Dinner took almost an hour this evening. We sat at the table, passing around brochures of all the houses that are selling or have recently been sold in our neighborhood and general area. The pile of thick, glossy real estate cards and advertisements thrown across our dining room table grows by the day. Not only are the houses priced at $900,000-$1.2million, they are actually selling for close to their respective asking prices. Next to shopping at Costco, my dad’s new favorite weekend activity for the past month has consisted of him stopping by all the “open houses” held at each home for sale, during which prospective buyers drop in to check out the place. Apparently there have been endless reunions going on around here, since all the neighbors have slyly been stopping by to gauge how their own homes compare in terms of design, layout, construction, aesthetics, value, etc. Especially value.

Like everyone else, my family’s dinnertime discussions periodically flow back and forth between square footage, lot size, layout, decks and patios, yards and gardens, kitchen amenities, skylights and french doors, and, of course, potential renovations in mind for our own home. My father missed his true calling: landscape designer, architect, chef extraordinaire. Every day, he comes home to give us an update: “The house with all the skylights has a ‘Sale Pending’ sign,” he remarked this evening. “But that one at the corner is still not sold. I think they’re asking too much. $1.1 million? It doesn’t even have a yard, and it’s only one thousand square feet!”

“I wonder how much our home will sell for,” he mused at dinner’s conclusion.

“No,” I said sharply, getting up to clear off the table. “We’re not selling it.”

“We’re not?” he asked innocently, trying rather unsuccessfully to bite a grin. He loves baiting us like this.

“No. We’re not. The end.”

The daddy-o fixed me with a stare. “So, then, anyone who doesn’t want to move should help pull some weeds around here this weekend.”

Score –> Daddy-o: 43748587, Yasminay: 0