Monthly Archives: May 2021

Three Buckets: Why RE is a Good Investment

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8 Gorham Road . Harwich Port . $799K

I started working when I was 11 years old. I didn’t do it out of necessity, as you might imagine, I did it because my sister asked me to join her in her chambermaiding efforts, at The Moby Dick Motel, and it seemed as good a way to pass the time as anything else I was up to that summer. I was, of course, paid under the table, by the New York couple that owned the joint. It’s location on Rt. 28 in Harwich was highly visible. Someone must have dropped a time on the them for trafficking in underaged help, because I recall my stint roaming from room to room with my sister was short lived. They moved me into the main building, which served as reception and their home, and that is where I stayed, cleaning for the summer. It was a pretty good gig. I recall spending an inordinate amount of my time cleaning the refrigerator, home to the Andes Mints, which I ate with wild abandon, and no apparent fear of retribution. I have no idea what their real names were. I referred to them as the Ropers – from Three’s Company. They were characters and had a dog to match. The poor little puppy had an issue with incontinence and was forced, I am sure, much to his chagrin, to wear pampers. So started my work life journey.

90 Sweetbriar Drive . Orleans $899.5K

I have no idea how much I made that summer, or what I did with that money. It was a pattern that I would repeat, again and again, as I moved from pot washer, to sandwich maker, breakfast waitress, to top notch server, slinging seaside offerings to sunburned tourists to put myself through school. I can recall a Pioneer Stereo and a Political Science degree by way of my spending, but saving – no. There was no saving, and I certainly didn’t donate money as I do now, but none of it is done strategically with a plan, a goal, a chance that the discipline will result in security, a date on the calendar that signals it’s ok to stop.

96 Skaket Beach Road . Orleans $1.15

My financial education can be encapsulated simply – a single high school course on how to balance a check book, which I remember well, but never employed, a mother that insisted we shop discount so that we could buy more, and more often. Shopping for the Falla girls was a national pastime. That regrettably, has never changed, and so I keep toiling. The one thing I learned and learned well was that real estate was a sound investment, with the added benefit that it tied up my dollars, bound to that houseboat with knots that this seaside gal could not untie. Safe from my indiscriminate spending habits.

Monomoy Coffee . Main Street . Chatham – ready to start your own business? $150K

I found myself thinking about Yara Shahidi the other day. She was recounting, in one of her many talks, the lessons her parent’s imparted. She started making money at a very young age, receiving her first paycheck two years before me. I have no idea how much it was for, but her parents told her that each check would be divided into three buckets: the savings bucket, the giving bucket, and the spending bucket. The brilliance of these buckets has me wanting to buy some. I’d like them to be teak, varnished so they gleamed and accented with a rope handle. You can see I am already heading in the wrong direction with the lesson, unless of course I found the money in my spend bucket, and chose to use those precious dollars for a vessel, oh wait, I think I’d rather spend it on real estate. It’s a currency I can get behind.

In Search of a Pretty Property

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Have you ever seen a vine as happy as this one?

I’ve been casually looking around for another property. Casually because my Boston condo has yet to sell – it will though – just a matter of time, and Chatham doesn’t close for a few more weeks. The rate at which properties pass papers these days makes it silly to do anything other than gaze, and gander from a good distance away. The looking is a sort of disease. I’m signed up to so many alert services that some days slogging through the in-box is like moving through quicksand, but when I come across something that shows potential, it stirs the butterflies in my belly.

Set me up in this one.

I got a text this weekend that had my heart stop for dramatic effect before it started to Salsa. It was a tiny little two bed in Chatham, NOT yet on the market, but the owners were ready to say good-bye to it. They called it a tear down – impossible I thought, they know not what they speak of. It’s a non-conforming lot, and the risk you take if you remove a building is that you won’t be able to replace it, let alone put another larger home on the property. Of course their are Zoning Boards of Appeal, where you can plead your case, but it’s a gamble, and I am not willing to put $1.1M on the line for the chance they might be in a good mood the day I ask.

A pillow, a good book, and both my feet up, you’d find me here in the morning.

My heart returned to its steady beat when I learned about the size of the lot. It slowed even further when I visited the property to look it in the eye from the outside, assess the neighborhood and such. She knew it, and I knew it, the company that she kept was not stellar, star-studded, or seaside. A problem if you want to cash in that lottery ticket.

The Phrase “pretty as a picture comes to mind”.

I’ve never wanted to force myself into being a numbers person, but when it matters, I seem to be pretty good at doing the math. This little house had numbers that didn’t work. I have never expected to get something for nothing, but renovating a home is hard. The only easy part of the process is spending too much, taking too long, and underestimating what others will give you for it. No, she wasn’t for me, but I’d take one of these little beauties, whether it was falling down or not. I’d move right in, set up my laptop, and tap away, breaking now and again to gaze out at the sea, and think to myself, how very fortunate I am to just be.

You mustn’t forget the view – even if it is only in your mind’s eye.

If I had a Million Dollars

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The very definition of town and country – whether you’re into people watching or bird watching, you’ll have a view.

Falling in love with a rich man is not as easy as falling in love with a poor man, as the old saying suggests. Falling can be hard on the heart, nurturing that love when it tests your patience, doesn’t live up to your expectations, or seems to fail you, can be trying. Staying in the game, when you’d rather throw in the towel, the hardest of all, but to love someone, or something, is to commit, and commitment has its own rewards.

An Easy Bake Oven and a pantry – what was I thinking? I should have put in an offer.

Why all this talk of love? I stumbled across a listing of a house on Main Street in Orleans. As we prepare to say good-bye to our Chatham flip, and I expect to say fair thee well to my Boston condo, which as well all know, was never really mine to keep, like a summer fling that returns to his real life, just before Labor Day, we weren’t destined to be together forever. So I am on the hunt for companionship. I certainly didn’t expect to fall in love, but who ever does.

Look at the craftsmanship. Details, Details, Details plus doors galore.

It’s pale mustard exterior and green clapboard trim had me judging the book by its cover. It wasn’t dressed the way I’d choose. Of course that can be changed, but at a cost, and often a steep one. When I peeked through the side door I could tell this property had soul, and an old one at that. I love old souls. I love the stories they tell, sometimes quickly, sometime revealed to you slowly overtime, as you get to know one another. There were hidden stairs, sloped floors, Dutch doors, and scores of built-in drawers to explore.

The hip bone’s connected to the thigh bone…

Despite the gentle use and clear care that had been languished on the property over the last century and a half, I am afraid everything would have to go – so much of it – almost all of it – how would I keep the character and charm of this beautiful, sprawling, four bedroom, two kitchen, barn, garage, guest suite, city on one side, country on the other side, marvel of a property. Did I mention that his caboose abutted a marsh that overlooked the cove?

Every home should have a guest house with a name as sweet as this.

If I had a million dollars… he’d take every penny of that and want more. He’d leach all my energy, wring from me blood, sweat, and a flood of tears, and when it was all said and done, I’d still love him, possibly more. Sometimes the hardest things give you the most pleasure, create the strongest bond, remind you that there is beauty that emerges from struggle.

A room with a view and a fireplace to keep you warm – not much else is needed.

Sadly our story ended before it had a chance to start. I didn’t have the million, and someone else snatched him up. He’s off the market, and so my search continues, but I sure do hope that whoever got him, loves him the way he deserves to be loved.

Made in the Shade

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Selling a house has so much to do with timing, right place and all that. What if your just south of noon, a little left of the pathway to the perfect buyer, and are feeling a little down under? What if your timing is off, the market is off, or say, there is a pandemic that’s got your compass stopping anywhere but your true north? Some might say it’s fate, your destiny, never meant to be, but not me. I’m impatient. Not in the way I expect everything to magically fall into place. Where would the fun be in that? No the impatience in me burns in my belly and rises up in my chest, the urgency I feel has me bursting from my seat, pacing the floor, opening and closing the door, and asking to no one in particular, and anyone in earshot – where are you dear buyer? I’m waiting.

Run . Don’t Walk to the today’s showing. 34 Lawrence St.

I’m not shy about asking for help. I’ve got an excellent agent – more than one – a team actually, and they are all lovely, communicative, and talented. The Stephen Cohen Team penned the perfect prose for my property, placed an enormous sign on the fence announcing “Something Pretty’s Inside”, and posted social media announcements galore to get the word out. They’ve been ready and willing to show it, and have dutifully help open houses, but the people have gone elsewhere. The north shore, the south shore, the Cape, the islands, Costa Rica, Bali, a friend’s back yard in the country. Who all knows where they have made off to, but it is time to come home to the city, to work, to re-enter the human race and they, that one or two lucky someone(s) are not going to want to miss out on this live large in the city property.

I’ve pulled out all the stops. My good friend Christine came to visit, plants in hand, shop girl star management attitude in toe, and we rolled up our sleeves, rearranged furniture, pulled pillows from the closet until we found the perfect combination that would say: I could live here, I’ll take it, tell me the pillows come with the deal. Of course they do, anything for you, I’d say.

There was one more very important thing I thought I must do, and that was to surreptitiously plant a statue of St. Joseph upside down, facing my condo, in the back yard of my building. I had to do it in secret, because I don’t actually have egress rights to the garden below, but I thought the renters wouldn’t mind if they caught me, because I keep it clean. What they thought of me placing my faith in a small plastic figure, I will likely never know. It is fitting that St. Joseph a selfless and devoted carpenter, would be the middle man between me, or you for that matter, and a higher power. I promised St. Joseph that when my property is expeditiously sold, I will dig him up and carry him with me to my next home. He had a calling, and I have my own. I have this idea, that together we will get this jewel box of a condo sold.