The "Knots Landing" of Rainbow Row

Last year I bought a house. Having been in Atlanta for a year at the time, I decided it was time to sink some money into a home as an investment. I missed having the tax benefit of the mortgage interest deduction. Plus, my work was paying me $5k towards closing costs as part of the relocation package from Utah to Georgia and the money was scheduled to go away. So I needed to use it or lose it.

I had the cutest little realtor, a sweet lady by the name of Pattie. She was probably around 65, fully gray with a very slight build -- maybe 5' tall and no more than 100 pounds soaking wet. But she knew Atlanta like the back of her hand. We searched high and low for a place to my liking. I initially thought I'd like to stay somewhere close to the city center and get a cool condo in a high rise tower, or a loft or townhouse somewhere. But I quickly realized that there was a glut of inventory of these types of places in the city. It made me think twice because I had such a difficult time selling my townhouse in Utah before the move and when I finally did get a buyer, I barely broke even. Condos and townhouses are the first to go south in a soft market and the last to come around when things pick up. Add on top of that the monthly HOA fees they charge in this neck of the woods ($250 to $350 a month), plus the incredibly high property taxes for the city and county, and I was definitely disheartened.

So the search continued. I told Pattie one day that maybe we should look at houses. Her response: "Oh honey, you'll never find a house inside the perimeter within your budget." haha The "perimeter" is I-285 that runs in a big circle all around the city. Houses "inside the perimeter" or "itp" are generally much more expensive than those "otp" in the burbs. But that's the rub -- who wants to live way the hell out there in the suburbs? Not me.

Well, to make a long story short, the decline in the housing market helped me because in the end we found a cute little house "itp" that was just in my price range and which had been completely remodeled. It was built in 1959, is a single story brick rambler, super small (1120 sq. ft.) but had a huge yard with big mature trees on a beautiful, wooded street. The property taxes were much lower and while it wasn't in the city center, it was only 10 minutes away. I made the offer, negotiated a bit and settled. It's been almost a year since.

Now here's where the story gets interesting -- up to this point its all been back ground (and if you're reading this, you must be thinking "get to the point, damnit!").

It turns out that this place is rainbow row. The "gayborhood". Little Castro. Whatever you want to call it. Right next door there's a gay couple that's been together 12 years. Across the street is another gay couple that bought their house 4 or 5 years ago. Next to them is another gay guy who's boyfriend from NYC just moved in with him. Next to them is a lesbian. Down the street is another single gay guy, and further down is another gay couple. AND, the lady that sold me the place was a lesbian (who did a lot of the remodeling work herself -- go figure!) and there was a lesbian couple that lived in the house before she bought it. Whew! Now, I knew Atlanta had a big gay population -- the third largest in the country, from what I've heard. But who knew my new little house was gonna be surrounded by "family"?

Needless to say, this makes for lots of interesting stories and gossip galore. The "Knots Landing" of Rainbow Row has been born on my blog. Stay tuned for future entries of the craziness that is my life in the gayborhood.