what part of the country are you in
uh Pennsylvania yeah
oh you are East or west i'm from Pittsburgh
oh are you really what part of Pittsburgh
yeah
um the South Hills area Beaver County well originally Beaver County
uh-huh
and uh where are you from
uh Clarion County
oh okay i know where that is
i live we live out in the country
yeah that's pretty out there What well
yeah we have we have two children that live in Pittsburgh yeah
oh okay yeah i got my brother and my whole family there i'm i'm talking to you from Dallas right now uh-huh
oh oh you are do you work do you work for Texas Instruments then
no my husband does and who how about you
oh uh-huh no i'm just my son works for a computer a computer uh federal company you know
place that that needed this well that's okay i guess it's an easy thing to do so you're you have a big do you have a rural house or what do you have
so
yeah
uh we have a big old farmhouse that we've you know remodeled
oh that's a uh-huh
those are beautiful
it had been you know of course a farm it's a farm community and we
uh-huh
yeah is it a is it a working farm or is it
ours is not a working farm
more more i can understand that that's probably what i would uh
yeah i have a garden but you know we have a garden but we don't farm
yeah i can hear the accent now i hear the i hear the Western Pennsylvania um we live uh we lived in Minneapolis for about five years we we originally lived in Dallas and we met and got married and then
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um actually married in Pittsburgh and that's that's not what they want to hear on this call uh at any rate we came back here with my husband was transferred around uh up to Minnesota and now back to Texas with T i
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uh-huh
um-hum
and we're leasing a uh two story town home in a section of Dallas they call North Dallas
oh uh-huh
and it's uh near a little town called Plano well it's not little any more
uh-huh
uh Grapevine do you know Grapevine
uh yes that's out near the airport that's about forty five miles from us
yeah my brother has a home there he's trying to sell he he's living now up uh in in Maryland but uh he lived lived in Grapevine for a long time
it's yeah
that's why we not sure we we're not sure we want to uh buy down here because we actually we lived up north long enough to appreciate the um Minneapolis Saint Paul is very clean you know in terms of
um uh-huh uh-huh
and in terms of housing down here um you really have your pick but it's just everything's overpriced for the economy
oh it's terrible
it really is i mean we're we're in a leased town home and it's uh you're probably your teeth will probably fall out figuratively speaking it's nine hundred a month
i
oh i'm not surprised
but you know what if you if you get anything under five hundred you get into what they call high density living
uh right right right
you know the big apartment complexes and and i just have no tolerance for that
right
yeah yeah it's not good
no i prefer
and the people think the income is really great in some of those areas but when they sit down and look at what it costs to live
that's right
and uh of course most of the homes are you know fairly nice they're uh done up fairly nice uh
yeah but like the town home we're in i don't know how i mean we this is it's like a duplex like a two by two they call it like in Pittsburgh and it's nice but it's i mean the girl bought it for a hundred and ten and now she can't sell it And our neighbors
right uh-huh right
uh-huh
well prices have come down on the homes the duplexes
yeah i mean we'll our neighbors the attached on the other side they're very nice thank God they paid fifty eight for it
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oh my heaven
that's how bad it i know
well i know up in Connecticut the same thing happened and uh it's people are devastated because they paid so much for their home
that's right
uh-huh yeah i have some friends that live in Westport and it's really really bad i mean you
but we like our area it like i said it's it's an old house and everything but uh
uh-huh how far where is Clarion County in relation to actually because we're considering moving to Pennsylvania
well we're about a hundred miles from Pittsburgh
that's not too bad that's north
north
and yeah and it's it's really not you know not that far
are you going up toward uh uh i'm trying to think of the name of that town that starts with an M Bradford no that's too far north
Bradford's north of us
so you're you're not that far north then okay well you're really not too bad yeah
no no
uh-huh
um was it a home that you've had for quite a few few years or that you've
well we've been here since sixty six
oh then you have yeah do you have a lot of land or
uh we have fifty acres well pardon me we have forty we gave ten to one of our children
oh my well then
there you go did you have a hard time getting used to do you feel like you live in an isolated area or
no not really and and towns keep creeping closer and closer you know
yeah i think that that's um i can remember in Pittsburgh when this has to do with homes uh indirectly but i can remember when upper Saint Clair was out in the you know
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the rural end of Washington and now it's it's a terrible connection
yeah it's ours up here we have our rural connections are real bad
oh well that's okay um
but we but we live about ten miles from probably three or four
not large towns but you know reasonable
but but substantially yeah substantially you know um do you like living in an older home and restoring it like that
uh yeah we're tired of doing it though we we don't want to do too much more
how big is it how many square feet do you have
uh oh golly i really uh we have um
well how many rooms do you think yeah
uh four rooms downstairs and a pantry and upstairs we have a bath a bath oh we have a half bath downstairs too we have a bath upstairs and one two
uh-huh
uh-huh
three four bedrooms and a sewing room and a junk room
a junk room yeah i understand we have that too that's that's large if your children aren't at home any more that's large if your kids aren't at home any more
and uh
pardon
well it really isn't too big yet we we like a lot of people say that but um
uh-huh
it's we just like it real well and
it's enough space for two people yeah
yeah we had five children so and they've all moved you know on they're all out on their own now
yeah
oh okay
yeah right that's okay well we've got um this this town house is pretty big it's about eighteen hundred square feet it's got three bedrooms two and a half baths um it's really nice
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well it sounds like a good buy
yeah it is i mean i would never buy it but leasing it is fine
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um but it's just again the the privacy you know um we had a house in Minneapolis that was on three acres and my husband was raised um on a working farm near Dayton
oh and that makes a big difference
right near Dayton Ohio and he said you know he's he's slowly getting me to um not feel isolated if we move to to where there's more land
uh-huh you really aren't isolated because it's the advantages is your home is far enough away that you're not bothered by being too close to people
but yet you can have your friends uh you can have them in you can go out you uh
right
uh-huh
you have more of a choice you're not pressed upon as bad
that's kind of what like his parents have uh land that they retired to um about a hundred miles out of Atlanta and in Georgia and it is too far south for me but um
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uh uh-huh
um but i mean they have one of the um when they said log cabin i just laughed that they retired to but they built one of these i mean it's just beautiful
uh
it's like a custom you know it's not like what i would think of when i think of old log cabins you know i mean it's modern it's right right it's modern it's beautiful it's country it's you know um
uh-huh
more luxury
uh-huh uh-huh
right yeah
but uh i don't what else about housing except it's uh well Pittsburgh's housing economy i i i think it's holding it's own
uh they're yeah i suppose they are now we both of our children who live there have just bought a home now
what part what sections are they in
uh in the Mount Lebanon area
yeah that's nice
and uh the one the one boy the house they bought is completely livable they didn't have to do much to it
great
the other one is uh uh has you know needs more work done it's twenty years old i think and but they have two children too and they they bought what they could afford
uh-huh
uh-huh
that's yeah a really good friend of mine lives in Penn Hills and they've been in their house oh probably about twelve years now and um it's it's you know they're going to start to see their return on their investment very soon um but it's a beautiful home and
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uh-huh they are beautiful homes
i mean my brother lives is it called Baldwin or Bebble i mean he lives all in that same area going from Mount Lebanon um it's real pretty up there it's just
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it is it's real nice
and the neighborhoods are stable you know it's uh when you come to this part of the country we've been away from Dallas long enough that you see the difference in housing
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oh my you would you do when you move when we first got married uh my husband works for the state and we moved once a year usually
oh my goodness
and then after they had to start paying to move us
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that suddenly wasn't necessary any more
that's what it is here yeah that's why we're at a point now we've uh we're adopting and we have been married ten plus years and what happens is uh you just realize that once you get to a certain age the next house that you get we'll be staying in so
right yeah you have to stop some place yeah
yeah that's kind of like where we're so we're considering Pennsylvania and we're just kind of you know toying with what exactly where we want to be you know a lot of people say it doesn't matter where they live if they have a nice house and but i disagree with that i
yeah
yeah
uh-huh
well
i do too i've heard too many people say i hate it here you know they buy a place and they just hate the area
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i know and it and the economy here in Dallas i mean it it's steady but it's still not going up and i um i just refuse to buy it um if i know i'm not going to be there for at least
uh-huh uh-huh
uh-huh
five years uh you you know
yeah well my brother they're having trouble selling their home they
oh i'm sure yeah there i mean you can go down a street and here he told you this every other house you know if it's been foreclosed on or you know even big executives um
hm
right uh-huh
oh yeah yeah
it's really i mean a and and it's hard to sell the properties people from JC Penney's from New York came here about a couple of years ago
uh-huh uh-huh
and they thought they were getting a great deal um because they could get a five hundred thousand dollar home with they call it zero lot lines no property Jean
oh uh-huh uh-huh
and it would make you ill to see this
yeah
i mean it would probably be like your house on uh you know a half a city block in Pittsburgh or something
i i couldn't handle that
yeah i know and that's you know like i can look outside right now and look into the next unit you know it's across the way and it's landscaped and all that with azaleas but it's still it's still not that private
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i get tired uh sometimes mowing because we mow you know a good bit of ground around the house area and i do get tired of that but uh
yeah but you have a rider
i don't know i don't think i'd want to change it
no and your kids have to tell you the truth um i think that if you can keep that that way you know kind of like a homestead
uh-huh
