Kuma’s House For Sale

Out the alley behind our apartment building and across Monroe is what the Wilcox clan calls “Kuma’s house”. When our Maine Coon was still with us, and the 1,300-square-foot Craftsman, built in 1917, was a foreclosure, he would go there to play and hunt in the side yard’s overgrown foliage. Our neighbor’s kitty Lou Lou died there in April 2013, after succumbing to a hit-and-run. The property sold for $579,000 the following month.

This afternoon, there was an open-house, with selling price that surprised me: $800,000. Whoa! Expecting a second child, the owners are moving into a larger property in Normal Heights. Apparently, they’re already in escrow. When my wife and I walked through—and not for the first time—around 4 p.m. PDT, the real estate agent told us that in three hours more than 40 people had come by. Looking to spend $800,000? I can’t imagine, no matter how much this neighborhood or the Craftsman appeals to me. That’s helluva appreciation in selling price, even if the owners spent several tens of thousands of dollars in renovations.

I used the Fujifilm X100F to shoot the home. The Acros film simulation is fabulous for black-and-white photography. Thank you, Fuji! Vitals, aperture manually set: f/5.6, ISO 200, 1/500 sec, 23mm; 5:16 p.m. PDT.