Would you buy your childhood home?
It's the classic fantasy, returning to the neighborhood you grew up in to buy back your childhood home.
Back in the "olden days," as my five-year-old daughter calls them - though of course to her that's anything that happened before she was born, but no matter - it was more common for two or three generations of a family to live under the same roof.
But with the birth of the self sufficient, nuclear family after World War II, those days are long gone. The house and town we grow up in often has no bearing on where we eventually land. By the time we are out of college, mom and dad have already downsized to a condo or moved to a warmer climate.
That certainly was my experience. I grew up in a nice, 1970s subdivision in Norfolk, a commuter town with lots of woods and farms about 30 miles south of Boston. By a fluke, really, my sister Sandra still lives in town, so occasionally I drive by four bedroom colonial I grew up in at 8 Noon Hill Ave.
It always looks smaller than it did when I was living there - the current owners, I'm told, have taken out all that dark, 1970s wood paneling and have painted the walls. Probably stripped out the powder blue and rose red carpet as well.
My father, who worked at a local medical products manufacturer in neighboring Walpole, bought the house in 1969 for $44,000 - a big number at the time. My mom apparently was a fan of it - she liked the layout and the size. It was large enough for me and my three siblings, including my then hippie brother Peter, who my father used to lecture him for slumping in his seat at the dinner table. His manners, my father would inform him, just wouldn't cut if he were invited to dinner with President Nixon!
There's lot to be said for the house and the town and the neighborhood. Certainly the value has appreciated handsomely. My parents sold the house in 1991 for $203,000 - the current Zestimate is more than double that at $442,200.
Yet I don't think I could or would do it, if given the opportunity. It would always be more than just another house, with mix of memories, some good, some not so good.
How about you?
