Updating the Numbers

Confession time: Before I joined the glamorous and fast-paced world of business analysis, I was a cost accountant. Now I know what those of you who know me are thinking:

"Say what?? How could an anal-retentive type-A personality have ever found succor in the shoes of a beancounter??"

To which I reply, "Succor?"

But it's true. Beans I counted, for nearly a decade. And though I've long since hung up my transparent green visor, I still love doing budgets and assigning expenses to categories. And so I don my visor again in updating this folly's expenses for the closing, to wit:

Attorney's Fees: $750

Title Insurance: $250

Title Search Fees: $126

Recording Fees: $24

VT Transfer Tax: $325

All of which bring the grand total of the land to $27,624.56 (including the $149.56 in Shangra-La property taxes for 1/2 year)

I also confirmed at the closing that I will forfeit a portion of any profits on the property to the beautiful State of Vermont should I decide to sell within 5 years.

Fat chance.

Yes In Deed!

I received an envelope from the lawyer today containing two items:

1) A title insurance policy
2) The property deed stamped as 'recorded' by the town of Shangra-La

NOW it's official. I considered having it framed, but it went in the fire-proof lock box instead. But I'm celebrating with a 'Southern Tier' IPA beside a warm fire.

Scenes from a Closing

January 23, 2009

9:30 AM

Late breakfast in our home town, hoping it will tide us over until dinner as the closing is at 1:30 and The Boy's nap time is usually noon. Weigh him down with carbs, the thinking goes, and maybe he’ll sleep on the way up. The last thing we want is an over-tired toddler creating chaos in the midst of dignified legal proceedings. The place is new to us, but recommended. Unfortunately, we know we’re in trouble the minute we walk in: It’s got one of those long breakfast counters.

The LSW and I have a history of being ignored at these places for reasons I can’t even begin to fathom; we usually sit patiently, trying to make eye contact with the staff, but they work around us as if we’re invisible. They also tend to be wily, avoiding coming close enough to us to hear our pleas for service.

True to form, I practically have to chase the waitress to get her to give us menus, and then she seats herself next to a customer and proceeds to tuck into friendly conversation and a plate of her own breakfast. The other waitress must be new – she accidentally glances in my directly long enough for me to give her the ‘get over here now’ signal. The food is nothing special, and I expect we won’t be back.

12:30 PM

We jump off the highway early to take back roads to the attorney’s office. I’ve chosen a route we’ve not traveled before though the two ‘large’ towns closest to the property. On paper our property is 2 hours from home, but we’ve never been able to verify it because we always find a reason to take the long way there as soon as we cross the Vermont border. The LSW points this out, but I defend myself by arguing that I’m still exploring the neighborhood. The boy hasn’t slept a wink, but he’s in the pre-sleep mode of talking a mile a minute. Great. He should conk out just as we pull in.

The towns, by the way: ‘Large’ is generous by half, but we do find the diner friends have gushed about for their supposedly sublime pies.

1:30 PM

Of course the attorney’s office is in an antique home at the center of a Norman Rockwell painting. I feel like I’m going to visit grandma. And, lo and behold, the attorney is a grandma, and the office is very ‘homey’. Within minutes our realtor turns up with the seller and her lawyer. The property was in probate, and the seller is the estate’s executrix. She was also the late owner’s sister, so there is a sort of gravity to the closing that discourages casual conversation. Thankfully, the boy plants himself in a corner and becomes engrossed in figuring out how the randomly shaped pieces he has comes together to form a picture of Mickey an Minnie.

With visions of closings we’ve experienced in the past, I feel like my pen is just getting warmed up when suddenly it’s over. We’ve signed a total of 5 documents and watched checks get handed to everyone except us. (Next time I’m going to overpay so we get one, too.) I’m stunned to realize that this means the other 30 pieces of paper we inked at our last closing were all related to the mortgage, and it becomes clear: The economy has collapsed because of all of the filing that needed to take place after the tsunami of home buying! Bank employees are too busy filing to make new loans, and no one can find anything anymore – it all makes sense.

Less than a half hour after we entered, we step back into to sunshine as newly minted ‘vacation property’ owners. I’d finally feel like a yuppie if I owned a BMW, but fortunately I drive a pickup. It doesn’t feel real, somehow, and I keep looking at the copy of the deed and the septic site plan blueprints to convince myself it is.

Intermission: The astute reader would ask if perhaps it didn’t feel real because I didn’t really own the property. After all, didn’t I say a few posts back that I was borrowing the money from my generous father to avoid cashing money out of my 401(k) while the market is in free-fall? Well, I do, and I didn’t. My father came through with the check, but I couldn’t bring myself to cash it. Part of The Dream, after all, was to own the property outright, and, in the end, I believed enough in The Dream to take the hit. Besides, who knows? Maybe we’re in this economic funk for the long run, and it could be years before my per share price stops bouncing around at 60% of its prior value. If you defer The Dream long enough, after all, you’re dead.

2:30 PM

We pull into the parking lot of a 201-year-old 18-room Saxtons River Inn and check ourselves in. The place has a family air to it, but not so much that you feel like you’re in someone’s house. We love it, and the woman who welcomes us loves the boy, so she wins us over instantly. We have the place largely to ourselves, so I spend a little time exploring the open rooms while the LSW and the boy attempt a nap. My intention is to sit downstairs at the bar with a pint of something locally brewed and my blueprints, but somehow I end up in the car heading to the property.

3:00 PM

I’m walking the length of the property on the two sides bordered by roads, taking a fresh look at my new domain. I have fantasies of walking the property, but the 4 foot snow bank standing guard is unforgivingly uniform. Undaunted, I pick a spot at random spot venture in. Everything goes well with foot number one, but it all goes to hell when I lift the other foot to join it. 3 feet deep, turns out, and I’m up to my waist and clearly not going any further. I spend some time looking for a better spot, and the land stares back at me silently, wrapped everywhere in the same white sheet. It occurs to me that I finally have a practical application for snowshoes.

I end up standing in the road like an idiot, reveling in the sound of the light breeze through the stark treescape and imagining what we'll build, and do, come spring. If the market goes up. And maybe even if it doesn’t.

Then I get in the car, take a wrong turn, and am reminded afresh of how far you can go on a Vermont road without a cross street or even a place to turn around.

6:00 PM

We go back downstairs for an early dinner, planning on sitting in the emptier of the two dining rooms in hopes that we won’t bother anyone if the boy has a meltdown. The small bar has taken on the festive atmosphere of an English pub in the last hour however, with guests and townspeople sitting around chatting amicably and Counting Crows playing in the background. We take a table by the wood stove and order up a celebratory dinner: Clams for an appetizer, a burger plate for the LSW, fish and chips for me, and a grilled cheese for the boy. Everything – including the wine this time – is delicious. We toast the big occasion, and I bask in one of those rare ‘everything is right with the world’ glows until the boy decides he can’t sit still any longer and we head up to bed.

Postlude: The following day.

Before heading home, we swing by the Jamaica Cottage Shop to take a look at their 16x20 cabin that is on sale as a kit for $9,000. This is one of a number of kits I’ve been eyeing for a small cabin, but I’ve been anxious to see what 240 square feet with a loft really feels like. We stand inside for a few minutes, the feelings of victory from the prior day rapidly dissipating. The LSW and I are in immediate agreement that it is way too small, and this throws our current plans for a cabin in disarray. I spend the rest of the trip home reviewing our options, and slowly conclude that I’m going to have to build the place myself.

Lawyers and Easements

Soon after a sale contract was drawn up, I realized I probably should have a lawyer. I was a little fuzzy on what he/she would do, given that I wasn't selling a property to buy this one. I figured the seller's attorney would handle most of the work.

The attorney I had used for the recent sale of Connecticut home appreciated my thinking of him, but suggested that I really needed a Vermont lawyer for a Vermont property. He was too nice to add 'moron', but he probably thought it.

I googled lawyers in the Shangra-La area, and called one at random. He sounded like a friendly and knowledgeable guy, and I figured my search was over until he said, "Wait a minute, what street is the land on?" He turned out to be the attorney representing the seller. What are the odds? (Probably pretty good, actually; Vermont has one of the smallest populations in the union.)

A few calls later and I was set. Turns out my attorney would review the contract, do the title search, calculate the closing costs, and make sure the purchase is registered with the appropriate authorities. All for about $1,000, which seemed to be the going rate. And she'd look into one other thing...

There as a single power line cutting across the western corner of the land, apparently feeding the neighbor at the top of the hill to the north. The property - wooded everywhere else - had been cleared on either side of the line. The realtor dug up an easement for Central Vermont Public Service Corporation that had been granted in 1996, but the language seemed vague. Did the presence of the easement mean that CVPS could replace the current (rather unobtrusive) line with 100' transmission towers in the future?

I had contacted CVPS and was informed that the right-of-way had been defined when the line first went up. At only 50 feet wide, it would limit CVPS's possibilities in the future, though they could string more lines on the existing poles. Furthermore, CVPS had the right to clear the property annually of any trees or branches within the easement's boundaries. As we had suspected, the power line was for the neighbor.

My lawyer did some checking and confirmed the information I had received. She felt that I was unlikely to have problems in the future. Having an easement on the property wasn't optimal, but it didn't seem that big a deal, either, and we decided to move forward.

The Road to VT - Part 2

When the original cabin didn't pan out, I swore off Realtor.com and committed myself to the new house. I'd channel all of my cabin energies into making the new place as nice as it could be, addressing needs like new windows and siding, building the cabinets the 1940s kitchen was desperate for, and tending to the cottage-garden landscape I'd inherited.

Why did I need a second home? I kept asking myself. I can barely keep up with the one I have.

I held out for maybe 6 months, and then found myself casually perusing Realtor.com whenever I grew bored of surfing TheThruthAboutCars, Slate and TheOnion. (Ever feel like the web is just an infinitely larger version of cable television - millions of channels, and nothing on?) Eventually, searching the real estate listings again grew into a daily habit, and I found myself occasionally leaving particularly interesting listing up for the LSW. When she failed to comment on them, I'd casually call her attention to them.

Me (reading the paper): I saw an interesting property listing - did you see it?
She: Silence.
Me (pretending to read the paper): It's listed for 90, but we could probably get it for 75 in this market.
She: We don't need another house. You can hardly keep up with the one you have, remember?
Me: I know - just thought it was interesting. I left it up if you want to see it.
She: [Exiting the room with her breakfast]

This would lead to me chasing her around the house with the laptop on the hopes that this particular listing would pique her interest. When finally cornered, she'd usually look at the ad for all of 30 seconds and respond with a disinterested shrug.

But here's the thing: Methinks she doth protest too little. Against her better judgement, I know she'd like a cabin, too. And so she eventually acquiesced to an overnight trip to look at Shangra-La and two other listings for comparison.

The first two properties did not bode well. We looked at 2 very swampy acres in Whitingham for $25k, followed by a $75k log cabin with well and septic in West Halifax. The listing agent had advised me that the area was very 'Vermonty'. By this she meant that we should not have been surprised by the junked cars and random furniture adorning the lawns of the surrounding properties. I'd say we were less surprised than alarmed.

I had wanted to see one other cabin in the area - a very tidy-looking A-frame for $90k.
"I have to be honest with you," the listing agent cautioned. "The neighbors are hostile." OK, then.

I was low on confidence as we approached Shangra-La and parked by the old meetinghouse, but prospects seemed to improve as we walked the property and my normally skeptical LSW didn't say much. The land was conspiring with me: The day was agreeably autumnal, the sun was out, and the meetinghouse was the verisimilitude of New England charm.

"Whaddaya think?" I asked, as the realtor pulled up. "Should we make an offer?"

She didn't exactly say yes, but didn't say no, either, and I knew then I had it nailed. The original listing had been $40k, but had fallen to $30 after 6 months. We ended the day at the realtor's office across the street from a historic inn we'd stayed in 10 years earlier. It seemed a good omen. I made a formal offer of $22 contingent upon a septic test, and the realtor called the owner right then.

"Well, they didn't laugh me off the phone, so that's a good sign."

About a week later we had settled on $26k - about $8,100 an acre, and the septic waiting game began.

($8.1 an acre seemed like a good deal given the other properties I've seen listed, probably due to the fact that septic was unknown and the real estate market was down. The town is also less desirable than its immediate neighbors, with no real center and few services.)