This Market Brought to You By Wet Dog Food Tacos!
04.11.25 The Friday Footnote: Tacos! Lit nerds will dig this week's structure and real estate market watchers will respect the clarity.
Most weeks, I’ve a personal essay teed up along with a detailed real estate market report. Other weeks, like this one, life’s been mostly about sorting through mail, prepping for taxes, cleaning the kitchen. The Bare Bone Numbers (💀📉) are below as usual. But first, I thought I’d share a story I wrote a few years ago. For my lit nerd fans out there, the story’s a bit like if Denis Johnson and Haruki Murakami robbed a Taco Bell, this is the story they’d probably leave behind. And for all my real estate people, there’s a talking house.
The Taco Robbers From Last Week
Dean didn’t think he’d ever again feel comfortable at Taco Bell, but he agreed to Tacos El Chimpa’s because No Están Buenos … ¡Pero quitan el hambre! had been spray-painted underneath the sign. Dean knew enough Spanish to know that meant bad tacos. If we’re going to eat tacos, he said, they should at least be terrible. The waiter placed glasses of jetsam-flaked water in front of the boys. The water rose out of the glasses to the yellow-stained ceiling, formed little gray clouds bumping against each other, and sent tiny shocks of lightning, making everyone’s hair on their arms stand on end.
This is ridiculous, said Will. Don’t you have bottled water?
Jarritos. We have all the flavors. The waiter Vanna-Whited an aluminum cart on wheels, the sides splattered with dried hot sauces. Help yourself to our salsa bar.
The boys watched through the window the drooping maples and ash trees, the branches burning autumn torches. The burritos and tacos and refried beans arrived in parchment-lined plastic baskets with sporks and dried-out lime wedges. The tacos had the consistency of wet dog food. They ate trying not to taste.
This is the place we should have robbed, said Dean.
Last week, hands on their knees squatting outside the Taco Bell, Dean and Will had scrutinized a quarter that had landed perfectly balanced on edge beside a dandelion. The dandelion had crawled from a crack in the blacktop. Heads, they’d rob the Taco Bell. Tails, they’d pay. Will told Dean that he’d just purchased a brand-new Windows three-point-eleven computer and a stereo with dual cassette player and subwoofers. I can kinda play solitaire on the computer, Will said.
Dean wasn’t exactly sure if Will could even work the subwoofers, but the computer and stereo were for Will’s new apartment in Columbus.
I want a bacon-cheeseburger burrito, a couple tacos, Will demanded, and a Mountain Dew.
All Dean had at home was Big K Mountain Lightning, which wasn’t real Mountain Dew, which was only a shadow of Mountain Dew, which when poured into the Styrofoam cups stored in Deans’ garage dissolved the cups from the bottom up.
I just paid the deposit and first month’s rent, Will said. I’m broke.
For Dean, the issue was always the electric bill. The quarter landing on its edge severely complicated lunch. If the boys had looked, they would have seen heaven glinting from the dandelion’s crack.
Dean slap-dashed a plastic gun between his hands.
We need a decision, Will said. In the right light, Will looked like he had no beard, or in the wrong light, he looked like he had an abundance of peach fuzz. They smelled burning taco meat. The ski mask Dean pulled over his face was big for his head. Will pulled on his ski mask too, and they waved the plastic guns. The cashier tried to give them money, but they refused. All they wanted were tacos, and a fucking bacon-cheeseburger burrito, Will screamed.
And Mountain Dew. Two Mountain Dews, Dean yelled because he didn’t like the Big K Mountain Lightning any more than Will.
Sweat poured over Dean’s eyes underneath the oversized ski mask, which he tore off. The cashier bagged their food. Dean and Will ran for the door. The manager burst from his office. Dean pushed him aside. Will dropped the food. Mountain Dew soaked the manager’s shirt. The boys drove away as fast as the in-town speed limit allowed. Will went back to the Taco Bell because he hadn’t taken off his mask and no one at the Taco Bell knew what he looked like. He purchased twelve tacos for nine dollars and forty-eight cents and no Mountain Dew because all he had was a ten. They ate in Dean’s garage and drank the Mountain Lightning as fast as they could before the cups melted. Robbing their hometown Taco Bell seemed to Dean to be their last great adventure.
When the boys finished their lunch at El Chimpa’s, they stood in the parking lot, leaning against Dean’s Ford Ranger. Dean shoved his hands into his Wranglers. He never wanted the truck, but now felt the truck spoke volumes about who he was. A thin rust-line ran above the right back rim. Will’s mattress and bed frame lay in the back of the truck. The bed was the last thing to go up into Will’s new apartment. Dean wondered if the rust would disappear if he rubbed at it with a soft toothbrush. He fumbled for a Marlboro. He lit the Marlboro and choked on the first puff. He was a brand-new smoker and had only been at the habit a few days. He thought smoking became him and maybe made him more like his father.
We could have gone to a Taco Bell, said Will.
They have cameras in those Taco Bells, Dean said, and they’re linked. They see into each other’s stores and what happens in one affects what happens in another. They probably have our posters in the back offices. We could get caught.
Columbus was dirty with cigarette butts and candy wrappers, and flyers stapled to telephone poles seeking missing cats or wanting yard work done. Advertisements for college painters and open mic nights. Election campaign posters stuck in front of businesses sporting Bill Clinton headshots and slogans: For People, for Change. Newport Concert Hall hustled thick lines. Street Scene Bar slathered gravy over wide pieces of meatloaf and red skins still in the mashed potatoes while tour guides nursed beers and told ghost stories about prohibition and the voices sometimes heard echoing through the abandoned downtown prison. Law students lost wallets at chess with the homeless at Insomnia Coffee while the lower class homeless spouted bad poetry at the corner UDF and smoked Basics. On Chittenden, with its mauve brick apartments, girls in bikinis soaking in kiddie pools, fraternities hiding in slums. Fornicating in the middle of the topiary O of Ohio State’s front lawn, then stripping naked, throwing clothes to the pavement, walking the double yellow line of High Street, and the goldfish pond at Ohio State was a dark, deep mirror. The fish grabbed at breadcrumbs, their little mouths popping open, making bubbles like they were out of breath. Sometimes, when you looked into the pond, the end of your life reflected back at you in the shape of a flickering candle. There was always something going on in the city, unlike Dean’s hometown with only the one Taco Bell and all the almost-harvested corn at the edges.
When they got the mattress through the sharp turns of the narrow stairs that smelled of ashtray and mildew and into Will’s bedroom, they lurched the mattress onto the floor and collapsed onto it, arms crossed at their heads for pillows, staring at the popcorn ceiling.
You should move in.
Dean thought about his job at Big Bear Grocery, and he thought about the moms whose groceries he bagged. Lipton soup mixes, boxes of Hamburger Helper, pounds and pounds of ground beef, bacon, cheap kielbasa, frozen green beans, and frozen peas. He followed the women to their cars, chatting about their toddlers and pre-teens, their kids in their last year of high school, unsure of how they were going to pay for their kids’ upcoming soccer club fees or college expenses. He feigned interest and thought about his electric bill, which was always a worry ever since Dean had turned sixteen. Working forty hours over the weekend, school during the week, a cell phone bill—the cheapest vehicle he could find to drive himself back and forth from school and the grocery store. And Dean didn’t know the difference between an alternator and an injection pump; he didn’t know where the oil went; he was pretty sure he thought he knew how to fill the windshield wiper fluid. All these mothers taking care of their own families, and he let them fondle his hair for two-dollar tips to pay the bills. His father had split before all the shit, and Mom held on as long as she could. Then the ventilator moved in and brought friends: the wheelchair, the lift, the commode chair, the shower chair; the hospital bed, the feeding pump, replacement tubes, tracheostomy dressings, syringes for cuff deflation and inflation, gloves, the portable suction machine, tubing, catheters, supplemental oxygen tanks, a heated humidifier, and they hung around the kitchen table playing cards—Euchre, pinochle, canasta. Dean never understood the rules to the card games, no matter how many times his mother explained. The lights, the air conditioner, and the heat were all turned off to keep costs down, to keep the ventilator breathing, its glowing orange eyes from the dark corner of the living room always staring wickedly, unblinkingly at Dean, who waited, exhausted, in the threadbare armchair for something to happen. At least the Ford kept breaking down at the most opportune times. Once, the truck told Dean it was out of gas two blocks after he filled the tank. Dean opened the hood and a fifty-dollar bill wind-flitting smacked him in the face.
On the way home from the mattress trip, probably the last time he’d ever see Will again, not even out of the city, but seven or eight blocks from Will’s apartment on Hudson and Indianola, he wished maybe they had kissed, had said at least a better goodbye, but they didn’t, and it didn’t make sense because he had only dated girls all through high school, and girls were perfectly fine to date, there was nothing wrong with them at all, because they had nice curves, and a slither of smoke that smelled of thin-sliced onion peelings over-roasting in an oven seeped from the Ranger’s heater vents. He found a spot to park on fatigue-worn crocodile-spackled asphalt behind a two-story brick building with wild columbine twisting around the gutter spout and knotweed making a home in the mortar. Small rectangular awning windows lined the second story, a few open, most closed, caked in a heavy amount of dirt, the glass turning blue with the sun’s age.
Dean flipped his phone open. He didn’t want to call Will but couldn’t think of anyone else to call either, and then his phone battery was dead. This was the cell phone Will made fun of him for having. Are you a drug dealer, Will had asked. But Dean bought the phone at Radio Shack because if something happened to his mother, the doctors would be able to reach him.
He walked around to the front of the building and discovered a coffee shop. A chill in the air, and everything smelled like fire and dull mist, withered edges of a ripe earth. The shop’s floor was dingy laminate tiles. A folk singer banged on a guitar, wearing a tank top and no bra, armpits sprouting thick hair next to a planted fern growing wild. Women with short hair and flannel shirts crowded the tables and along the wall. In general, the majority of the coffee shop’s clientele were women. Dean asked what the rainbow sticker on the cash register meant because he didn’t know, and the rainbow seemed misplaced in comparison to the rest of the coffee shop with the high-end macchiatos, which he didn’t know what macchiatos were either, and asked because back home with the corn and the one Taco Bell, there was gas-station black with optional powdered creamer and packaged Twinkies and Ho Hos, so the cappuccinos, iced green tea lattes, tiramisus, cannoli, and zeppole, the grunge pen and ink artwork on the walls, everything was new and exciting. He ordered a caramel coffee. He’d never had caramel in his coffee before.
Nowhere to sit, he ambled to the sidewalk table underneath the awning where a woman sat with sharp eyebrows. A breeze played with her hair, which she had tied off in the back, but fell around her ears in long single strands reaching down past her neck and half-hid her eyes. A random dandelion parachute seed floated into one of the hanging flowerpots. The seedling sprouted, shot out broad leaves, a thin milky stalk stretching toward the sky. A bud opening petals one by one until the petals dried into the rustic oracle, the fluff globe of seeds, dead and tossed away into the world, and then gone and shriveled as if the weed never came in the first place. The woman deep sighed, drank her coffee, and when her coffee was gone, she raised her arms high, bringing down the clouds into the shelter of the awning with her fingertips, the afternoon sun bright and hot for a late September day. The metal table they sat at shivered with oxidized patches. She pinched her bottom lip between her thumb and index finger. Her eyes were like clear night—dark, deep, mysterious, beautiful, unable to be understood. She reminded him of his mother when she was younger and vibrant and before the ventilator. She grabbed napkin and pen and wrote down a phone number and handed the napkin to Dean. I know an auto mechanic, she said. It was the same phone number black-Sharpied on the homemade sign advertising an upstairs one-bedroom apartment for rent.
The story doesn’t end here.
In fact, it only gets weirder.
Read the full version of “The Taco Robbers From Last Week” —> here.
You can scroll down to the first pull-out quote and pick right back up!
Spoiler: it involves a stolen gravestone, a haunted house, and the hardest decision Dean ever makes.
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The Bare Bones Numbers 💀📉
Remember last week when I said we might finally be entering that early-stage normal zone—where buyers get more choices and sellers stop lording it over everyone else? Well, about that.
April really is the cruelest month.
The median sales price bloomed out of the spring rain, surging from $489k to $659k in just one week. And get this: 317 homes in New Hampshire are now priced at $1 million or more. That's 22.37% of all active listings. Affordability then tanked this week too, 79 to 53 in seven whole days, choked by garden weeds or something.
Sure, inventory is burgeoning at 3.47 months now, up from last week's 3.09. Possibly the highest we've seen in five years. By every textbook metric, this should be a market loosening. A cooling. A breath. A release of thunder.
📍 Statewide New Hampshire Housing Market
Active Listings: 1,417
Closed Sales (Last 6 Months): 2,451
Pending Sales: 692
Median Sales Price: $659,000
Median Days on Market (DOM): 7
Inventory: 3.47 months
Affordability Index: 53
📍 Seacoast Area
Active Listings: 255
Closed Transactions (Last 6 Months): 462
Pending Transactions: 153
Days on Market (DOM):
Highest: 137
Average: 15
Median: 7
Pricing Trends:
Lowest List Price: 135,000
Lowest Sold Price: 115,000
Average List Price: 722,097
Average Sold Price: 719,542
Median List Price: 579,900
Median Sold Price: 586,500
📍 Tri-City Area (Dover, Somersworth, Rochester)
Active Listings: 48
📍 Durham, Newmarket, Madbury & Lee
Active Listings: 5
📍 Portsmouth & Newington
Active Listings: 35
PROPERTY OF THE WEEK
66 Powwow River Road, East Kingston
🛏️4 Beds, 🛁3 Baths, 📏2,570 sq ft, $699,000
Estimated payment: $5,348/mo
Estimation provided by Keller Williams Realty Inc.
Contact a mortgage broker today!
This privately situated, expansive cape blends New England charm and warmth with an open-concept layout for casual, spacious living at its best. Nestled off the road on a 2-acre wooded lot, the yard features raised beds, perennials, and herb gardens—perfect for gardening enthusiasts. Relax and enjoy the private backyard from the deck, plus a charming barn with freshly built chicken coop, ready for livestock or storage. Directly across the street: access to Powwow Pond, a 280+ acre body of water with a boat ramp—great for swimming, fishing, paddle sports, boating, and winter fun. Back inside, enjoy bright, cheerful open spaces with exposed beams, wide pine floors, an oversized family room with soaring ceiling, cozy living room with Vermont Castings wood stove, first-floor bedroom with full bath, and kitchen open to dining room. Upstairs offers two bedrooms with custom touches. Access the 4th bedroom/large bonus space on its private stairwell over the heated garage—ideal as an in-law suite or studio with a stunning 3/4 bath and balcony; or use as a game/flex room—tons of utility and built in storage! The basement is partially finished offering 2 heated spaces and plenty of storage. Convenient to Rt. 125 and shopping, close to all town amenities, yet nestled in a peaceful country setting in the SAU16 School District. SHOWINGS BEGIN AT OPEN HOUSES: Fri 4/11, 4–6pm | Sat 4/12 & Sun 4/13, 11am–1pm.
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