The Thirty-Second

My parents are VERY involved. My sisters and I are very happy, successful people, so it's clearly not a bad thing, but sometimes it's a bit...much. My mother's better than my father, but not as much as she'd like to think. :)

Ever since I deemed myself to be an adult, it's been a struggle to include my parents in my life without their immediately suffocating my independence with their "help". To this end, I have tried to build and maintain one heck of a boundary wall (20 feet high with barbed wire, embedded glass shards, moat with crocodiles). Both A and L think I'm a bit drastic about it, but really, my parents will give until they're severely inconvenienced. It's bad for both sides.

For example, my parents already paid for my very expensive college education. Most children don't even get that. SURELY, I am now fully set up to support myself. Like, really, that's enough.

And yet, my father pretty much offers to pay for anything that I mention I want to do or for anything that it occurs to him that I should do, particularly things that aren't remotely necessary. Last year, I was making $45,000 a year before taxes and saved over $15,000 in 7 months, and my father was still asking me if I had enough money for the movies. And when he heard I was looking for jobs abroad, he offered (blithely, without consulting my mother or their finances, mind you) to support me if I wanted to Latin America and studied Spanish. Granted, I think he was largely horrified that I wanted to go teach in Bangladesh, but STILL. That's a $25,000 gift! How useless would I have to be to accept such a thing?

My mother's learned that Am and I won't accept stuff like that (my father's utterly incorrigible), but she's just as ridiculous with Em.

And money's just the tip of the iceberg. After giving us comp tickets to the opera and typing out extraordinarily detailed driving directions to the opera, my father drove 45 minutes to intercept me and L during the opera's intermission because he'd accidentally written "2.2 miles to the exit" instead of "2.6 miles to the exit" in the return directions.

And Lord, my mother has jumped ALL OVER the future condo with A. Since I'm in China and A's swamped with grad school, my mother, unbidden, has begun to help us do some research. She says, and is right, that it is good for us to have some context before we go condo hunting this summer. But for a month now, she's been sending me listings daily, attending open houses, and emailing reports like this:

The first place I looked at today was a one bedroom/one bath condo in ----, two levels. The flyer says 1053 sq. feet although it didn't feel that large. I think the extra space is upstairs in the big bedroom. The LR/DR felt smallish. The large bedroom and the bath are upstairs. Windows on only one side of the unit, however, and kitchen walls were painted some hideous green. Also the condo's front door opened into an interior hall. the condo has a fireplace and no one living above or below. (Below is the front door and interior lobby.) I wasn't crazy about the place. However, I learned something important. ---- has a program for qualifying first time home buyers. You can borrow up to $70,000 (the realtor thought it was) at 0% interest for some period of years and then the interest goes up to a few percent. This is to give first time home buyers the down payment they need. There is an income ceiling, however. She thought it was $100,000 but wasn't sure. (I.e., if your income is greater than the ceiling, you can't use the program.) The condo was at -----, which is just off ----. ---- buses go up and down --- and there is a train station at ---- and -----. The asking price for the condo is $398,217. Homeowners' dues are $450 per month which includes water, garbage, security, recycling, grounds and landscaping and maintenance of common areas. The condo comes with one parking space. You can get another, if available, for $25 (per month, I assume--the flyer doesn't specify). There are 238 units in the complex (-----) and the Homeowners' Association has $1.4 million in reserves. The realtor, who lives there, says there's never been a major assessment in the years she's been there. The only special assessment she's had to pay was $500 toward new gutters because the HOA didn't want to dip into its reserves. The complex has two swimming pools, lighted tennis courts, a basketball court, jacuzzis, saunas, etc. etc. The flyer gives a website of -----, but that might just be the realtor, -----. She's with ----. In fact, all three of the properties I saw today were ----listings.

Next I looked at a very cute condo, a corner unit with lots of light and windows, in ----, just one block due west of ----'s dental office. Two bedrooms/two baths with a nice, but not overly large kitchen. There is a pleasant, shady balcony at the back, accessible from the living room and from the spare bedroom. There is a fireplace in the living room and lots of good closet space. The neighborhood is very nice--lots of old trees etc. The condo is one of six units in a two-story building. It's on the first floor, although the first floor is up from the ground level somewhat--I think parking is underneath the building. There is a long covered walkway (open to the elements on one side but having the second floor overhang for a roof) along the side of the building from the enclosed front lobby to get to the front door of the condo. (So the hallway is outdoor, but you can't get to it unless you have entered the building, which you can't do unless you are a resident or someone lets you in.) An outdoor hallway does not collect mustiness the way an indoor hallway does. ----- is one block further west and lots of ----- buses run up and down -----, including to the train/subway station in ----- at ----- and -----. The condo address is ----. (If you walked from the apartment over to ----- --one block away--you'd be near the turnoff from ----- onto ---- on the way to ----- High School, but not quite to that turnoff yet.) The asking price is $499,000. The ad said "Owner Financing Available" but the young woman hosting the open house had no info about that. Two secured parking spaces come with the condo and the Homeowners' Association fees are $374 per month. I didn't ask about reserves because she wouldn't have known the answer. There is a pool that belongs to the building. The condo's square footage is 1040, although it felt bigger than the one bedroom/one bath condo in ----- that supposedly has 13 more square feet. There is a laundry unit downstairs, the hostess said, although room to put a stacking washer and dryer in the condo (in the hall closet) if you wanted to buy them and pay to have the necessary piping and wiring installed. I don't see a web address for this unit. There might be something about it (pictures, etc.) on the realtor's website, whose address I don't have but I'm sure you can find on Google.

Lastly l looked at a very nice two bedroom/two bathroom condo in the hills of -----, just off ---- and near ----. (I.e., if you go up ---- from our house and turn left onto ---- and go all the down ---- and turn right onto ---- and go up the hill on ---- to ----, you would have driven past the side street this condo is on just before you started the steep descent down ---- to ----.) There is no public transportation that I am aware in the area of this condo. The address is ---- (the same street, but at the other end of the loop, that Em's friend LW lived on and maybe her family still does). The area is lovely and wooded and the condo is very nice. The kitchen has been greatly upgraded and has granite counters and beautiful cabinets, etc. It's not huge either, but clearly the nicest of the three kitchens. Very upscale in feeling. (The ---- kitchen was completely blah. The ---- kitchen was cute and nice and totally fine but not a ton of counter space although it had a nice pass through opening--which you could close off with shutters--into the living room.) There is a laundry room with a washer and dryer just off the kitchen. The condo is at ground level with units above it. There are lots of windows and a fair amount of light in the living room and dining room (although some shade caused by the unit above, I believe, with a ground level enclosed deck (with a gate out to the wooded open space beyond the deck). There is a fireplace in the living room. Both bedrooms and bathrooms were nice, although didn't feel as sunny as the ---- condo--maybe because it was later in the day and also because of all the trees all around. The bathrooms were upgraded. The realtor said that the condo had had popcorn ceilings, but that the owners had taken that off. The ceilings looked nice and flat. This condo has 1040 square feet says the brochure. The asking price is $505,000, down from the original asking price of $529,000, she said. The HOA dues are $393 per month. I didn't ask about reserves--didn't think of it. I got there 12 minutes after the end of the open house time and the realtor was just closing up so she opened up the place again for me to see and I guess I was subconsciously thinking I didn't want to take up too much more of her time. Here again, however, I learned something interesting. She said this place qualified for FHA financing she thought and if so, the interest rate on an FHA loan is 3 and something percent. With condos, the FHA (Federal Housing Authority, I think that is) looks at the health of the Homeowners Association (HOA), which means, I assume, that if a condo qualifies for FHA financing, the HOA must be well run and with good reserves. This place also has swimming pools, tennis court, and a Club House. The website for this condo is ----. So, maybe if you and A want to get a place and get it in ----, for example, you might be able to get one of the $70,000 interest free loans and then get a mortgage from FHA and actually be able to afford the monthly payments. Who knows?

Anyway, it's all interesting info. I have cc'd your sisters on this because some of this information might be useful to them at some point in the future.

Love, Mom

I bet you thought I was exaggerating until you saw the email.