A Question, An Answer - Baroque Meditations on Life and Death (compositions by Tobias Hume, played by Stefano Zanobini on the viola d’amore)

https://open.spotify.com/album/4AfnvV6htZlnl7WVB2wmYv

Stumbled across this one a few months ago when looking for music for viola da gamba (which this is not), and last week listened to it a lot. Something about the simplicity, playfulness, and contrast of professional soldier/innovative composer historical fact appeals to me.

“Sold it for a much higher price without ever using or modifying it.” Proper upkeep over several years counts as “modifying it” in this context IMHO.

I think most of you are underestimating the cost of housing maintenance. We had some bad luck and a couple of structurally necessary renos were bigger than initially thought, or didn’t address the issue as well as we hoped, requiring new renos. In the last 20 years we’ve paid the cost of our townhouse apartment once over, easy. And now the bathroom, kitchen, and flooring could use an upgrade (25-50 years old), which is again expensive. In that time its value has risen maybe 50%, not quite keeping pace with local inflation.

Not complaining, we bought it for living in and it’s been great for that, and now that everything is at the end of its lifespan is a good time to really make it ours. But house prices aren’t rising insanely everywhere, house upkeep isn’t free (there are always “modifications”), and at least here the average ROI for being a landlord is abt 4-6%, same as stocks lately, and that’s assuming no major surprises.