Housing Crisis

Its after 3am. I was sleeping soundly when some loud mouthed, drunken a.h. came barreling down our street yelling out his car window. Our windows are open since it has been such a lovely mild month with a few exceptions.

I am a light sleeper. Problem is I can't go back to snoozeland since my mind is still churning. I am unsure as to what to do with the home I bought before I became Ms. DD.

We lived there for a number of years and put it up for rent after we moved to our current home. Its a special 2 BR house in a quiet neighborhood that has been in the process of s l o w gentrification over the past 25 years. Its a 1910 sweetheart that hasn't been updated in all the ways that count... kitchen, bathroom and central ac. It is on a huge double lot that takes an amazing amount of time and attention to keep it from looking like a jungle. There is bamboo, an herb garden, rose bushes, an amazing crepe myrtle tree. The soil up on that hill is amazing. ANYTHING grows. I was spoiled as a gardener .

My problem is that a)I cannot afford to work in this house as a studio so I need to rent it.
b) I've never had great tenants so its take a beating every time someone moves in and then moves out... Not like PACIFIC HEIGHTS but bad enough.
c) It is probably the sweetest, most sucessfully integrated neighnorhod in the city. Its not perfect but its good. My friend Don described it as a "grandma house in a garden" and I think that's pretty accurate. Its reminiscent of the days when land was something you lived with and worked and most people had more land to take care of than money in their pocket. That certainly describes us now. Its located a corner lot but it very private because of all the trees.

I have been speaking with a rental management co. that tends to property in that part of town. He looked at the house and told me he didn't want to manange it because it would take too much time to rent it. "It will take a special person to rent that house." He's right. "special people" aren't always good stewards of the land. Some are, some aren't. He suggested that I build a prefab home on the extra land and sell it and use the money to fix up the house I own.
Yuck. Its probably the most sensible idea but the whole idea s t i n k s to me.

So -
I am putting money into an empty house. I'll rent it eventually. There are things I would have to do anyway to sell the place. It's just not something I want to be thinking about right now. I want to be making art and studying French and working on my own home which needs a lot of work. 53 windows that all need painted. My husband and I own two and a half fixer uppers and
neither of us are really handy. Its that old southern thing about land... never sell it. Its all ya got. If I sell the place then the money will just go toward paying taxes and who knows what else. If I could sell it for enough to move to Paris with my husband I would. Unlikely. If it were located in another part of town then perhaps that could have happened but I didn't grow up here and didn't study here and didn't even work here. I married here and am now figuring out why. The marriage is good... but this is not Paris. I know, I know... it could be worse.

Still, I try to sleep and I worry. Time for an Ambien! Any suggestions or comments regarding finding good tenants or managing real estate or the current state of the marketplace or economy would be appreciated. Many thanks.