photograph courtesy anna traverse
My parents bought their first home — a wood-frame bungalow at the bottom of a hill, on a dead-end street in Midtown — in June 1985. The sale price was $65,000. I recently confirmed the exact details by searching the Shelby County Register of Deeds website, where after less than a minute spent searching, I opened a PDF and instantly recognized my father’s angular signature on a grainy scan. $65,000!
photograph courtesy anna traverse
True, the place needed work — like, a lot of work. Rumor had it that the home’s previous occupants had been involved in shady dealings, which required installing a bank of telephone lines in the attic. In the bathroom, aluminum foil lined the walls, shining strangely through the splinters of unfinished wood paneling. The ceilings vaulted up to the roof line — the house had been remodeled at some point, to feel more mod inside than its 1920 build date would suggest — and on one expanse of wall, someone had painted a floor-to-ceiling portrait of a woman in profile. Neighbors told us that folks used to ride motorcycles in through the front door and clear out the back, into the tumble-down garage. The house was wonderfully open, after all, with clear lines all the way through.
We didn’t have a lot of money, so my dad, equal parts handy and hardheaded, taught himself to tackle home-repair projects large and small. One summer, he reroofed the place — solo. (While he worked, I was tasked with sitting on the back porch and listening for any sudden thud — if he fell, my job was to run inside and dial 911.) When the foundation developed cracks, he jacked up the house and fixed it. He taught himself to move walls, to lay tile and install counters, to shift electrical and plumbing lines — mostly by consulting library books, these being the days before YouTube tutorials and DIY shows (except This Old House, which he loved). Before I left for college, he filled a toolbox with solid basics, even engraving my initials onto the metal tools with his Dremel engraver — so no scumbag boyfriend would “accidentally” wander off with my hammer or multi-bit screwdriver, thank you very much.
People are drawn to the idea and the reality of home: a center of gravity, a refuge from the storm.
It wasn’t easy; I know that. The house was forever demanding more attention, as old houses do, and there was never enough money. But it wasn’t impossible. The mortgage would have been a relatively manageable portion of my parents’ salaries — even their educators’ salaries. And it was home — for the entire duration of my memory, until I left for college at 18. (We moved into the house when I was 1 year old, from Virginia; those 17 years still mark the longest I’ve lived any place since.)
photograph courtesy anna traverse
I’m thinking about that old house, and the life it made possible, in the context of real estate, which this issue inhabits as a theme. I read last month in The New York Times about how much longer it takes the average American family to save for a down payment now, compared to what it took our parents and grandparents. In 1970, families needed 4.7 years to save; in 2023, they needed 7.8. Three years might not sound like a long time in some respects, but for a young family, it’s an entire era. Meanwhile, in 1970, the median sale price of an existing home was $23,000, and the median family income was $9,867 (42 percent of the home price). By 2023, the median home price had climbed to $394,100 (a 16-fold increase) — while the median family income had reached $100,800 (only a 9-fold increase). The house where I grew up is currently estimated to be worth $452,000. Granted, it’s no longer got foil-lined bathroom walls and motorcycle treads in the kitchen, but even so — I doubt a young family like mine could reasonably consider purchasing it.
And Memphis is an affordable city, relatively speaking.
No wonder Gen Z is reportedly cynical to the point of hilarity about their own financial futures. Who could blame them? My millennial generation gets dinged for whininess; the folks entering adulthood now are simultaneously more savvy than we were, and more resigned. It’s an odd amalgam of qualities, and one that emphasizes, to me, how feeble is our ability to prognosticate the future. Will they even want to buy houses?
I tend to think so. People are drawn to the idea and the reality of home: a center of gravity, a refuge from the storm. The little house my parents bought in 1985 gave the story of our life a form and a place, a continuity that helped the days add up to something meaningful. I still visit that little bungalow sometimes — just crawl my car down the block, idle outside, try not to look creepy. It’s some other family’s home now, but I love the shiver of 10,000 memories passing through me when I look up at the walls I once knew better than any place on Earth.
