Monthly Archives: July 2022

Take a Hike: Interest Rates and Home Ownership

Posted in Moving Time, Uncategorized by
The Fed. Now that’s a big bank.

The Fed is fed up with our spending habits. We consumers are consuming at a rate that apparently can’t keep pace with production. If you have a finger to point, you may be stymied about which direction it should target. Should it poke the Russian Bear that marched on into Ukraine and announced their intention to stay? What about the pandemic, a reduction in production, a supply chain broken, Amazon promises, and a desperate need to fill ones time? Oh there are so many places we could go to place blame, if placing blame is what we are intent on doing?

The whole thing had me stewing, primarily because I too like to buy, but rather than surf the web in summer, I like to cruise the open houses and I happened to be in the market for one. All the while the Fed was reaching into their tool box and pulling out the only tool they had to tamp down inflation and up went the interest rates. My two bed condo dreams were dashed, alas it seems I would be destined to live a one bedroom existence. I find some solace in the fact that I live alone, and don’t have visitors often, so practically speaking don’t need two bedrooms. Need aside, the upside potential of a two bedroom condo far exceed that of a single. Humph.

I’d be feeling a little sorry for myself if I wasn’t getting such a fabulous one bedroom, and significantly a very good interest rate, one tool titans, I have a trick or two up my own sleeve. I am no finance expert and understand that there is much in fact that I don’t understand at all. I have long been fascinated by the fact that the mere mention of a rate increase gets banks scrambling to hike their rates in advance of the actual announcement, which got me thinking that it wasn’t a law that required them to raise the rate, so what compels them to do it?

Big commercial banks are tied to a rate range for their overnight loans – the loans they make to one another, and to requirements for liquidity set by regulators. This forces compliance which trickles down to we average buyers, looking to get loans for cars and boats and houses and such. In my years of shopping loans, I discovered that working with small banks was easier, faster, less cumbersome. In my most recent transaction I learned that there is another benefit. Small banks don’t sell your loan, at least not as a matter of course. They are in the business of holding it and using the money they receive from your down payment, and others – to lend. They want and need to attract borrowers to keep their business moving and few things are more attractive to a borrower than an incredibly competitive interest rate. When others were offering 5%, I shopped and discovered 4.75, then 4.25 with a small bank out of Maine, and finally 3.99%, which as I like to say, is not nothing!

In conclusion I would like to say I still have no idea how the Federal Reserve operates, and why they have so few tools to address inflation, but I implore you to support small banks if you are in the market for a home.

Stress Less: Part II

Posted in Moving Time, Uncategorized by

Hello again. I wouldn’t dream of thinking of leaving you with all those philosophical thoughts on things, and not tell you some tips on what to do with them. It is important when you are considering a move to take the time to reflect on the things that you have tucked. It really can tell you so much about what’s going on with you as a person if you observe and listen, which is really hard to do when you are sooooo busy.

Those Home Edit Gals really appreciate beauty.

I am going to assume that you have done that and now we will move to the organization phase. We organize before it even goes into the big moving boxes because that will reduce your stress when you arrive at your final destination. See title. If haven’t come across the show The Home Edit you may now excuse yourself to go get a snack and a cool beverage of your choice and sit and watch a few episodes. Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin are obsessive compulsive organizers who appreciate beauty, color blocking, and containers. If the show doesn’t send you peeling out of your parking lot or space or hopping a train to the Container Store – purveyors of all things organization, then shoot me a note and I’ll mail you five dollars. It will be like the birthday card that you received from your grandmother or a favorite Aunt. Really, I’m not joking. I’ll do it.

The Container Store is pricey, and I for one don’t want to make what is already an expensive undertaking into an even more costly one for you, so consider Home Goods as an alternative. They have much of what’s available at The Container Store for less, but there are certain items like wrapping paper containers that I haven’t seen on sale anywhere else and these are wonderful! I use them not only for holiday and birthday wrapping which seems to take a beating, particularly when I move, but to store roman blinds that I paid an arm and a leg for and plan to reuse later. They would work well for field hockey sticks, bad mitten or tennis rackets, all those random balls that have collected on the bottom of the closet. Trust me, after watching the show, you’ll have more ideas about how to contain your life than time to contain it.

Now for the junk drawer. My intent isn’t to overwhelm you or change you into someone that you are not. Take that drawer and dump it into a box, tape it up, and label it junk drawer. Done. Not every aspect of this process demands you address it in this moment, but I will ask you to consider dumping the junk drawer into the trash. It’s called junk for a reason. Starting fresh has its own rewards.

Ok, so you’ve sorted, donated, dumped, and contained. You’ve put your containers neatly inside boxes, that on average weighed no more than 30 lbs. Wait – did you not do that. I told you there were loads of experts with hacks that would make your moving life so much easier. If you couldn’t squeeze in the time to watch them, let me also tell you that you should get the enormous plastic vacuum seal bags from Bed Bath and Beyond or the Home Depot and fill them with all your winter sweaters, ski clothing, blankets, the bulky stuff. You’ll be amazed at how small they get once you have sucked the air out of them. It’s like a five course meal, Apollo 9 style. You should take all your framed photographs and wrap them in paper and stack them vertically, side-by-side in the box to avoid breakage. If you can shake it and things move around inside, it’s not ready to be taped up. Add a tea towel or a blanket to the top before closing it up. One last tip for the kitchen – use paper plates between your dishes, stuff glasses with socks or dish rags, and treat larger items- think pots and pans – like Russian Dolls, hide away more delicate items inside their protective shells.

We are working to limit the number of trips, the size of the truck, and the number of people required to do the move. This is real money, and you’ll want to reserve some of that to organize your new space. I go so far as to use gym clothes for packing materials. It’s free, sustainable, and on hand. I encourage you to do the same.

I promised I would provide resources for donation so here are a few. If you are not in the Boston area, you can conduct a google search or make a call to a few non-profit organizations. You’d be surprised at the randomness of the items they are willing to take. Shoot me a note if you have suggestions for our readers that I didn’t capture, and we’ll share it.

The Salvation Army: locations nationwide. Donation Type – appliances, cars, furniture, clothing and household goods.

Rosie’s Place: food, toiletries, socks, sneakers, boots (seasonally only due to storage), and books.

The Ronald McDonald House: toys and books for kids undergoing cancer treatment.

Stress Less: Preparing for a Move

Posted in Flipping, Uncategorized by
Bird by Bird . Box by Box . Item by Item. You’ll get through it.

I move a lot. The look on people’s faces when they learn how much varies from sincere sympathy to abject horror. Some people go so far as to step away from me as if they suspect that what I have is contagious and they don’t want to catch it. Moving is an anxiety inducing life event for most. A shock to no one that has done it badly, recently, or without a superior moving company. That it ranks third in the most stressful life events that you can undertake, stationed behind death of a loved one and divorce, seems absurd. Really?, We can do better.

I love public speaking too, so before you go judging me as someone that you can’t relate to at all, and will never come to believe that either experience can be liberating, let me set the stage for you, pull back the curtain on the kerfuffle over organizing your life, categorizing it, leaving bits of it behind, and starting anew. There is so much that can be eliminated from your life that holds you down when you could simply decide to begin.

That moment could look like a Model T Assembly Line instead of a fifth birthday party for a rambunctious little boy and twenty of his closest friends, hosted in your Cape cottage instead of the backyard because of the downpour outside. Clear the slate. We’ll take this Bird by Bird as Anne Lamott tells her impatient students, her would be published writers.

Before we start in earnest I think it is only fair that I share with you that this is more life philosophy than moving hack or How-To. There are loads of people and resources that will support you if you want to learn how to stuff ten pounds of sausage into a two pound bag and move it from point A to point B. They have valuable advice, but like an investigative reporter, I am more interested in what’s in the sausage. Should you be moving it? Ingesting it? Living with it. Is it healthy? Did it once serve a purpose in your life, feed your soul, but now it’s holding you down, or back, or up, when you need to be free? That’s what this is all about, so let’s get started.

Being in any room. Pick one. Which room do you love sitting in, working in, sleeping in, being in? Begin there. Gaze up at a shelf or open the Armoire, or closet door or peek under the bed. I know you keep things under the bed. Please don’t tell me that the last time you looked there was when you moved in. Ok, we’ll discuss that later. Now for the good stuff.

Pull things out, hold them and turn them over in your hands. Do they illicit a memory? Tell a story, make you smile, or serve a need. Keep it. Set it aside in a pile , ask yourself when you used it last. Become a Parochial School Nun instructing the class. Clothes: if you haven’t worn it in the season that its intended for here are your options: Donate it to a Charity, Consign it on-line or at a neighborhood shop, Gift it to a friend or colleague, or Toss it.

While this approach may not work for everything in your home, you’d be surprised at how many organizations are begging for strange food products, will accept small furnishings or kitchen items, and of course books – beyond libraries there are homeless shelters, soup kitchens, nursing homes. Those books that are collecting dust could open the hearts and minds of the lonely and suffering, doing so much good. Would you deny them that, when you could load up your wheeled suitcase and whistle a tune as you prepare to change someone’s day or life or just dust the corners of their existence free of loneliness? A book can be a wonderful friend.

Part II to follow with links to resources for donating. Happy Wednesday.

Historic Nantucket Inn: Up in Flames

Posted in Architecture, Coastal Design, Uncategorized by
Up in flames . 7.9.22 – the fire broke out around 6:45am.

I write about Nantucket at least once a year. I have been visiting the island since I was a very small child. I am aware of the power of a place that you associate with simpler times, when your biggest challenge was how you might convince your mother to buy you a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone with chocolate jimmies, or beg one of the adults in the party to slide you a crisp dollar bill so you could run wild down the docks to the penny candy store and score golden foil wrapped chocolate coins, smarties, reams of paper spotted with rainbow colored candy dots, and a small handful of bit-o-honey. Innocence is an aphrodisiac that paints the town in pastel hues. I know this to be true, and yet, upon polling a number of adults whose experience of the island came much later in life, I can report to you with a ferocious certainty, the Gray Lady is magical.

Gingerbread Verandas an appropriate namesake.
Last seen: December 2020.

I have stayed on the southern shore of the island facing the Atlantic, the northern side on Brandt Point, over the harbor in the Boat Basin, in town and Cliff Side and have had the pleasure of staying at the Veranda House on several occasions. Built in 1684, it survived the Great Fire of 1846 which destroyed roughly a third of downtown, engulfing more than 250 buildings in flames and reducing them to rubble. Stick built and loaded with whale oil the fire spread quickly. 338 years, several owners and iterations later the Veranda House is no more.

Back in the Boarding House Days.

My last visit was in December of 2020, nary a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. My two girlfriends and I were the only occupants of the recently renovated eighteen room boutique hotel. We commandeered the reception come living room by the fire each morning and evening of our stay alternately sipping coffee and then wine by the fire. She was a beauty with her three decks that wrapped around the building, allowing you to sit and appreciate the view from her mountaintop location. I hope that her current owners will rebuilt and that the spirit of the Veranda House will live on.

The Soul of a great old dame.