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The night before the election, my kid and I sat down to eat dinner, and our table broke. It was an old, inherited thing, not particularly nice or beloved, but generally got the job done. Until, suddenly, it didn’t. So, I held up the corner, while he scurried around the house to find the right number of heavy books and magazines to prop up the corner where a leg used to be.
This is the start of a flimsy metaphor. Mostly it’ s just a stupid thing that happened.
All this is to say that things just fall apart sometimes. Sometimes with warning, sometimes without. Sometimes you see it coming a mile away, and sometimes the hairline cracks in the wood are only visible in retrospect.
Recently, it seemed like the housing market was finally starting to moderate, with prices dropping in many places after painful post-pandemic highs. Now, who knows? Deporting a huge portion of your homebuilding workforce seems unlikely to make it cheaper to build houses, but that’s not really the point, is it?
So, we just move on, adapt, and try to find enough old magazines to shove underneath to keep the thing from collapsing entirely.
For sale: 2219 Arlington Ave., Arlington, $159,000.
Pessimism is so ingrained in Pittsburghers who lived through the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, which can be a little confusing for newcomers. Nothing seemed as solid as the steel industry, which defeated the empires of Japan and Germany (twice) and built the American middle class. Little wooden houses clinging to steep hillsides like this were someone’s American dream, in a place free from the persecution and wars of Europe. Here, you could work at the mill and your kids could walk to school and imagine brighter futures. At least part of this dream is still available, starting with this house.
For rent: The Commonwealth Building, 316 4th Ave., Downtown, $1,232/month.
Downtown Pittsburgh is due for a rebound. It has reinvented itself many times before, and the work-from-home tsunami that blew in with the pandemic is no more daunting than the previous challenges it has overcome. The next stage will be driven by housing, if enough capital can be cobbled together to turn its surfeit of obsolete offices into apartments and condos, like this sterling example. Occupancy for the few available apartments is extremely high, which indicates that the demand exists. That said, Downtown Pittsburgh is behind a lot of its peers, including the likes of Cleveland and Detroit, so there are plenty of successful transitions to observe and draw from.
For sale: 311 Wilbur St., Bon Air, $145,000.
You can’t have your hopes dashed if you never got them up very high in the first place. But there’s another side to that coin, a kind of oddly infectious optimism that truly believes that This Is Our Year (to with the Super Bowl). We like underdogs, second chances, and believing the Pirates can compete with the power of teamwork and friendship, instead of talent and cold hard cash. Sometimes that optimism is misplaced. Like never getting rid of your creaky aluminum awning, for instance, even though when it rains, it sounds like the recycling truck just skipped the curb. Hey, maybe they’ll come into fashion again. Honestly, I have no other explanation for it.
For rent: Beechwood Gardens, 3245 Beechwood Blvd., Squirrel Hill, $975-1,200/month.
Here’s an indicator of housing price moderation that doesn’t get talked about. For the moment, a lot of the cheaper rentals get the laziest and least-helpful listings imaginable. This one is like, “Oh, here’s a random hallway. Here’s a doorknob. Good luck.” If landlords start to put a little more effort in, maybe they’ll have more leverage, but until then, take the unintentionally reduced rate. These apartments are pretty “mid” as the kids say, but the location is fantastic and so is the price.
For sale: 924 Goldenrod St., Homestead, $150,000.
1942 was a pretty bad year for almost everyone. World War II was raging across the globe, with few safe harbors. Yet, in 1942, someone built this little red-brick house in Homestead, a tiny ray hope in the future during a very dark time. You’re not going to build a house just to hand it over the Germans, after all. As someone who has a home from this vintage, I’ll say that they tend to be well-made, sturdy and unpretentious. One mystery remains, though. The cars of the ’40s were gigantic land-yachts, Packards and Cadillacs that look like they could take a hit or two from an Axis tank. Yet, the garages are tiny. Pretty weird, really. Unless it’s all just a ruse to devote more space to the Pittsburgh Potty.
For rent: 7217 Race St., Homewood, $1,170/month.
OK, the only acceptable aluminum awning in my book is when it makes the house look like it has a moustache. Not that a house needs a mustache, but neither does Paul Skenes, and look where it got him: the BIG LEAGUES! There are plenty of instances where the tan bricks have not aged well, but that clearly isn’t the case here. This also features a fantastic porch, always a plus. Sure, you can sit on your couch and look at your phone — or you could do it outside in the fresh air! It’s better, I promise.
This article appears in Nov 13-19, 2024.
