I'm Pretty Sure My House Value Just Dropped 10K

And no, I'm not talking about the ever-spiraling-out-of-control housing market. But I could. Cause we have a house for sale in Hot Springs Village, AR. Not familiar with the housing market there? I won't bore you, but just think of a waterfall. A really tall one. The market is tumbling oooooovvvvveeeeerrr.......

Okay, back to the subject. Why did MY house lose $10,000 value out here on the west coast in a Seattle suburb? BECAUSE MY NEIGHBORS HAVE NO TASTE. That's why.

You see, 10 years ago, we bought this house in a cookie cutter tract neighborhood. Nice, boring, middle class houses. New construction. We all picked our colors from a very limited selection of safe, neutral-ish, siding colors. That's right, siding colors. Because it's vinyl siding. No need to scrape, paint, stain, seal or otherwise. Wash and go. Yeah, people think that's weird, and I'm not sure it caught on too well, even here. It'll be one of those things that "dates" the houses to the era they were built. Kind of like bell-bottoms or skinny jeans.

Sooooo, the neighbor. Make that neighbors. Obviously in 10 years there's been some turn over in the neighborhood. And somewhere along the line, the Architectural Committee that the builders established because Centex was too damn cheap and lazy to establish a Home Owner's Association fizzled and died. And apparently so did all the covenants that outlined what you could and could not do to your house and yard. I mean, really, even we laughed at them, because who is going to enforce them? And does anyone really want a committee of neighbors telling them that their fence is two feet farther forward than it's supposed to be? Well, yes, in hindsight, I do want that.

So they decided to paint. Their vinyl siding. Two different neighbors. Apparently the second one thought the first one's idea was so grand that they'd do the same. The first one went with tans and brown accents. Unfortunately, not from the same color family. And the best description I can give you of the tan that is the house color is this: Newborn Baby Poop - Dirty Mustard Tan. Pretty, no?

Oh, but wait for the second one. I'm hoping (praying, really) that they were going for a beige-y/tan color but it just looked different on the paint swatch. BECAUSE IT IS PINK-Y/PEACH. Gross, fakey PEACH. And they aren't finished yet! There's some clashing brown accents. And the newest addition? BRICK RED eaves under the front porch - and apparently the gutters, but since they were painting in the rain, it streaked off. And more brick red around the side windows.

Don't get me wrong. There's a place for brightly colored homes. But I promise you, it's not in this boring neighborhood.

Now, these folks both are one street over from me, so I don't see them from my house. But the Giant Peach? It's the FIRST HOUSE YOU SEE WHEN YOU DRIVE INTO THE NEIGHBORHOOD! What the heck?

Never mind that vinyl siding overlaps, and can shift. Like in a heavy wind. Which we get a lot of in the winter.

Sigh. I guess it's better than lime green. Or Pepto pink. Or purple.

Neither of these are in my neighborhood. Just a reminder that I guess it could be worse.

***Ally