Do you really own it?

Back when I decided to build a dome to live in, I received a lot of negative comments. One of the big things people gave me crap about was resale value. Frankly, I really didn’t care about resale value. The house was for my family, not for some potential owner down the road.

Turns out banks are interested in resale value and don’t like to loan on nontraditional housing. That had to be worked around. By selling my old house, I made enough profit to build the shell, divide up some rooms, and do some wiring. Once the place was actually in existence, it wasn’t a problem to get a loan to finish the job. Now that tax assessors have put a number on the value of the place, it’s pretty much treated like any other house.

I never worried about the resale value of vehicles. Even back when I borrowed money to buy cars, resale was never a concern. All my cars were modified to fit my needs -not some plain vanilla basic generic needs. Besides, I don’t trade in cars. By the time I’m done with a vehicle, it’s ready for the scrap yard.

A lot of people talk about cool and interesting things they’d like to do, but then rarely depart from the norm. I hear about the dream houses or cottages they’d want to build, or some radical modification they’d love to try. Of course, few banks would lend money to build such a house, so they’d have get creative on the financing side. In the end, they pretty much do what everyone else does. If they feel really radical, they might paint their front door red. In a pinch they could repaint it for resale.

The US is supposed to be a nation of individuals. Sure we are -within a certain narrow range. It got me thinking. If we don’t act like we own our stuff enough to modify it, do we feel the same way about owning ourselves? After all, we are our own do it yourself projects, responsible for the way we turn out.

-Sixbears