Our Neighborhood! the Rest of the Homes

 

some of you saw this on Beaus Blog and commented about our beautiful neighborhood

Under my label Walkamile  I have shown you only photos of beautiful homes on my walk with Big boy and walks  with Beau . 

these are  The Rest of The homes, the not so beautiful.

When we bought our house 32 years ago, this was the place to buy, since then a lot of the houses have become rentals.

We have been surrounded by rentals for years. 

The rent is so high people can't afford to live one family to a house.

Rent runs 1200 to 2100 a month.

All the cars in the drive way,  means several working adults live together to afford the mortgage or rent.

32 years ago, there was not a single rental in our neighborhood.

Most were retirees.

In the past 5 years, 6 of the neighbors that were next to or across from of have passed away, one couple went into assisted living.

In the years of Pandemic, the yards have filled with cars.

 The homes have become rentals and multi family,

We are one of a few that have been here long enough to have our home paid for.

Investors call daily wanting to buy our home and fix it up and resell it.

The  investors are causing inflation of prices, the homes sell for so much the average person can't afford the payment.

 Investors buy cheap and then flip the houses.

Some of you will remember the yellow and aqua homes that were recently painted and a part of our front window view.

As of 6 months ago 5 of the six in our front view have sold at exorbitant prices. 

 

At first I thought, yay that raises the value of our house.

Until the email bill for our homeowners insurance  for the coming year.

Already extremely high because we live in a hurricane state, it jumped 483.99 since last year.

Shocked I grabbed last year policy to compare and found the reason.

They have accessed our replacement value per the values of the homes that have sold.

Also our taxes will go up accordingly.

This means the house we own free and clear will cost us a lot more in taxes and insurance.

We are retired on fixed income. 

Add to this the inflation of food and sundries because of the pandemic, I almost panicked.

In the past 3 years nearly every home we walk past has been flipped by inspectors.

Many of these homes in my Walkabout label, our neighborhood we walk in, 

 were flipped in the past 2 years.

Now all those people have a mortgage so high they will not be able to sell the house if they need to.

The reason they were rentals is the owners owed more than they were worth and could not sell them.

The problem is, if we sold our house, we could not find another one to buy, but would have to have a mortgage.

We will hang tight until we die or the house falls in a sink hole.

The Castrophizer read  the fine print on homeowners, that says if the house falls in a sink hole, and the govt declares it inhabitable, the insurance covers it.

 if it falls part way in a sink hole it covers NOTHING.

Sink holes are common in Florida,

OV VEY!!!!!

Ugly Duckling to Swan

 

I will be taking a day or maybe 2  off.. Two more closets 1 cabinet and window washing

The above house, use your mind and remove all the white trim, the screen door and the steps, turn it blue asphalt shingles, add concrete blocks for steps and a horrid roof.

Ugly Blue Sqaure Shack for all the years we drove by it.

UNTIL NOW 

. From 1989 to 2014 it was a mess of a house. It was sitting on concrete blocks and had 4 concrete block as a step up.

In 2014 it sold and was painted and bottom enclosed and remained an ugly box.

it has been  remodeled in phases. I found these photos on the tax records.

By 2018 per tax records it looked like this.

We missed it because we stopped driving that way..

2 weeks ago we found the house completed. 

Below are the photos I took a couple of weeks ago.

The Wraparound Porch Changed the whole house

My New Most Favorite House 

My 2nd favorite house

 
This is my favorite house on the route Beau and I take for our walk, we turn around when we get to this one. I love the beige color, the burgundy doors, the stone walls and wrought iron gate, and it has many palm trees, all of which I love

I have yet to get a photo of my favorite to show you. When we pass it the light is shining the wrong way, I need to go a little later in the morning.  

This house sitting in the sun makes me feel happy

PS. I just noticed there would be no watching neighbors from this house.

Yellow House News.

IF you think you saw this on Fourpawsetc and commented, you did. I posted it on the wrong blog. 

Last week I show you the Yellow and a Aqua House Across the street! While out walking, I noticed a For Sale sign on another house accross from us, 2 over from the yellow.

I pulled out my phone and asked how much it was for sale for.

When it came up so did the Yellow House above.

The yellow house as a contract pending on it and NO WARNING that it was for sale.

It sold before they put up the sign, they just bought it a year ago. the aqua house just sold in Dec of 2020. It was white when they bought it.

SOOOO finally to get to the point.

the next morning while I walked Beau I counted 3 more Aqua Houses, and in the 3/4 of a mile of Beaus walk guess what I did?

3 Brick

3 shades of green

5 shades of Gray, did not get the other two. I did not take photos of the rest,

There were 7 beige and brown

4 more shades of gray

A dozen of so still WHITE.

ODD thing, the people who bought the yellow house, not the one above, painted it cream colored and added an Aqua Door.

I paid attention to the house that have sold in the past year and every single one of them was a COLOR not white... Can you see where I am going with my desire to paint the house aqua?

PS... I did the collages above all on my phone, uploaded to Google Photos and here they are

Jacaranda Tree

 

Both times I stood under this tree it was full of song birds. My research tells me they were Common Blackbirds. 

the only black birds i have seen and know are BIG and LOUD and CAW.

these were song birds. It says here they are song birds.

It was a whole flock.

photo from Wikipedia HERE for song

Common Blackbird. Not so Common to me.

Cell phones do not take photos of tiny black birds in a big tree.

I  learned where all our Lizards have disappeared to. I saw one of these birds with a 3 inch lizard i his beak...

 This is a Jacaranda Tree.

Click HERE to see what it will look like in full bloom. 

About The Sign

 In a prior post of a photo of this sign 

Several comments were  What Does this Sign Mean? I had no idea. I chose to walk the street and see what it looked like before I got close to it.

Perspective makes all the  difference in understanding what the sign means

At the end of the street I can see the sign, it looks like we will drive into a big tree.

As we get closer, we can tell it means curving to the right

Thanks for the questiosn, I found something I never saw or took a photo of.. coming soon.

Walk A Mile Flowers Nature Friday

On one of my morning walks, I found these. No idea what they are, but the yard was full of them. Name This Plant Please.

 While taking these photos with my cell phone, I pondered this question. 

Do you think Sales of Cameras are down because everyone has one and doesn't need a camera?

I asked Google Search and the answer is YES! Details here titled How Smartphones devastated camera industry. 

Walk A mile with me Misc Stuff

 

I take these photos as I walk every day and You Are The Lucky Viewers!

Whom Else Will I show them to?

Word to the Wise!

Once in a while blogger does something whacky, HA HA, and your blog can go wonky and lose what is there. To repair it, you need to have backed up your blog.

this happened to a blogger last week.

BACK  it up, SAVE it in your computer and also put in the cloud or on external device.

Go to Dashboard/settings/manage blog/backup content,

If you have more than one blog, do it for all.

the house lower right behind tree is the first house I listed and sold back in 1990. the house that burned is on this same street.

Norfolk Island Pine on Nature FridaySun

 

Our neighborhood is full of the Norfolk Island Pine, it is almost every sky line we can take.

They grow to 40 to 60 feet tall;

I pass this tree every time I walk, these are close up of the new growth at the bottom, this happens with the tree is topped. the have to be topped because the taller they get, the easier they crash in our winds.

When topped, the branch out and make two tops, then three tops and the bottom of the trunks sprouts new growth.

CLCK HERE to see the sunrise on our street with these trees in the skyline. Taken while  standing in our driveway and also in the middle of the street. It's early everyone else is still asleep.  

NOTE ON BOB

The doctor said his knees are arthritis, bone on bone, cushion is gone on both knees, 2 options.

Replace the knees or get Steroid Shots which are good for about 3 months. He chose the shots.

How they look at Sunrise when I am walking. 

Sunday 7 am Feb 28

Because I COULD

 

While walking past the house that burned, the rising sun pointed out this box.

And next to Mi-Box it pointed to

Jenni Jons

This needs a sign on it that says

Open this box to get the potty started...HEH HEH HEH

Portable toilets have many different names

• Portable restroom (our preferred term)
• Porta-potty.
• Porta-john.
• Honey bucket.
• WC (water closet; used in Europe)
• Porta-loo.
• Johnny-on-the-spot.
• Jon.
•                           What are the ones in your part of the world called??

Palm in the morning sun

 

enhanced Landscape in Lunapic

I stood in my yard after my walk, staring acroos the street at the simple beauty of sun shining our our neighbors Palm Tree. I had just spent my entire walk staring at the rising sun. The pink and red had disappeared and the sun was above the horizon pointing out this beautiful start to my day.

Sharpened and lightened in Lunapic

out of my cell phone no edit

trees in fog

 

Since there is not much to be said about trees in fog, I will tell you my life is lived in a fog. My hubby needs his hearing checked, his aids are 6 years old and need to be reprogrammed or replaced. He says they do NOT!

You tell me if they need to be.

Sitting in the sun by the pool, he pointed to his stomach and said, Look I am bleeding. this is no big deal, he is always bleeding because he takes blood thinners for his heart.

I stood and said "I am to hot, I'm going inside, I will bring you a paper towel."

His answer was

"What, you're going to take a shower?"

Can one of you tell me the name of the above tree?

UPDATE, thank You Denise, this is a Norfolk Island Pine, very common here.

The Fog comes in on little cat feet, came to mind.

The tree and the flowers were taken at the same time. 

The flowers are under the tree. The fog did not creep along the ground but from the sky

Clear as a bell for about 3 feet from the ground and thick above.