海角大神

Our friends Hannah and Kate just bought their first house. It came with a chicken coop, which was a bonus, since they wanted chickens someday. When they got the keys and started to move in, danged if they didn鈥檛 already have chickens. Did they know the place was going to come with chickens? Had that been discussed?

Well, no. But there they were, three chickens, plus an index card with their names on it. Hannah consulted it. 鈥淭he black and white one is Henrietta, the orange one is Ophelia, and Suzie is that funky one over there. I think they鈥檙e depressed.鈥�

鈥淲hat makes you think they鈥檙e depressed?鈥澛�

鈥淲ell, they haven鈥檛 laid any eggs since we got here. I mean, think about it: Their people just abandoned them ...鈥� She blinked back a tear. Henrietta did look a little down in the beak.

It鈥檚 rough out there. The real estate game is not what it used to be. When I bought my first house, I didn鈥檛 have to pounce on it. I moseyed, more. The first one I looked at was on a double lot with a cherry tree. The flow of the house was odd, but it had a huge kitchen I could imagine cooking in, if I learned how to cook.

It was 1978. Nobody was moving. Americans were being held hostage somewhere, you couldn鈥檛 gas up your car on even-numbered days, and everyone was hunkered down in their houses with a case of malaise. It wouldn鈥檛 be 鈥淢orning Again in America鈥� for another few years, when money would start to flow out of everyone鈥檚 pensions and into the financial sector where it became pretend money and perked people up for a while before it got siphoned uphill and vanished from the middle class altogether. Meanwhile, a half-dozen homes were going begging in Portland, Oregon, for about a buck fifty each, and I had all the time in the world to think about it.

The place with the double lot and the cherry tree was OK, but the listing agent had moated the place with bark dust, sprayed the whole inside of the house Navajo White, and put down a shag wall-to-wall carpet in deep rust.聽

鈥淭hat鈥檚 the first to go,鈥� I said, right in front of him, and he shrugged bleakly. He was sitting behind a card table in the dining room with a little stack of business cards and expected to be there for months.

But after a few weeks I bought it. I wondered if it was really possible to pay $368 a month for 30 years, which was three times more than I鈥檇 ever paid for rent, for longer than I鈥檇 even been alive.聽

Update: It was.

These days 鈥� despite the shutdown 鈥� if you have a good real estate agent, you could hear about a likely house the day it was listed. But if it took you more than 20 minutes to get there, you鈥檇 already lost it to some guy who鈥檚 still on the golf course. The phone in his pocket had had a three-way consultation with his agent and lending institution, and automatically fired off a heartfelt essay to the seller along with an order of freshly baked cookies delivered by drone. Also, he had an extra hundred thou to chip in. He probably got it from your pension in the 鈥�80s.

This made regular buyers jumpy. You know, the kind that tend to their credit ratings and save up a down payment. After they lose the first two houses, they鈥檙e bidding on certified dumps and upping their offers to include an extra year鈥檚 salary, season tickets to the opera, and a bank to be knocked over later.

But somehow Hannah and Kate stayed calm, found a nice place, and didn鈥檛 go over their budget. It can still happen. And the chickens are coming around.

The next day there was a fresh egg in the coop. For them, at least, it鈥檚 morning again in America.