I was born mid-term in the Age of Abundance, 1962. By the time I graduated from high school and then university in the 80's, the demographic placement dead last on the Baby Boomer hit parade was discouraging. All the good jobs seemed to have gone to those fortunate to have born earlier. What to do with our lives? Nobody wanted to hire us and the outlook seemed bleak. And so, I had to learn to think outside the box as the box, clearly, was full.

I worked at a variety of jobs, lived and worked in exotic locales such as Monte Carlo and Fort Lauderdale, and generally learned to live by my wits and intuition. My Mom calls them my 'salad days'. Eventually I returned to my native land and city and began my life in earnest (in the sense that I got a career job and 'settled down'). It didn't take long for me to dream of working for myself and get off the paid slave arrangement; I wanted the perks my employers enjoyed, like better housing, dream vacations, and new cars. This meant I needed a property.

I purchased my first home, in the crowning days of 1997. It was made possible when my brother got married in the summer of 1996. In the spirit of loving both children the same, my parents gave my brother and I each a 'wedding gift' (just in case I ever get married, for real this time) of a $10,ooo downpayment in the event of purchase our first homes. As material gifts go, it was both the most generous and most important one ever, as it enabled me to get in the housing market at eve the single greatest increase in housing prices the world has ever known. Now, I'm not saying it was easy owing the bank the other 92% of the loan, but it enabled me to run my business and live on the same premises, and thus build my fortune, one haircut at a time.

Of course, I can tell this story as such only through the clear lense of 20/20 hindsight. I see now I got lucky. It helped that I have always had a rather stubborn independence streak that increasingly made employment unbearable. That, and not being afraid of a bit of risk and hard work enabled me to ride the upward curve of the market right to high tide. The truth is my studio salon paid the bills, but it was the rising value of my home that was the real money maker; on paper, anyway.

In the darkening days of 1999, when my clients were worried about Y2K and the 'end of the world' scenarios (I had a Mac, so I didn't take the threat very seriously, I must admit), I bought the house across the street. It was bigger, with more land, and I could have a tenant on the top floor, which meant the $100K increase in mortgage could be painless with their input (in theory, anyway - oh, the fearlessness of the naive!). It was both a blessing a curse, this decision. The first two years I was so dog mortgage-poor that my salad days seemed like the impossible dream - I was sick with anxiety and debt. But, I woke up each morning and told myself if I could just keep my nose above the water line my efforts and stress would pay off. So I did, and it did.

And so, ten years later, in 2010, that is the house I sold for a cool $645K, and that's really where this tale begins.