FIT THIRTY EIGHT
Home.
Angela and I made moves this year, a literal move as well as the allegorical. We bought a house. I haven't really known how to talk about buying a home. For one, we're incredibly privileged that we even got to consider buying a home, let alone the fact we actually did that. But as much as we're aware of the extreme privilege of buying a home, it's also the biggest thing either of us has done financially, during a slice in time where Vancouver real estate is wild in pricing and volatile at best.
We bought a manufactured home. If you don't know what that means, it means we bought what most people call a trailer home, in a trailer park. I say most people because there's a fun stigma attached to trailer homes that frankly I'm incredibly grateful that Angela and I were able to look passed to buy our first home.
So again, a trailer home is also called a manufactured home. Manufactured because it's made in a central facility, it's also a trailer home because it's built onto a trailer and delivered to where it will be someone's home. People frown at them because in some cases historically they were made with cheaper materials and associated with being owners being poor because it's affordable housing. And honestly, fuck that. Building materials quality might be one thing, but it's not the 1970’s anymore and there's no asbestos or aluminum wiring in our home and affordable housing is a good thing (we lucked out that our unit was made in 2018, still under new home warranty!). Our home is also in a wonderful and small park that has kind of the perfect sized backyard for us. Just big enough for Becky to run around, but not so big that maintenance seems daunting. It also came with a really productive food garden, tomatoes from your backyard are special.
Angela and I consider ourselves creative folk, if you have creative friends you know they have a lot of *stuff to make things with. We're very guilty of that. Our one bedroom plus den apartment we had was a beautiful apartment, but not the size for the kind of creative (also active, pet-filled) lifestyle we want. And a balcony is very nice, but man it's not a backyard (Becky agrees).
Part of the reason I'm writing this out is in so grateful we looked at what the options were for our housing choices. I keep saying Vancouver in general but I also mean here in Squamish it feels like first time homebuyers can only look at small condos that have hurdles for pets, bikes, strata and just straight out cost. The choice we made to stop paying rent for a lot of people means they're also making a choice to be house poor, for a home that doesn't necessarily match the lifestyle they're seeking. That we have a backyard attached to a floorplan that's 30% bigger than our apartment still boggles my mind. We even have the Squamish luxury of parking, off street! The bottom line was roughly half of what a similar townhouse or condo would have cost (without the backyard!).
Now we're just over two months into our new home. We're still in a bit of a sea of boxes (see above, creative *stuff) as we try and paint the walls, walk the dog, ride bikes and take pictures. We're hardly settled but already we have more space for us to unwind. Becky literally plays fetch inside the house on some rainy days and when it's dry we have to keep her from digging in the food garden. I keep trying to correct myself when I say we're so lucky to be where we are. Or that we earned it. Yes. We both worked very hard to be where we are. But the reality is we are very privileged to be able to call ourselves homeowners. We also both believe that housing is a right, I don't know yet how to figure comprehend our privilege with the idea that everyone is entitled to a safe place to live.
Keep it real.
*stuff: Shit. Artists have a lot of shit to make shit.