How to Get Home

Wes Willison
  • 5.0 (1)
  • SOCIETY & CULTURE
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Tales of finding and forming homes worth living in. howtogethome.substack.com

Episodes

  1. 04/12/2024

    Where you're planted

    Desire paths https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/oct/05/desire-paths-the-illicit-trails-that-defy-the-urban-planners Substack: https://howtogethome.substack.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howtogethome.substack.com

    7 min

  2. 03/21/2024

    Hiring a housing Gandalf

    Y’all keep asking me about the recent real estate lawsuit, so I figured I’d just write up my reflections and share them here. If you haven’t been following the news, here are a few good places to start: * The facts: Powerful Realtor Group Agrees to Slash Commissions to Settle Lawsuits * A helpful interpretation of the facts: Vox: Could a major lawsuit against realtors mean lower home prices? Why does this lawsuit matter? Will it really affect home prices? How will it change the process of looking for and purchasing a home? Let’s dig in! Seller assist, anyone? Until now, it’s generally been the case that sellers would pay commissions: a percentage of the home purchase price to be split between both sides of the transaction — a portion going to the seller agent and a portion going to the buyer agent. That will no longer be the case. From now on, buyers will be responsible for paying their agents in the transaction, and also for negotiating with those agents how much to pay them. That’s the first basic fact from which everything else will grow. Let’s look at two scenarios: Imagine a buyer has hired a real estate agent to guide them through the purchase process, and they negotiate to pay their agent a 2.5% commission upon closing. * Scenario one: the buyer agrees to buy a home for $300,000 and pay their realtor the 2.5% ($7,500) commission in cash. The seller therefore receives $300,000 for their home from which they then pay their seller agent whatever they’d negotiated. * Scenario two: the buyer agrees to buy that same home for $300,000 but can’t afford to pay 2.5% of the purchase price (still $7,500) to their realtor in cash. They’re trying to protect their savings and are holding onto their extra cash for the sake of handling moving costs, repair expenses, or whatever else they want. Instead, they write an Agreement of Sale for a $307,500 purchase price with a seller’s assist of 2.5% ($7,500) to be paid to the buyer agent as the buyer agency commission. The buyer is basically asking to add on the compensation for their agent into their home loan so they can pay it off in chunks, just like they’re paying for their actual house. Therefore, seller receives $307,500 from the lender, pays the buyer agent $7,500, and walks off with their $300,000 to do with it whatever they need to, including paying their own seller agent. In scenario one, the home price is $300,000. In scenario two, the home price is $307,500 with a $7,500 seller assist. The home price of the second scenario may look like $307,500, but ultimately they’re essentially the same thing: when looking at the net amount the seller walks away from the transaction with, it’ll be the same whether the buyer chooses to lump their buyer agent’s payment into their mortgage loan or not. Scenario two is essentially how American real estate is organized currently, and scenario one is likely to become more common moving forward. What’s the upshot of this lawsuit then? Why did they go to all this trouble of litigating something so simple? Buyer at first sight The problem with scenario two is that there’s pretty much no connection between how much value the buyer agent has brought to the transaction with how much they’re being compensated. That gap is what this lawsuit is changing. For example, if you and I were to meet for the first time at an open house and you asked me to write up an offer to buy that house, I would receive the exact same commission as if I had spent months looking at dozens of houses for you before finally finding the perfect fit and then writing up that same offer. And in both scenarios, it’s not even the buyer who pays the commission — it’s the seller. As a buyer, you really wouldn’t care about that gap between how much I as an agent have worked with how much I’m getting paid, as you’re not the one who’s paying that commission — it’s the seller! The original lawsuit that started this whole thing was based on exactly this problem: Christopher Moerhl, a home seller in Minnesota, didn’t want to pay the buyer’s agent at all, and couldn’t find a broker who would let him list his home with no buyer agency compensation. He ended up giving in and paying the full 5 or 6%, with half going to each side of the transaction as per usual, but was still miffed about the injustice of what felt like collusion and price-fixing between brokerages, as well as a misalignment between what value buyer agents bring to the table and what sellers agree to pay them. So in 2019, he sued, and here we are. The courts have since agreed that this system of deciding compensation for buyer agents isn’t just and needs to change. So to revisit that open house purchase example: let’s jump forward in time a few months and imagine the seller is not paying the buyer agency commission anymore. If you were to walk up to me at an open house and ask me to write up an offer to buy that house, I certainly could demand that you should pay me 2.5% of the purchase price of the home for that labor of me representing you in the transaction. You would also be perfectly justified in responding “GTFO” and offering a lesser sum for the amount of work that I’ve actually done to help you purchase that home. That negotiation process between me (the agent) and you (the buyer) is exactly what this lawsuit and settlement is trying to produce. So let’s take that example one step further: let’s say that during the process of drawing up the offer for this home at which I had just hosted an open house, as we’re looking at comps around the neighborhood of similar homes that sold recently, we notice that they all include the buyer agency compensation as part of the purchase price. In other words, they all paid both the buyer and seller agents’ commissions. When we decide what a fair market value is for the house, we might deduct the average of those buyer-side commissions (2.75%, say) from the purchase price we otherwise arrived at and submit the offer at that lower price. Can we really say purchase prices have gone down in this situation? Kinda, but not really! The seller is walking away with a comparable or even identical net amount as if they’d had to pay the buyer agent as well as their own seller agent, right? Therefore the difference is ultimately on the buyer agency side: rather than a buyer agent swooping in and snagging a full 2.5-3% commission on a buy side transaction for which they did the bare minimum of work, they’ve likely negotiated with the buyer what their labor is worth in this scenario and taken a lower amount of compensation. Make no mistake, it’s still plenty of work to represent a buyer through a transaction like this even at this “late” stage of the process, but it’s a lot less than also having done the labor of helping them sift through potential properties and deciding to purchase this one. That portion of the process was already completed by the time the buyer walked into the open house, so accordingly the agent could (probably rightfully) be paid less. Ideally, the buyer is the one who’s saved some money here. Rather than paying for their agent to walk them through the whole home search process, they’ve jumped straight to the end of it — submitting an offer on a home — and hired someone to guide them from that point on. If you are a buyer looking to save some money on the home purchase process, then this is probably good advice for you! Use the internet, do your search on your own, and don’t pay someone else to help you through that process! Just go to open houses and pay a lower fee to a buyer agent as a result! Do you want a housing Gandalf or a DMV clerk? Herein lies the rub, for buyers at least. Some folks want to browse the internet on their own, at their own pace, and only use an agent for the final stage of submitting an offer and making it across the settlement finish line. You can negotiate with agents to get exactly this level of buyer representation! But other folks will want more of what I am trying to offer as an agent, by which I mean: buying a home is a transformative decision, one that affects your whole life in almost every facet, and demands careful attention. Having a guide through that process can be invaluable: someone who can help you navigate not just the technical or external factors, but also the personal and emotional elements as well. A home purchase is a platform-level decision on which all other parts of your life are constructed, and thus it is worth it to hire someone who can share their wisdom in helping you make the right decision, not just the easiest or cheapest one. In my experience, a good realtor is like your own personal “housing Gandalf:” a wizard who guides you through a complex process. By contrast, in the eyes of many, a realtor seems to be no different than the person at the DMV who helps you renew your driver’s license: a necessary interlocutor in a complex transaction you wish was far more transparent and simple. Because the world of real estate is complex. And unfortunately even the proliferation of information available on the internet and sites like Zillow hasn’t made it any less complex. And the process of finding the right house to fit your life is difficult. And beyond understanding the house half of the transaction, understanding yourself is hard enough that plenty of us hire therapists for help (and the rest of us probably should). But ultimately, if you feel differently and want to pay for the DMV-clerk level of real estate assistance, now you can! And frankly, if that’s the kind of offer you make to me when you try to hire me to be your realtor, I’ll probably say no! Because the work I’m looking to do is far more similar to the guide-wizard-Gandalf model. From the first moment you start considering beginning the process to the final day when you’ve moved in and unpacked your boxes in your new home, I want to

    13 min
  3. The City Surprises

    10/12/2023

    The City Surprises

    For those who grew up in the suburbs, moving into the city is a major cultural shift. For many, the appeal of the city lies in the wide menu of options available to you to choose from: dinner at the trendy new food truck, brunch at the cute cafe, climbing at the local rock climbing gym, etc. There’s nothing wrong, per se, with taking advantage of that menu of options and enjoying the city! However, I’ve noticed a common problem that arises from ex-suburbanites moving into an urban environment. Cities are dense, sprawling tangles of activity. Suburbs, on the other hand, are organized around high-speed roads and highways, strip malls, subdivisions, and cul-de-sacs. While suburbs certainly have more neighbors at closer proximity than fully rural areas, the neighborhoods of suburbs are dramatically more controlled and hierarchical than the lattices of city networks. Think of it this way: suburbs tightly plan and control the points of connection between neighborhood nodes (think wide roads with few large intersections) while cities promote a much larger number of connections between the nodes (more intersections of all scales, more street corners with more stores, a wider variety of street and alley sizes). “Higher density” is often how cities are described, but it’s not just more people: it’s more opportunities for interaction. In cities, it’s more likely that occupants bump into each other. And where there are more encounters, there’s more surprise. Surprise is fundamental to urban life. The more unique actors that are present in your environment, the more the unexpected will interrupt your routine. For many ex-suburbanites, their habits retain the same dynamics as their former system of living: car centered, highly routinized, closed to the random surprising encounters inherent to cities. While many folks learn the ways of the city, many others don’t. This cultural shift is what some people are thinking of when they use the term “gentrification:” a “suburbanization” of habits, not just a rise in rents. I know the whole “urban vs rural” debate often swirls around how much green space you want/need, but I’d propose Surprise as a more significant conversation to have! Are you open to and energized by the surprise of city life? Do you enjoy opening yourself to the shifting tides of your street? Like I said earlier, many people are attracted to the menu of options of the city. But the problem arises when those new urbanites treat the city as if it’s a suburb: only participating in that which you choose, rather than openly engaging the city’s breadth. Life in a city isn’t like ordering from a menu: sometimes, you don’t choose what you engage with. Sometimes, the city presses itself upon you, and you must respond. For better and for worse, the city interrupts. The city surprises. Sometimes those surprises are pleasant, like meeting your neighbors’ dogs as they walk by. Or giving the local corner store’s $6 hoagie a shot for lunch, and finding it blows the trendy fancy millennial hoagie out of the water. Or finding the perfect end table for your living room sitting on the curb waiting for trash pickup. Or for your pickup! Sometimes those surprises are unpleasant. Domestic disputes spilling into the street, cop activity, late night fireworks. Either way, it’s a misunderstanding to assume life in the city will be as orderly as life in the suburbs. The suburbs sit back and wait for you to choose. The city comes at you; the city surprises. This raises a few questions: what kind of surprise can you open yourself to? What kinds of surprise do you need to temper and reduce? Which surprises vivify and enrich you? How frequently do you just wait on the city, letting yourself experience whatever it has in store? Where in your life — and I mean physically, geographically — are you routinely surprised? Why do you think that is? Do you enjoy experiencing that rupture in your expectations? For me, it’s when I walk my dogs to the local park. How often do you visit your local park? I’ve got 2 dogs (@momozukofomo on Instagram) so I’m there pretty much every day. I’ve met friends and future clients there, but also had some ugly and frustrating encounters here as well. Sometimes people are unexpectedly understanding and joyful, sometimes they’re surprisingly prejudiced and angry. I mean hey, it’s Philly. Sifting through those unexpected and surprising encounters is part of what makes city life as vibrant and meaningful as it is. For some, it’s more exhausting than it is enriching. If that’s you, no shame! Now you know! As you look for a home, make sure to take that into account. If you (like me) are excited to wade through the surprising collisions of the lattice network of city life, then meet me at the park and let’s talk. Open and experimental In his book Building and Dwelling, Richard Sennett describes the experimental strategies he encountered while working at MIT: In a general way, researchers work within a well-worn orbit when performing an experiment to prove or disprove a hypothesis; the original proposition governs procedures and observations; the denouement of the experiment lies in judging whether the hypothesis is correct or incorrect. In another way of experimenting, researchers will take seriously unforeseen turns of data, which may cause them to jump tracks and think "outside the box." They will ponder contradictions and ambiguities, stewing in these difficulties for a while rather than immediately trying to solve them or sweep them aside. The first kind of experiment is closed in the sense it answers a fixed question: yes or no. Researchers in the second kind of experiment work more openly in that they ask questions which can't be answered in that way. (p. 4) I love this distinction between "open" versus "closed" experimentation. Another way of articulating Sennett's point: open experimentation is adaptive and listens to confusing or surprising data; closed experimentation hews to the hypothesis and strains for useful data. When faced with something unexpected, “open” says “this is interesting, let’s keep going and see where it goes!” “Closed” responds “this wasn’t what I was looking for, let’s try again!” Open is improv comedy, Closed is sketch comedy. Both have their value, of course! But in the context of city life, an "open" posture towards the surprises of the city can be enriching and healthy. Maintaining too “closed” an attitude to the city will quickly become overwhelming. Rather than forcing the chaotic urban lattice networks into orderly suburban boundaries, living in the city means learning to adapt to the shifting tides and surprises. If order is what you require for your home, then the city is unlikely to satisfy you. Moreover, your neighbors will almost certainly quickly grow sick of your attempts to wrestle the city to your predictable script. When you move to the city, you enter its mix and must learn to adapt to it. Surprise and the divine Ultimately, no matter how much you may seek it out or avoid it, surprise arrives on its own timing. Surprise is always out of our control. There’s a degree to which, via practices like mindfulness meditation and paying attention, even the most familiar can appear strange or new to our sense. But in a different sense, surprise has more to do with revelation than attention. When we experience surprise, we are encountering the otherness of the world (and some would say the divine!) at the level of our expectations and understanding. Surprise, whether you like it or not, is always an indicator of the frontier of your understanding. Of course not all surprises are created equal, and often surprises are painful and unfortunate, but the experience of being surprised always demands to be taken seriously. Personally, it’s been my relationship with surprise that’s been characteristic of my relationship to faith and belief and God over the last few years. If you read theology, then Karl Barth has been helpful for me. Similarly, life in the city has become for me something of a spiritual discipline. Encountering the unpredictable and surprising is, in its way, a reflection of not just myself but of the larger energy and power of the world — or even God. Learning to attend to and listen to not just the phenomena that provoke surprise but to the feeling of surprise itself has been meaningful for me. Can the divine be predictable? Do you encounter God or a higher power in surprise? When your container of belief of how the world works or is organized gets cracked open, how do you respond? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howtogethome.substack.com

    11 min

  4. 06/13/2023

    On the construction and rental of "s**t-boxes"

    Reflections on the connections between social media and housing algorithms This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howtogethome.substack.com

    17 min

  5. 02/28/2023

    A Place to Nap

    “I wish I didn’t have to sleep.” The first time I heard someone say this was during an icebreaker exercise at first-year orientation in college. I wish I could say it was the last. The icebreaker question was “what superpower do you wish you had?” My response? Probably flight, or maybe apparition (a la Harry Potter). But in my orientation small group, multiple people expressed an interest in turning their sleeping hours into productivity time. Which, on the one hand, I get. Hard work is generally rewarded, and exhaustion or burnout is really frustrating, so not needing to sleep seems like a natural conclusion. Less sleep, more work, more success, more money, better life. But in the words of the great Ali Wong, “I don’t want to lean in, I just want to lie down.” Naps, rest, sleep, relaxing… who would want to eliminate that from their life? Isn’t rest the goal? Isn’t rest the little taste of heaven that we work for?? Even God rested on the seventh day of creation! I guess if I were to put it another way: would you rather be able to work as hard as the world forced you to work (ceaselessly) or live in a world that could support you regardless of how hard you were able to work? Would you rather never rest or be assured that your rest was free and unconditionally good? Would you prefer a life free of naps or a life free of hustling? The Nap Ministry My favorite Instagram follow is @thenapministry. Tricia Hersey, also known as “The Nap Bishop,” preaches a gospel of rest, of resistance against the various structures of oppression (capitalism, racism, misogyny, etc.) that prevent us from resting. Her challenge is less to take a nap here or there than to do away with grind culture altogether. Hersey asks us to reject our need to produce, to strive harder, to break our bodies and spirits for the sake of the dollar or the boss. Just lie down. The world will keep spinning. Your work will be there when you awake. But for now, just rest. Lay down the physical/mental/spiritual load of hustling, and just be yourself at rest. There’s so much more to say about Hersey’s philosophy and teaching, and I strongly urge you to pick up a copy of her new book — Rest is Resistance. It’s worth acknowledging: this posture of rejecting hustle culture and embracing rest is not as niche as it was a few years ago. It’s become trendy to tout your commitment to self-care, being anti-capital, etc. But the reality of the situation, as much as Hersey is correct and prophetic, is that we still need to pay the bills. The first and most common refrain that I’ve heard when I try to explain the wisdom of the Nap Bishop is “well it sure would be nice to rest, but these bills won’t pay themselves.” Rent is still due the first of every month, the heat needs to stay on, someone has to pay the mortgage… on and on. All of which is true! Hersey isn’t trying to convince folks to shirk on their responsibilities or skip bill payments. Instead, she’s casting a vision for what kind of life is worth living: one that is not run on the schedule of bosses or tasks or bills, but in rhythm with our own bodies and spirits and loved ones. A place to rest I don’t think I can understate how much I appreciate the Nap Ministry, the Nap Bishop, Tricia Hersey, and all of the growing calls to reject hustle culture. Whether it’s under the banner of naps or sabbath or self-care or whatever else: I’m a firm believer in the value of liberation from the hustle of the market and freedom for doing whatever you and your loved ones desire. And this is exactly why I am so committed to helping people find homes and places where they can rest. How does this affect the real estate process? Well, more than anything else, let me recommend that you 1. know your budget and 2. shop below your budget. This is counterintuitive for most people, and definitely counterproductive for me as a real estate agent (as I’ll make less money from commissions on smaller sales, lol), but I stand by it: aside from location and structure, the finances of your home — whether renting or buying — are pretty much a given. You decide once what kind of financial commitment you’ll have to your home, and then you’re stuck with it, whether on a 12 month lease or a 30 year mortgage. The one moment where you have a chance to relieve the pressure of a high housing payment is during the renting or buying process. Too many clients I’ve worked with shop right at the upper edge of their budgets, trying to squeeze as much house as possible out of whatever the bank approves them to pay. While I empathize with the attitude (a nice interior and location can be a great relief to come home to after work!), I generally advise my clients to shop well below the upper limit of their budget. Even if they ultimately purchase something more expensive, who knows: maybe you’ll find something more affordable that still checks all the boxes at a lower price point! That extra space in your budget isn’t just being financially prudent for the sake of retirement or whatever: shopping at a lower price point points towards flexibility, financial autonomy, and future freedom from being bound to a strenuous schedule of bills. Essentially, I’m hoping my clients can buy houses where they can take naps. I want everyone to be able to take a break and not feel like their whole living situation will collapse if they slow down. KPI: Naps The acronym “KPI,” Key Performance Indicator, is common jargon in the business world. Basically, which single number can you boil your activities down to, such that an increase in that number means your business is succeeding and a decrease in that number means your business is declining? There are many schools of thought for real estate agents, and I have a few that I need to track for myself (specifically, how many buyer clients do I show at least two houses). But the KPI that really gets me excited in the long run is how many naps you can take in your home. If the number of naps is increasing, then good things are happening in your home. Napping implies: * a space to yourself, away from noise and commotion * a sense of ease and grace, such that sleeping is acceptable * a balance of responsibilities (bills, kids, errands) with margin for attending to the self More than anything else, a nap implies that you don’t need to hustle. A nap signifies that your life is sustainable enough that you don’t need to break your body or spirit to keep your ecosystem of inputs, outputs, and relationships going. Naps are an indicator of freedom. The alternative, of course, is terrifying. Imagine a home where you could not nap. Not being able to nap would imply: * No space to yourself, being in the middle of noise and commotion * No ease or grace to your daily life. Getting extra rest is frowned upon. * Responsibilities outweighing any chance to attend to the self I know far too many people for whom their home — the mortgage, the rent, the upkeep, etc. — has become a contributing factor in their inability to nap. Of course there are vastly larger and more powerful factors affecting naps (the exploitation of the working class, physical ailments and disabilities, the manipulation of the housing market to artificially inflate rents, etc.), but even the capacity to resist such problems depends, ironically, on our own sustainability as well-rested individuals and communities. The home represents an ambient, latent power that can point us towards greater rest or towards greater burnout. It’s my hope that everyone’s home can be a part of their sustainable and flourishing life, rather than a detriment to that hope. I wish I could nap So in total opposition to “I wish I didn’t have to sleep” that I heard in college, most of my friends now (many of whom are new parents) would love to be able to simply get a full night’s rest. “I wish I could nap” is the new refrain. Hoo boy, that is too high a task for even the most dedicated of realtors. But at least let me offer you this: if it was possible to let your home work latently towards your liberation and health, wouldn’t you want to make that happen? What I’m into this week * altar, by Kehlani. Vibes, my friends. * the app Things. I’ve tried others, but I keep coming back to this UX. Simple, fast, satisfying. Ironically, even though other productivity apps are more powerful, their complexity and slowness makes it harder for me to get work done. And Things is so cleanly put-together that I get a little dopamine hit every time I get to enjoy one of its tiny, innumerable design flourishes. * Human Robot’s milk tubes. Is this my favorite brewery in America? Perhaps. That they indulge my love of their all-head mini-beers by giving me free ones is a big part of it. * Death Stranding. I don’t have the patience to explain it if you don’t already know what it is. But if you do, let’s talk it over. I’m borrowing a friend’s PS4 for a few more weeks, any other recommendations? tldr; fantastic first 1/3 of the game. Rest wasn’t worth it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howtogethome.substack.com

    10 min

  6. 01/25/2023

    Everyone, Everywhere, Always

    Life, death, taxes... and real estate. Reflections on the multiverse potential of a holistic real estate process! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howtogethome.substack.com

    7 min

  7. 01/13/2023

    Resolutions Shmesolutions

    If you're like me, you've already blown your New Year's Resolution... Reflections on trellises, habits, and change. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howtogethome.substack.com

    9 min

  8. 08/19/2022

    Verandas, porches, and "watching the world go by"

    A few weekends ago, while sharing drinks with a few friends at a rooftop bar in South Philly (Bok Bar!), I watched a lightning storm taking place over the skyline. It of course made for incredible pictures, but also sparked memories of watching lightning storms over the hills of Kampala, Uganda. Set on a cluster of hills just north of Lake Victoria, Kampala tends to generate a lot of lightning storms. Growing up in a house on top of Makindye hill, I enjoyed viewing these storms from the veranda on the side of our house that overlooked the city. I don’t know why lightning storms occur the way they do. We use the expression “lightning striking twice” as a reflection of how rare an event is to repeat, and yet lightning storms happened all the time in the skies above Kampala. I have no idea what was happening in Philly that was in common with what happened so frequently in Kampala, but for at least that night, it felt like my memories and present experience were overlapping. I’m no physics expert, and I’m not pretending to even have Googled why lightning storms occur (I didn’t), but I’m puzzled by this question of why some places have common, routine tendencies that other places only rarely experience. In Kampala, lightning storms happened all the time. In Philly, they’re a rarity. Verandas and stoops Having a veranda with a vista is a real privilege. In my Philly row home, I’m not regularly afforded the space or time to simply watch my surroundings the way the Kampala veranda so often did. I remember getting home from high school in the late afternoons and doing my homework on the veranda while watching birds rest in the branches of the massive trees that grew on our property. I suppose I tended towards sitting on that veranda in the same way that the birds tended towards sitting on the tree’s branches. Here in Philly, the nearest equivalent to that veranda is my front stoop. Stoop-sitting is super common in Philly: it’s a great way to engage the neighborhood from a distance, a way to be involved without actually actively doing anything. Just like being on a veranda, stoop-sitting is about letting the world come to you. But because of the way the sun beats down on my stoop with no shade and how uncomfortable the concrete steps are and how easy it would be for my dog Momo to run away and how smelly the garbage cans by the road are and how fast the cars whiz down Tulip St, I don’t tend to sit on my stoop very frequently. Lightning storms are natural phenomena, but stoop- and veranda-sitting are personal phenomena. In Kampala, veranda sitting happened all the time. In Philly, stoop-sitting is a rarity (for me at least). Thank you for reading How to Get Home! Know someone else who’d also dig it? “I cannot separate ‘watching the world go by’ from the porch where it occurs” In his book The Timeless Way of Building, Christopher Alexander writes Those of us who are concerned with buildings tend to forget too easily that all the life and soul of a place, all of our experiences there, depend not simply on the physical environment, but on the patterns of events which we experience there. A building or town is given its character, essentially, by those events which keep on happening there most often. Consider, for example, the pattern of events which we might call “watching the world go by.” We sit, perhaps slightly raised, on the front porch, or on some steps in a park, or on a café terrace, with a more or less protected, sheltered, partly private place behind us, looking out into a more public place, slightly raised above it, watching the world go by. I cannot separate [“watching the world go by”] from the porch where it occurs. The action and the space are indivisible. The action is supported by this kind of space. The space supports this kind of action. The two form a unit, a pattern of events in space. I think Alexander is really onto something here. “Watching the world go by” from my veranda was uniquely possible in Kampala because of the way my porch was designed. Because it was sheltered, large enough for porch furniture, and atop a hill, the vista was exquisite, and resting there for hours at a time was more than comfortable. This is not to say that the veranda caused me to sit and watch lightning storms, but I certainly wouldn’t have been able to see those storms without the veranda designed in that particular way. The inverse is true of my front stoop here in Philly: were it designed differently, maybe I would be more involved in the life of my street. I’m not going to go so far as to say that a sheltered, large, comfortable porch would guarantee that I knew my neighbors more intimately, but I do think it prevents stoop-sitting from developing into a tendency for me. And tendencies and habits are, ultimately, what it takes to build intimacy and friendship. Even stranger: maybe there actually are frequent lightning storms here in Philly, but I don’t have a veranda to see them. My closest friends are close because they’re… closer? But my home on that hill in Makindye and my row home here in Philly do share one tendency in common: having friends as neighbors. In both Kampala and Philadelphia, I’ve been lucky to live within 300 ft (100m for you Ugandans reading this) of some of my closest friends. Being that close to friends has developed very similar tendencies in what my weekly habits look like: frequent bonfires, shared meals, joint dog walks, board game nights, movie screenings, emergency cups of flour to save a halfway-completed recipe, etc. Our proximity of course doesn’t cause our friendships to deepen (I’m not close with most of the rest of my neighbors!), but the fact that we’ve been such close friends can’t really be separated from the way that our homes are arranged in relation to each other. To some degree, our friendships are built-in to how proximate our homes are to each other. They contribute these active relationships to the character of our neighborhood using some unseen, magical, passive energy of how close our homes are arranged. I wish I had a name for that magical force that the design of spaces can exert on our human tendencies. I’m not romanticizing it either: that force can be just as powerful in blocking good things from growing as it can be in encouraging flourishing. But it is definitely a tangible force, and I’m obsessed with it. As a realtor, I aim to help my clients see and attend to this force in the homes that they consider for rent or purchase. So much of our lives are collections of habits and tendencies that are uniquely made possible by the spaces that we occupy. It can be easy to focus solely on homes as financial values to be invested in, but there are so many more levels of value that course through the bricks and wood and glass in which we dwell. Where have you seen this magical force at work in your habits and tendencies? Where can you notice the passive, subtle force that your home pushes you towards some habits and away from others? Wes’s Weekly 3 * It’s absolutely sweltering in Philly right now, and I’ve been realizing that I need to buy clothing to match the season in the same way that I buy long underwear for the winter. So in that spirit, I’ve recently purchased a few linen garments, and BOY OH BOY am I a linen fan. Whatever brand or item, it all works like magic. I guess the same force that allows these garments to be passively cooling has something in common with the force that strengthens my friendships with my neighbors…? Is that a stretch? 2. I host weekly movie nights at my house. In cold weather, it’s “Sunday scaries” — horror movies only. But in warm weather, we watch romances and comedies and whatever the hell we want. We’ve been going through the “Before” trilogy. Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight. Lovely films! How have none of you recommended these to me before? How dare you?! Well, allow me to change this trend and commend to you this set of three romantic existential dramas that leave me feeling inspired and light. They're like Gen-X versions of The Graduate. 3. I’m reading Robert Moor’s On Trails. It’s a startlingly brilliant book, laced with insight in every sentence. It’s in no rush to reach a particular destination, but would you ever describe a trail to be in a rush? Moor is orbiting a similar set of ideas that I tried to reflect in the above essay, but he goes vastly farther down the trail than I can manage. If you’ve read it, drop a comment below? Thanks for reading How to Get Home! Subscribe to get weekly critical experiments in real estate and design. Know someone you think would enjoy How to Get Home? Would you share this with them? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howtogethome.substack.com

    8 min

  9. 08/09/2022

    Welcome to *How to Get Home*

    Who is *How to Get Home* for? Why is buying a home so difficult? How can something so important be so confusing, exploitative, and inhumane? Who can help me navigate the financial, emotional, political, and design dimensions of finding the right home? How to Get Home is a weekly newsletter and podcast that will offer insight into a more humane real estate process. Obviously, if you’re in the market to buy a home, HTGH is for you. I’ll explain and break down the process in accessible and clear ways. If you feel like a gentrifier and are looking for a better way to rent or own, HTGH is for you. If you feel like your neighborhood is being gentrified, I’m less qualified of a voice to trust on this! I have many friends and colleagues who I can direct you to, and I’ll feature their work here as well. I’ve worked hard to understand what changes in habits, policy, and norms can bring deeper belonging to our neighborhoods. If you recently bought or settled in a home and are trying to understand how to be a good neighbor, HTGH is for you. I’ll explore topics like getting connected to your local school or block captain, what to do about NIMBYism, and even dive into retrofitting your home to be more sustainable and climate-change-resilient. If you have encountered the sordid and selfish colonialism of the real estate world, HTGH is for you. I’m probably preaching to the choir by repeating stories and statistics about the role of real estate in perpetuating and calcifying injustice, but let me be clear: even though I work in this industry, I am every bit as interested in finding a better way of building and sharing “home” as I hope you are. But even as I express critique against the world of real estate, I will also try to explore creative alternatives and solutions. How can I help you navigate the confusion and inequality of the real estate world? Why should I listen to you? I (Wes Willison) recently received a M.Div from Princeton Theological Seminary, and I had hoped to work in the church and other meaning-making communities. But I’ve come to realize that few moments of life are as pivotal and important as the choice of where and how to live. Once I realized that the pastoral and personal interactions that I’ve sought are occurring around real estate, I pivoted out of church work. I currently work as a Realtor in the Philadelphia region, helping my clients navigate a real estate market that has never been more confusing, exploitative, and inhumane. Everyone should be able to buy a home that helps them feel that they belong! Your home purchase process should (and can!) align with your values and ethics. I’m here to help guide you towards that moment when you walk into your house, set down your stuff, fall into your favorite chair, your pet jumps into your lap, and you think to yourself “this is where I belong.” This newsletter will NOT be a “sales” newsletter with listings, open house announcements, and other real estate pitches. But, of course, I am always open for business! 😉 Similarly, this will NOT be a finalized, perfected vision of how to dismantle the patriarchy, racism, colonization, and American Christian capitalist supremacy in one fell swoop by means of real estate. While I care deeply about how place, design, and real estate can be a force for change in these struggles, I’m still working this stuff out, and I ask for your patience as I do so rather publicly. I’m leaning towards publicity with this conversation at the risk of torpedoing my reputation in innumerable ways, but I strongly believe these ideas and feelings will be strengthened by our mutual engagement. Please do chime in where you see me falling short, and I’ll try to own my s**t and grow from my mistakes. What does the logo (家) mean? In Mandarin, “家” (“jia,” jee-ah) means home or family. I have Chinese ancestry, and this character is deeply meaningful to me. Much like the significance of the Greek word οἶκος (“oikos,” oy-kos), 家 (jia) signifies the connection of place and community, where we can find belonging. Join the crew Don’t be a stranger! Feel free to comment if you have something to share with the class, or just email/text/call me and let’s chat. I’m making a Discord for subscribers, where you can share and discuss concepts, topics, and issues that this platform cares about. I’ll periodically do mailbags, where I’ll answer questions from subscribers. Write for How to Get Home If you’re interested in sharing your ideas on this platform, let me know! I’d love to join you in exploring how we can build a more inclusive and humane real estate process. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howtogethome.substack.com

    8 min
  • 9 Episodes

About

Tales of finding and forming homes worth living in. howtogethome.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Wes Willison
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2024
  • Episodes
    9
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Wes Willison
  • Show Website
    How to Get Home