[speaker001:] um what kind of house do you live in
[speaker002:] uh we live in a one story just like a ranch style home you know the the standard Texas uh Fox and Jacobs
[speaker001:] oh yeah with with a yard and fence
[speaker002:] how about you guys are you in a house apartment or a house
[speaker001:] I'm in an apartment in uh Plano
[speaker002:] well they say that those are easy to find or difficult to find
[speaker001:] yeah they are if uh kind of depends on what you're looking for mine's just a one bedroom place that's uh
[speaker002:] how are rents doing I haven't looked at rents in a long time
[speaker001:] uh it's hard for me to tell because I haven't rented in uh probably twenty twenty five years
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and uh just I'm getting back into apartment life and it's
[speaker002:] what's a what's a one bedroom are you in a um well Plano most most complexes in Plano are pretty nice so you're probably in a you know
[speaker001:] yeah but well they vary from from place to place it's hard to tell you know how well they've been kept up how old they are and these are probably oh one of the nicest that I found and uh
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] they're almost five hundred a month for a one bedroom place
[speaker002:] ooh that does get high yeah I mean
[speaker001:] yeah it does considering that you know you uh house payments are not a whole lot more than that
[speaker002:] yeah I was going to say our mortgage is is between depending on you know it it drops um seems like in the last six months we um got lucky and we refinanced and it but it was like eight hundred and something but it went down to like seven hundred and twenty
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] so that's really not I have friends that pay about nine hundred dollars for a townhouse in yeah in actually they're near Plano in North Dallas too but I couldn't believe it but you know
[speaker001:] wow that's a lot for a townhouse but that's what happens when you get up in this area you know you got all these companies are up here and these they I guess they know they're going to get it
[speaker002:] yeah and then I think that um nobody was really buying homes for a long time there because of just I mean we've been in ours for about ten years but uh there's no investment in it you know
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] all it allows you to do is itemize
[speaker001:] yeah that's true you just take off your mortgage interest and that's about it
[speaker002:] on your on your taxes yeah that's really about it it's uh have you ever owned your own home
[speaker001:] yeah oh yeah I've owned uh several and built several uh
[speaker002:] so you know what it's like yeah it's like when you first this is our third one it's not um and it's not that exciting after a while
[speaker001:] well well and especially around North Dallas or at least in Plano area they basically all look alike because Fox and Jacobs and
[speaker002:] yeah suburban track yeah we uh we lived out of state for a while and came back and uh we lived in a smaller city and now we say gee Dallas really is big and polluted
[speaker001:] isn't it I can remember I've only been here eight years but I can remember coming to work from I used to live in Wylie and I could see downtown Dallas
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and now there's this brown haze over it and it's moving north
[speaker002:] yeah it's really it's really sad because they're they're not doing anything well we're getting off the subject I guess but just like with housing I mean they're not doing anything about pollution they're not doing anything about it's going to look like Houston have you ever been to Houston
[speaker001:] oh yeah
[speaker002:] you know um I used to think Dallas was better than Houston because their zoning for where you can put a house next to a now it looks just like Houston to me you know
[speaker001:] yeah yeah it does how how long have you been in this house
[speaker002:] we've been in here ten years
[speaker001:] ten years
[speaker002:] yeah so we've got you know we've got some investment in it but you really don't get anything out of it
[speaker001:] no you really don't were you said you were out of state for a while was that a smaller town than than Dallas area
[speaker002:] yeah smaller we were up in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania
[speaker001:] how were the how were the house prices up there
[speaker002:] my home town um the prices actually a lot better because Pittsburgh is about the size I'm trying to think like a Louisville or Minneapolis that type of size
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] and the prices what you get here for about a hundred thousand you could get there for about seventy five eighty
[speaker001:] wow
[speaker002:] yeah it's really and we didn't think it was that clean but then after you're gone for a while it looks cleaner you know
[speaker001:] hum oh yeah
[speaker002:] um
[speaker001:] well you know a lot of these people that I've talked to that are coming down from uh like what I call the back East especially from JC Penney
[speaker002:] yeah Saint Louis whatever
[speaker001:] uh are selling two and three hundred thousand dollar houses up there and buying a hundred and fifty hundred and seventy five thousand dollar houses down here and they've wind up getting better houses here than they had there
[speaker002:] really
[speaker001:] so in a way I guess it works both ways you know
[speaker002:] I guess it's yeah but and here I guess it depends on what you want you know here once people like I know a lot of people that work for JC Penney in marketing
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] and a lot of the people that came from that area probably like what you're talking about they had no um they had a lot of property but not a lot of house and now they have a lot of house and hardly any yardage around it
[speaker001:] that's a fact
[speaker002:] but but they love it I mean they they they think that they're getting you know you say um sun room to them and you enclose and you can sell
[speaker001:] I guess that's true and they don't have to worry about yard upkeep because they don't hardly have any
[speaker002:] yeah yeah and a lot of them I know a couple women that work there and they don't miss in public relations and they don't miss having a basement to run up and down to you know
[speaker001:] that's true there's not too many basements in Texas
[speaker002:] and I said you haven't heard about tornados how about bugs you know
[speaker001:] yeah gosh I remember when I was little uh we didn't have a I lived grew up in southern Oklahoma and uh people across the street had a cellar and we we never did
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and it's just like Dallas area it was tornado alley up there and every spring mom would drag me up at three o'clock four o'clock in the morning and pajamas and teddy bear across the street and we'd go into the cellar and I
[speaker002:] yep
[speaker001:] to this day I don't care if I go or not you know if it's going to get me it's get me
[speaker002:] that's exactly uh growing I grew up in western Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh and uh we used to call the basements actual cellars so it's funny to hear that word because I never hear it you know it's like the back porch used to be a stoop you know
[speaker001:] yeah yeah
[speaker002:] but uh um the housing is just we like the older homes and I don't know if we're going to stay here or not depends you know I mean
[speaker001:] you ever thought about building a house
[speaker002:] pardon me
[speaker001:] you ever thought about building a house
[speaker002:] yeah actually when we were up north um but some family things changed so we ended up coming back down here and all that because it helped my husband's work but um we really would like to but we don't know if we're going to do it unless we stay here you know it
[speaker001:] yeah that's true especially well well TI is like anybody else you never know how long you're going to be here or be in one place you know
[speaker002:] yeah it it's real tough I mean the economy any more I mean I think everybody just lives under an umbrella the uncertainty with housing and everything you know it's um pardon me
[speaker001:] yeah do you work do you work
[speaker002:] yes I do
[speaker001:] so how do you handle do you got any kids
[speaker002:] uh no we don't
[speaker001:] so you got he's working and you're working and you got this big house to take care of how do you manage both of those
[speaker002:] uh how do I take care of the house well I don't have a Mexican I don't I shouldn't say that I don't have an ethnic maid I don't have we have some friends that live near North Dallas off of Campbell Road and they have like a four thousand square foot home and she's got a uh
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] a live out nanny um but any rate I don't have any of that um I don't know it's really not too difficult with no children and just two people you know
[speaker001:] you basically can take care of everything yourself
[speaker002:] we have a yeah we have a dog and we're pretty I mean we're not fanatically neat but um we keep things up you know it's not like where there's three feet of weeds or anything in the yard by the time you need to um get around to fertilizing and cutting in the spring
[speaker001:] yeah yeah what about home repairs and stuff do you have to do all that yourself or
[speaker002:] um no we're pretty much um we we've been around long enough as a couple that we learned a long time ago not to wallpaper together
[speaker001:] wow you too
[speaker002:] and things like that um we pretty much hire we subcontract mostly everything I mean other than anything that's not a um I mean I know how to fix a running toilet
[speaker001:] yeah yeah oh yeah
[speaker002:] he does what he needs to but mostly if it's something major um you know cleaning out the air conditioning ducts or something like that we just hire out to do that
[speaker001:] yeah sounds like you you've already got the makings for being a general contractor
[speaker002:] yeah no thanks I
[speaker001:] yeah  if you don't wall paper it well together you should probably not build a house together
[speaker002:] have you ever done that I mean you sound like you may have been a couple one time
[speaker001:] yeah I built three houses in my life and
[speaker002:] and how'd that go
[speaker001:] oh they the the building process was a lot of fun but puts a lot of strain on things
[speaker002:] uh-huh getting to agree to things that I'm sure and I also think that once you get to be um you know certain when you get to be thirty something and thirty something gets to be a little bit older
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] you start um the dollar value on things
[speaker001:] you bet
[speaker002:] I you know I think people that own homes a lot in North Dallas are very materialistic
[speaker001:] oh you bet
[speaker002:] I know I'm supposed to talk about homes but people that own the people that own them are the home homes themselves and you know um spending sixteen dollars a yard for custom draperies for custom drapes just doesn't
[speaker001:] oh yeah well to some of them I guess it doesn't matter you know that maybe they've got enough coming in to to take care of it but
[speaker002:] yeah that's I mean and and you know you see a lot of these people that came east from uh west from uh from New York with Exxon or JC Penney and it's just a hoot to watch them
[speaker001:] hum um-hum oh yeah they as far as they're concerned they've come to the promised land you know they've got it made already
[speaker002:] right right exactly so well was it hard to adjust living in an apartment after being in a house
[speaker001:] oh yeah because you're combine uh confined by space you know I had a I came out of a thirty one hundred square foot two story house house and I had room for everything
[speaker002:] oh my goodness yeah
[speaker001:] in fact I had more room than I knew what to do with I don't know it's it's seems like room uh stuff always expands to fill available available space but
[speaker002:] uh-huh yeah
[speaker001:] uh
[speaker002:] well in a way you can travel light
[speaker001:] yeah you can yeah you know you learn you adjust you figure out
[speaker002:] how is how is apartment dwelling living in terms of general privacy and noise and things like that
[speaker001:] it's not as bad as I thought it was
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] uh it's not as bad as I remembered especially going to college and living in apartments there you know how noisy that can be
[speaker002:] yes I do
[speaker001:] uh there seems to be a a more a mature crowd in uh apartments at least where I am uh even though you know there's kids all around and there's there's traffic and there's people going up and down the sidewalks and stuff like that but still uh
[speaker002:] everybody pretty much keep keeps keeps to their own turf so to speak
[speaker001:] yeah pretty much and uh there's never really any any oh I remember in school there's just seem like there was a fight or a party or something going on every night you don't run into that up here I think I think because there's so many uh professional people if you want to call them that
[speaker002:] yeah uh-huh
[speaker001:] uh that go spend all day at work and they want to come home and they want some quiet
[speaker002:] yeah relax and try to go to sleep really yeah
[speaker001:] yeah yeah you see a lot of activity outside people riding bikes or playing ball or jogging or doing this and that and uh they're trying to to unwind
[speaker002:] and I think Plano in general is getting a little more well it's gotten so big it's almost a town in it's own right
[speaker001:] oh yeah it's a hundred and what eighty thousand something like that
[speaker002:] isn't that something yeah the price of home now we paid oh we paid um about seventy eight nine for our house like I said about a decade ago not even about nine years ago and
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] I'd say they appraised it it's gone up you now maybe like five percent
[speaker001:] oh yeah
[speaker002:] so it's an investment but it's something that you know when you're first married or starting out you think if you really have something but you really it's just real nowadays with the way income tax I think housing is strictly to itemize
[speaker001:] oh you bet and the thing that that gets me is uh you never really catch up you never really finish doing things and uh
[speaker002:] yeah exactly we
[speaker001:] you're always paying for something you know
[speaker002:] yeah and even you know I mean like we had I called them prefabs just a track home you know I mean we we had one of their homes that was nicer in Pennsylvania but um it was an older home but then you buy an older home and you're always fixing things up
[speaker001:] um-hum oh you are constantly there's always something going wrong
[speaker002:] so you know