations throughout the book and chapters of her own including "Generation of Renters, 1980 - 1994". That's a generation I can relate to as it closely mirrors my own renting years before I was able to finally buy my first house.
The book is part social history and commentary, part local memoir and history (Jane Davison grew up in Summit, New Jersey and lived in Cambridge and Boston in the 1960s and 1970s), and is greatly shaped by Jane Davison's feminist viewpoint. Publisher's Weekly described the earlier version of the book as a "classic history of the love-hate relationship between the American housewife and her place of residence." Lesley Davison's additions update her mother's viewpoints and the vintage photographs of people and their homes are priceless.
The chapters about Cambridge in the sixties and early seventies, are great fun to read for a look at Cambridge before real estate values went wild. My parents are of Jane Davison's generation but chose the suburbs when they bought their first house though my father had grown up in Cambridge. Many a time my mother has remarked "If only I knew about Cambridge and we had bought there instead" as young newlyweds. Instead my early experience of home were formed in the suburbs of Medfield and Concord and it was an adult that I moved to the city. Who would I be had I grown up in Cambridge? Somebody slightly different - or very different - I think. Where we live changes who we are and who we become in ways both subtle and significant.
To Make A House of Home is out of print but available online or at your local used bookstore.
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My bookcases are filled to overflowing with books - many of them about houses, real estate, and local history - I collect books about anyplace I've lived so have shelves lined with books about Cambridge, Arlington, Somerville, Concord, New Haven, New Hampshire and New England. Some of the books, many in fact, are out of print but many are of interest to those who sell houses, who love houses, or who are hoping to buy a house and want to know more about the history of a community. I'll be regularly featuring books from my shelves in future posts.
It often seems that most tips for conserving energy at home are for home owners. What's a tenant to do who wants to cut down on utility bills and be kind to the planet?
The City of Somerville MA, in partnership with the Massachusetts Municipal Association, is hosting a free seminar for tenants:
What: Home Energy Savings for Renters Seminar
Where: Aldermanic Chambers, City Hall, Somerville Massachusetts
When: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 at 6:30pm
The seminar will include:
For more information contact the Office of Sustainability and the Environment at 617-625-6600 x2108
Since I was an archivist before I became a real estate agent in Cambridge I couldn't help but be intrigued by an article in today's Cambridge Chronicle. The Chronicle reported that the archival records from the 1994 campaign that successfully led to the end of rent control in Massachusetts have been donated to the Cambridge Historical Society. At the time Boston, Brookline and Cambridge had rent control in place. Cambridge's rent control regulations were particularly stringent and feelings were strong on both sides of the issue.
The Cambridge Archives Project, an organization formed to improve information about and access to the various archival collections in Cambridge, is interested in acquiring other documentary evidence about rent control in Cambridge.
The Chronicle reports that the Historical Society is planning a symposium on rent control in November. That will be a very interesting gathering.
My google alert pulled up a story that caught my eye today.
It was an article from a Montana newsaper about musician Martin Sexton. I'm not familiar with his music but the article notes that John Mayer called Sexton the "greatest live performer he'd ever seen".
Turns out Sexton turned to music after "failing a real estate exam in 1986."
The paths we take through our work life often have twists and turns. Mine certainly did before I found my calling in real estate. And I've met more than one former musician now making a living in real estate. Sexton's journey took him in the opposite direction.
His path to a career in real estate stymied, Sexton turned to music. A stint as a sidewalk performer or "busker" in Harvard Square led to a successful career as a musician.
The sidewalk performers in Harvard Square have long been a popular part of the Cambridge night life. And Sexton has good company as several other well known musicians once played for tips in Cambridge in Harvard Square or below ground in the Harvard Square T station - Joan Baez, Shawn Colvin and Tracy Chapman.
Whether it's real estate or music - or something else entirely - when you find what you love best, success will follow.
More than once when showing real estate in Cambridge Mass. I've come across chickens - and a rooster or two - in nearby backyards. It's a surprising and delightful sight in the city. Luckily Cambridge does not prohibit raising chickens.
With the increasing emphasis on eating locally produced food, a backyard chicken coop may be just the ticket. Raising your own chickens means you're going to get the freshest eggs possible. You can't get more local than your own yard. Raising chickens is an opportunity to introduce a bit of nature to your city kids and to increase their awareness about how food gets to their table. And far better that the eggs come from your backyard than from a factory farm.
Turns out city chickens are part of a trend. A blog post by Karen Klinger alerted me to an amazing website about raising chickens in the city. Check it out! The photo galleries are great fun, and there's loads of info and helpful advice for anybody considering an urban hen house.
So if you want to "bring a little country into your city life" check out TheCityChicken.com!
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Enthusiasm, dedication, and a passion for all things real estate. Serving buyers and sellers in Cambridge, Arlington, Belmont, Medford, Somerville, Watertown and nearby Massachusetts communities.
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