Fast Moves

Finally, I write again.  And appropriately so since we are moving tomorrow...!  I'm so thrilled, and Kanha might even be more excited.  The fact that the roof above our third/top floor apartment has been leaking for the past couple of weeks has amplified that sentiment -- the ice cream cone - the shape left by the dripping rain --  in the ceiling keeps getting bigger, as Kanha has pointed out. 

But I definitely feel a pull more than a push.  I stopped by the house yesterday to drop off the necessary paperwork -- the stealth way of trading documents, I drop them off, later Barbara, the seller, picks them up, nothing clandestine, just consequences of being busy mothers of young children -- and it felt great to be there.  Of course, the rooms look smaller empty and all the cracks in the wall and ugly paint choices -- purple in the mudroom as you walk in?? -- stand out.  But the space looks inviting, looks lived in, which makes me feel like we can really live in it too, have real lives.

Everyone who hears our move-in date -- tomorrow, did I mention?! -- says, what, how did that happen so quickly?  And I guess, now that it's finally happening, it is fast.  We aren't actually buying it tomorrow but since the previous tenant in the big "half" of the house moved out on Sunday, I volunteered that we move in and pay rent for a month, while I get through an inspection, mortgage approval, etc.  And it all came together -- win/win as they say. 

So I meet the movers at my storage area at 8:30 am tomorrow morning and boxes and boxes will soon be arriving at our new place.  My main objective by tomorrow night it to have one bed set up and a few things in the fridge.  What else do we need?  Not even a view. 

Decisions

I did make a decision, which seems particularly appropriate today.  Today the house with the view sold to another person, not me, which doesn't feel so bad because I have now chosen another house, not it.  Sure, I would still have loved to buy it but I now understand, not just intellectually but even emotionally, that it just wasn't possible.  It seemed perfect but, in fact, was not.  The buyers got it for $485K (cash!), which is significantly less than the price I had agreed to pay ($535K), but still above the appraised valued ($460K), which was realistically, given my financial constraints and common sense, as low as I could go.  So good for the buyers, the elderly artists who I never met -- may they go on to have long, colorful, lives punctuated with electricity-free chandeliers and bathtubs in the middle of their bathrooms in their new home, and let's hope the new owners of their gorgeous old home have the bank account and wherewithal to bring it back to snuff.

In the meantime, back in my little real estate world, I've decided to buy the red house.  I did go look at the condo on Park Street on Monday and liked it a lot -- good location, great yard and pool, nicely renovated, enough room for the two of us, a bit of a view off the master bedroom deck.  But I liked it a lot for someone else other than us -- it seemed to me perfect for an older couple like the people who were selling it.  For us, it wouldn't work -- the second bedroom was too small for Kanha to have space for her bed and her desk and her stuffed animals and her arts and crafts supplies and her visiting friends, there was no outdoor space close-by big enough for us to eat dinners outside, and no other kids live there for Kanha to make some friends and me to feel like we fit. 

With the red house, we'll be able to put our stamp on it -- choose the floors and paint colors for the third floor, add a window or two, design a fancy shower, redesign the kitchen, relandscape the front yard for a little more privacy.  As they say, "the bones" are good, and the unfun renovation work has been done -- now we can make it our own.  

Hopefully I'll hear from the sellers tomorrow -- they've been away for her brother's funeral, sadly, therefore the delay -- and we'll be able to sign a contract by the weekend and I can get all the details -- the inspection, insurance, mortgage application --  in motion again.  I'm also hoping for good news about a move-in date;  if the tenants -- the mom and her two little little kids --  in the big part of the house liked the apartment they visited this weekend, they may be moving as soon as two weeks from now, and perhaps (!) we'll be able to move in soon after (as short-term tenants ourselves) even before we close.  A major step forward in simplifying my life.  

I'm not swinging from the rafters like I probably would have been if things were moving forward on the house with the view -- which of course would have left me flat on my butt on the floor because the rafters would have come crashing down after thirty years of no upkeep.  So better to be feeling relieved and serene and hopeful.  We should have a new home soon.  

Love Affairs

Kanha and I, along with contractor Nick, went to see the red house last week and they both liked it a lot -- he because the present owner did an excellent job of improving the infrastructure and systems of a very old New England house (they made all the unexciting updates that the artist owners of the "house with a view" skipped), she because it's a house, not a tiny one bedroom apartment where she has to share a room with her mom.  I think they both had very intelligent analyses of the situation.

I liked it too:  the space is good for us -- not too small, not too big, the yard big enough to play catch with the dog but not too much to mow and can be made more private with some strategically placed trees, it doesn't need a huge amount of work -- is, in fact, livable as is -- but has places where we can make our mark -- finishing the top floor, opening up the kitchen.  The biggest negative to me at this point is its location -- it's not quite in a neighborhood like our old house in Cambridge -- it's unlikely Kanha will be running back and forth to the house next door because there essentially isn't one.  In addition, there's a day program for the mentally ill around the corner called Amistad that attracts a slightly unkempt and sometimes rowdy crowd to the neighborhood, Monday through Friday, 9-5.   But as Stephanie, my guru/therapist, pointed out to me, Kanha, just ten and growing older by the minute, will soon have little interest in running next door compared to her excitement about being able to run around town, which this house will certainly afford.  And I've been by the house at many times of day and seen little from the activity at Amstad that looks much different than average city living, and after all, the red house is in the city.  

I wish I felt swept away by it, like I did with the house with the view.  But perhaps it's like a love affair -- since I'm planning on making this a long term thing -- ten years or perhaps longer -- it's probably better for my feelings to begin slow and steady, with affectionate and a sense of potential, rather than explode in an intense passion that, sadly, had to be set aside once the realities of the challenge ahead were brought into full view.  In any case, I've drafted my offer letter and am getting ready to press "send."

Before pressing "send," I decided to take one more breeze through the New England Moves website and, of course, found something of interest -- a cool looking row house on Park Street -- very shishi address (is that how you spell it??) -- for a reasonable price ($380K), all fixed up, with enough space, a large (shared) yard and... a shared pool (yikes -- this might be better than the yard for the dog from Kanha's POV), on top of views of Portland Harbor from the highest floor.  I guess it was preordained -- something had to tip me off my even-keeled perch one last time.  I emailed Nikki about it, but am not so sure I even want to go to see it.  It seems fabulous in a way, but on the other hand, it's not as financially attractive as the red house due to the lack of tenant income, there's no place to easily have dinner outside (the kitchen is 2 floors away from the deck), and it's in a condo association with all the related difficulties that brings.  But it makes one think....

Decision will have been made by the next time I write.  I promise.

The Red House?

Yesterday I found out that the house with a view is under contract with someone new, someone not me.  Oddly, the news was kind of anti-climactic.  I found out through my on-line real estate service that sends an email any time a favorite property has a "change in status" -- I had a feeling even before I opened the email that this time it would be that house.  It's not that I'm not sad and disappointed but apparently reality has caught up with me.  I need to buy a house that isn't going to break me, and that house isn't it.  I wish I was the person who could live in the house with the amazing view, and gardens, and layout, and artists' decorations, and... massive repair and renovation and legal challenges, but it's just not possible, at least in this phase of my life.  

I did look at another place this week -- this morning in fact -- which also is a house with a view.  But while it's lovely, it has nowhere near the draw of the old rambling place -- it's a row house, tall and skinny, with the owner's apartment at the very top, meaning I would have to haul my groceries up 4 (!) stories.  My arms are already straining.  And as Kanha says, the yard -- as lovely as it is from my point of view, with a mix of low-lying bushes and wildflowers, not dissimilar to "my" other house -- is simply not big enough to play catch with the (still-to-be-bought) dog.  The view from the deck off the top floor is stunning, almost as amazing as from the door in the roof at the other house, but it competes in no other way.  And they're asking nearly $700K -- although it has also been on the market forever (5 months or more...) so they would probably come down.  But to me it's just not worth it.

I finally brought up "the red house" with Nikki on Monday -- it's a for-sale by-owner house with a front yard only, small apartment as part of it, a third floor that needs the renovation finished on, in the West End although not a perfect location, but big rooms with lovely hard wood floors, 4 fireplaces, and a good karma -- both Kanha and I seem to be drawn to it whenever we walk by.  (For her, I think it's more the two adorable shih-tzus that the young woman in the small apartment owns than the house itself -- she's a dog kind of a girl, I just have to accept it.)   Interestingly Nikki was quite supportive -- I think she just wants me to find a place to live and exit from her life at this point....  I've emailed the owner who is away until next week, and will probably go look at it once she's back with Kanha and a contractor.  Of course, the tenants in the owner's unit have just signed another six month lease so how quickly we could get in, assuming we can agree to a price and all other contingencies check out, is unknown.  Leave it to me to wait until JUST when their lease has been re-signed to feel my interest reignite.  My special way of making things even harder for myself.

Eh bien, we will see what the next week brings.  Maybe a house, if not with a view.

Appraisal for Sale?

Lots of drama this week, not the least the news that someone else appears to be ready to make an offer on "my house," the house with a view, the writer notes sadly.  I found out because the seller's real estate agent called Nikki, my agent, and asked if the new potential buyers could purchase my appraisal for $150.  This would be the appraisal that I paid $600 for and, more notably, was the cause of my break-up with the house.  Not something I'm likely to hand over for a pittance.

Apparently these buyers can pay cash and want to make sure they're getting a reasonable deal on the house -- therefore, the need for an appraisal.  And appraisers are so busy right now that it will be another three weeks before they can get one done.  

Of course, this brought up all my longing for the house again.  Should I make another offer?  Could I afford to pay more than I had offered before?  And then, when I've come back down to earth why would I imagine it would make any difference in any case because they have a cash buyer and they just want to be done with the whole thing?  

I guess that last question has made me come out on the end of not worrying about it.  Not selling the appraisal -- really, it's just too hard to actively help another buyer buy the house I want, as selfish as that seems -- but also not making another offer.  It is what it is.  If this time it works for the elderly artists, good for them.  And if it doesn't, I know I'll think about it again.

In the meantime, things have gotten worse at work, no other houses have come on the market, I'm behind at both of my jobs -- and today is Kanha's birthday so I have to be both running around and making a party happen AND totally relaxed and happy.  I'm faking it the best I can.  

House hunting again on Monday.  Hurray....

Cheating

Busy day today, running around and getting ready for my weekend trip to Philadelphia (for work...) and my mid-week trip to upstate New York next week (for work...).  Kanha will be getting some extended "dad time," which isn't all bad, I suspect -- more Ben 10 cartoons and boxes of Annie's mac and cheese.  

I cheated the other night and went onto newenglandmoves.com -- just couldn't resist a little peek at real estate doings.  And I found a little to ponder:  one of the gorgeously renovated condos (at least from the outside) very close to the house with a view has gone on the market -- it's the end unit so clearly has great views, almost exactly the same as my favorite house, from its two decks.   But it's priced at almost $500K, out of my price range without a rental unit in it, and the interior pictures make it look too shiny and perfectly new.  Just too boring -- nowhere to let my imagination run wild.  

On the other end of the scale, I also noticed a house that just came up for sale that looks like it might be about to fall down.  The location is great -- a couple of blocks from Kanha's new school, on Spring Street, a pretty good West End Street - but from the outside it looks like no one has left the house in at least a decade.  The mustard colored siding is peeling off and so is the outer wood on the front door, as if a local squirrel has made a full time job of gnawing it away.  The pictures on the website of its interior are only mildly better, showing some (beat up) built-in cabinets and an, admittedly, pretty dark wood staircase.  But we know for every attractive picture, there are four more scary ones that could have been taken.  While this house would not be boring, it also would take a long time to make it livable, which seems unrealistic for a single mom and her kid who need a place to live.  

After that one foray into the real estate world, I've returned to my hiatus.  Fortunately the weather has helped by warming up a little -- I am not yet in a complete panic about finding our winter coats and hats somewhere in the overstuffed, truly inaccessible storage unit.  Soon enough I'll have to decide, something -- a bigger apartment, a bigger storage unit (so we can find those hats and things), a plunge into some type of house.  But not today.

Huddling in Winter

So far it's been a lovely week off of house-hunting.  It's amazing how much more time I have when I'm not surfing real estate websites and just THINKING about our next place to live.  Not that I'm being very productive with the extra time -- surfing book, movie, and politics websites instead...  

I went to a book signing on Thursday night -- Kanha was with her dad and I got a night out of the house, hurray!  --  for an author, Lily King, that I met through Waynflete, Kanha's new school -- she's a parent of one of Kanha's new classmates (and a great writer, serious but readable fiction, www.lilykingbooks.com, check it out). While there, I bumped into a small Waynflete crowd, and the conversation veered toward Portland real estate.  (OK, I haven't completely stopped thinking about a new home.)  The woman I sat next to had recently bought a house that sounded perfect -- a block from the school, very old but charming by description, 1700 sq ft or so, little backyard -- which she only found by living in a tiny apartment with her family of five for a year until she heard through the West End neighborhood grapevine about this great house that some elderly man was about to move out of and might be available for sale soon.  

So perhaps Kanha and I will be huddled in our one bedroom apartment for a little longer than I thought.  

Today we drive up to LL Bean and buy brand new cross country ski equipment.  I've always said that if you live in New England, you better love a winter sport because otherwise you're going to have the very bad blues, in your heart and on your lips, for five months a year.  Downhill skiing used to be my passion but I've gotten older and it's gotten pricier -- so I've relegated it to an occasional indulgence and am hoping cross country skiing will take its place.  I have a $75 gift certificate saved from my birthday last May (thanks to my brother Dan and his family! -- good Mainers who know the value of LL Bean) and am ready to plunk it down.  Winter will be here sooner than I hope, I suspect.

Deals and Obfuscation

Today I resigned from the hunt for a house.  Well, at least for a couple of weeks.  I feel like I've been through some kind of harrowing experience -- all those meetings, and phone calls, and emails, all those visits to the code enforcement office at city hall, never mind to the house, all the $$ that went out the window for naught ($1100 between the inspector and the appraiser), all the roller coaster of emotion from elation and excitement to good old fashioned terror.  So I'm done for now.

I thought I would have more stamina for it, hence my visit to two houses yesterday morning.  One was a dump with a reasonable view -- I said a quick no, thank you, which is good information -- I think on my last outing I really was in love with the house and not only the view.   The other house was quite lovely and tempting in spite of the dearth of outdoor space (ok, they have a decent deck and a small patio but, as Kanha said, where would we play catch with the dog that will follow soon after the house?) and the absence of a tub (two bathrooms, no bathtub).  But when Nikki started delving into some of our questions with the selling agent, the dirty details and dealing of real estate, the obfuscation I'd even call it, began.  They'd told us the first floor apartment rents for $1100-1200 monthly but in fact, when put on the spot, the agent had to admit that the present tenant pays $750, a deal arranged since the house is on the market, and the agent wouldn't admit to what the previous tenant paid -- apparently she got a reduced rent for babysitting for the owner's kids.  As I said to Nikki, I'd like to know the last time anyone actually paid $1100 or more for the place, an answer I think is not coming soon.

The discussion gave me a headache and made me feel like I was being harrowed again, and harassed, and then it just made me tired.  So I emailed Nikki today and said I'm taking a half a month break.  Kanha turns 10 on October first, and after throwing her party and giving her her gifts, I will celebrate by thinking about house hunting again.  In the meantime, I'll write in my blog, do my work, play with my kid, read my books, live my life.  Maybe it will get me excited about finding a house with a view, or not, next month.

Rebounds and Reasons

I meet Nikki tomorrow morning at 10 to look at two more houses, my half-hearted attempt to get back on the real estate horse.  Half-hearted because I don't feel very motivated about either place - one is the other place with the (lesser) view, and also an ugly house, 

the second a beautiful row house (based on the pictures) but expensive with minimal outdoor space.  

It just feels a little too soon, and I certainly don't want to choose a house on the rebound -- a lot harder to get out of the $400K mortgage for a house that seemed to fill you up after the last one let you down so hard as compared to extracting yourself from a similar love affair. 

Since I have had my share of spiritual influences over the past thirty years, I can't help wondering what was the point of the house with a view.  Why did I get so drawn in, so wildly excited, so certain of my future, and then to have it all end -- what was so symmetrically aligned -- so fast and firmly?  My less cynical side keeps whispering in my ear, There MUST have been a reason.  My only thought today is that it spawned this blog, which has gotten me energized about writing again.  I find it fun and my few readers tell me its fun for them too.  Maybe my real estate fling was meant to bash open a completely unrelated and pretty tightly shut door in my life and give me the chance to walk through and begin again.  

Where Your Home Is

I spent this morning in Bangor (for work), day dreaming about what the future will bring.  It wasn't a sunny picture - I seem to have moved past sorrow to self-pity.  Here I am, a woman with nowhere to live and no career to love, went my lament, which is patently absurd even to the most casual observer.  After all, we have an apartment we can stay in on a month to month basis after the lease ends on September 30th, a fact I confirmed yesterday, and for now I'm still getting two paychecks for my two part-time jobs, both of which invoke my gratitude if not my love.

More to the point, I don't need a house to feel connected or loved or happy as Kanha reminded me through a little trinket she gave me a couple of weeks ago, acquired while shopping at Goodwill with her Massachusetts friends.  I typically hate these little tchotkes, inexpensive, ugly, in the way on the rare moments I want to dust, but this one struck my soft spot so sharply that it has earned a prime spot in the bedroom under the fan.  It's a micro-canvas painting, set on a doll-sized easel, with a flower and a bird and a yellow background and the words, "home is where your mom is" printed across it.  No house or view could ever provide me more happiness or comfort than that little phrase handed to me by that little girl.

Speaking of a house with a view, it came back on the market yesterday -- same price, same description, same grammatical error in the ad.  It's as if I never walked through their halls or their rooms or their lives.    Which I suppose is right for them -- they need to move on, to find another taker with more pluck or resources or both, and I hope they do, mostly to extinguish my dream permanently, to put me out of my misery.

In the meantime, I need to try to move on myself, and as such, I've spent a little time on the New England Moves website (www.newenglandmoves.com, best info on buying a house in the northeast I've found) - I've turned up a few places for Nikki to check into including another house with a view (but nowhere near as good plus zero architectural appeal).  Of course, I could go back to the red house with the unfinished third floor, microscopic kitchen, and entirely exposed front yard that I looked at a couple of months ago.  But nothing is grabbing me.  After all these years, these decades, I haven't "settled" for the wrong guy, should I settle for a house I can't love long enough?

Kanha and I went to visit my dad's grave on Labor Day Monday -- it's just over the bridge and down a few streets of rolling hills and well-zoned subdivisions from our apartment.  I hadn't been since we moved back to Maine in July, and no one had visited perhaps all summer -- the day lilies' day for this year had long since passed;  they were engulfed by stiff brown strands, and the grass had grown in all around Big Chip's headstone.  Kanha picked up a rock from the drive that passes through the cemetery and placed it on the stone to mark our visit as she had done so many times as a toddler.  I remembered that when he was alive, he had been the person most interested in me, in all the little details of my life, he gave me comfort, he provided my home.  One of these days we'll find a house to envelop that incomparable feeling again.

A Real Dream

Last night I dreamt that Nikki told me that the sellers would have been happy to take just $1600 more than the last-ditch offer I had made for the house (who knows where that number came from -- the mysteries of dreams) and she refused to tell me until the deal was officially off.  I begged her to go back to them and she refused.  No mystery in this -- I so wanted the house and she so wanted me to buy anything else.  An honest real estate agent at least.

After a bout with a mild case of heat exhaustion yesterday morning (memo to Marge - don't go for a 3 mile run, especially when you've only been running two miles a couple days a week, in 85 degree, 99% humidity, weather and you're not feeling your most chipper anyhow), I spent the day second-guessing every decision I had made in my quixotic quest for the house with the view.  Well, maybe mostly just one -- should I have given them a lower final price?  If I had offered $450K, would they still have considered it?

Beyond that, my second guessing mostly involved worrying I had led the sellers on:   that I was naive about the costs, that I should never have thought I could have bought the house for more than $500K.  I imagine the white-haired, spindly couple bent over their dining room table, lamenting the loss of the sale, wondering what they'll do now, and cursing out, in the highest class style, the woman who wanted the view for dragging them through the last month of hope.  

Fortunately I talked to my friend Mary Ellen in the midst of my self-flagellation, who tilted my head a little toward another perspective.  As she said, no matter how lovely the elderly artist couple is, they didn't take care of their gorgeous house.  They patched it and band-aided it here and there, as necessary, over the years, and reorganized it, splitting apartments and setting up not-so-professional commercial space, as it suited their needs, without holding one conversation with the city to see if their actions were  legal.  As a result, they have a house that appears to be, both to them and an initial buyer like I was a few weeks ago, incredibly, stunningly, valuable -- with the gardens and the view and the swirly painted walls and the nooks and crannies -- but in fact, is a house that's a mess, a house whose value lies solely in its potential, a potential that will cost any buyer hundreds of thousands of dollars to realize.  

So now I feel less guilty, but no less sad.  As Nikki suggested, I've decided to simply enjoy Labor Day weekend with not a thought of houses, beautiful or not, with views or not, and will plot out my next steps next week.  

Reactions

Just found out the deal is off.  Nikki went back to them with a $420K hard price and they declined immediately, which I kept thinking might possibly not happen -- possibly they would consider just getting rid of it -- but in retrospect, in the harsh light of post-deal reality, is a no-brainer.   Dropping ANOTHER $100K+ after they had already come down so far from their asking price -- it just wasn't going to happen.

Francine, the seller's agent, was distressed with my decision - felt like I had had all the information and had had plenty of time to figure out all the numbers a long time ago.  Nikki was probably happy since I know she never wanted me to buy the place.  I have no idea the sellers' reaction -- well, I suppose I do but I prefer not to think about it -- annoyed, angry, discouraged, betrayed by the woman who had convinced them she loved their house and then abandoned it.  Mostly they're probably wishing they didn't have to start again.

As for me, I feel a bit relieved, a bit foolish, and crushingly disappointed.  

Bad News, Good Spirits

The bad news is just piling on, perhaps so heavily my dream has already been buried.  The appraisal came in at $460K -- yikes -- which is $75K less than the price I signed off on.  And this was provided by Rusty, the cute red head who clearly appreciated the uniqueness of the house.  The truly bad thing about this is at that value I could never remortgage the house for enough to pay off the seller's loan, never mind get some extra $$ out of the loan to pay for further repairs.

In addition, it's clear the city sees the house as having only two residential units plus the commercial space, meaning the two small apartments are supposed to be one larger one -- the present owners probably split it in two sometime over the past thirty years, without mentioning it to the city and, in doing so, getting a legal building permit.  Or, who knows, maybe some else in the litany of owners over the past hundred years chopped it up that way -- it's impossible to know from the microfiche pages of permits and complaints and petitions in city hall.  The only thing I do know is that the house, in addition to its view, has an extremely colorful, and somewhat shady, history.  In any case, according to Ann who I talked to at the city on this visit, while the fact that the actual house doesn't match the city's records doesn't definitely require me to turn the two apartments back to one -- but it does mean I'm up for reams of paperwork, applications, delays in review, etc., which all simply means $$ to me.  

The final blow was my meetings with the two contractors -- my old acquaintance Nick and Scott, the guy who has done work on Nikki's house.  On the plus side, they both said approximately the same thing about what needs to be done to convert a big chunk of the commercial space into an apartment -- lots and it won't be easy, but it's not impossible and could look cool.  So at least the problem is clear.  But on the other, not so happy, side...  they both said approximately the same thing about the costs of these renovations -- more than twice as much as the commercial real estate broker had suggested to me.  (Nikki thinks that guy was blithely quoting a price for an already cleaned up space.)  Nick's price was around $60K and Scott's around $100K -- a very wide split but I suspect it would end up in the $80-90K neighborhood, particularly if I used Nick.  

So why am I not totally depressed?  Probably because I feel like a gigantic weight has been lifted off my shoulders.  I obviously can't buy it for $535K, and probably not even for $460K.  So I will either not buy it at all -- which may make me (very...) sad for losing my dream house but immediately blows away the financial stress I've been under.  On the other hand, if I do still manage to buy it, for MUCH less money than I've got on the table now, I might even be able to do all I want to it and without losing any more sleep about the future of my bank account -- a thought that was further confirmed by Jim, the banker, in my call this afternoon.  It sounds like he could help me with an additional loan if the numbers work, which I guess is what you would expect a banker to say.  

So tomorrow Nikki and I meet to regroup.  It's hard to imagine the sellers will agree to cutting another $100K+ off the price -- I suspect they will be hurt and angry, which is understandable.  On the other hand, their other options aren't clear.  Now that I've been through what I've been through over the past couple of weeks, getting to know seemingly everyone in the Portland housing industry, it's hard to imagine there are many other West End house-hunters who would be willing to invest the same kind of time and suffer the same types of headaches.  In addition, the sellers have already started thinking that they're about to get out from under their problem --  how much will it be worth for them to leave that problem behind?  I'll know in the next few days.

Heat

Yesterday brought more bad news - the electrical guy won't certify the house because he can't be sure how much knob & tube wiring might be left (which could trip up my efforts to get insurance), Maine passed a law this spring requiring lead paint abatement to be done before any electrician works on an old house, which apparently is quite expensive, if I get a conventional mortgage larger than $417K (where did they get that number??), which I plan to, it's considered a jumbo loan and it is offered at a significantly higher interest rate, etc. etc. etc.  I can hear my friend Barbara's voice in my ear -- don't do it, don't do it, don't do it.

The heat is not improving my mood - I'm sitting in my 500 (maybe 450?) square foot apartment, sweltering away, 86 degrees reading on the thermostat (91 when I went to bed last night).  I'm happy to have found this place, but I/we want out!!  The house with the view is calling.

Lots more info today -- phone call with Jim, the bank president, about my absolutely essential loan, visit to the commercial space with Nick, the contractor, to get an idea of the costs of renovation, trip to the CEO office to find out what the house is legally categorized as, maybe the appraisal report will come in.  The dominoes will be falling, one way or another.  

In the meantime, school orientation and picnic for Kanha today, and first day of school tomorrow.  Our new life in Maine officially begins!

Lots to Do

Not a lot of time to write tonight, what with work (behind in two different jobs) and travel (trip to Philadelphia tomorrow that my boss just cancelled out of so I'm on my own) and kid (keeping her entertained until school starts Thursday) and exercise (I did get out for a run in this heat!).  We survived the inspection -- $500 (well, it's a big house) bought me no new significant information about needed repairs, which may be expensive but is clearly good news.  Lots of things to fix for sure but at least the repair bill didn't leap exponentially.  Paul, the inspector, did suggest I talk to a structural engineer about one issue, who I'll call tomorrow, and we still are supposed to get an electrician in to find out if it's more than just an artistic reason that the chandeliers throughout the house are real -- that is, they take candles, not lightbulbs.  

Beyond that, I ran over to the city's CEO office again to get a final determination on how many apartments the city thinks the place has (no luck -- office closed at 4 pm -- Ok, I will decline to make a joke about city workers and their schedules), called another old friend and contractor (someone who I suspect will be cheaper than Craig who looked at the place with me a couple of weeks ago) to see if he can get me a quick estimate of how much it will cost to create the new apartment, called the lawyer to see how likely it is I'll get an official appointment with Marge at the city before Friday...  Suffice it to say, there's lots to do.

Most disappointing comment of the day -- both Paul, the inspector, and Nikki think I may not be able to put a roof deck on the building.  What??  Hardly makes sense since the brand new building of condos right in front of the house, the ugly part of "my" view I'm trying to ignore, has a gigantic roof deck -- how can the city deny me?  This is one I will fight.

Kanha did come with me this morning and saw the house for the first time.   She was bored with the inspection and enthralled with the apartment -- she's claimed the third bedroom as her art studio and has determined how we'll arrange our couch to maximize the living room view of Portland Harbor.  (She also was fascinated by the rotary dial phones throughout the sellers' apartment -- she can figure out how to operate a brand new computer in five minutes but struggled mightily to determine how to dial a phone number on these phones.  Do we count this as progress?)  I called her at her dad's tonight and she gave it the seal of approval -- "We have to buy it."  I'm working on it, honey-bunny.  

The Pleasure of Place

Sitting up in bed on just another one of the dozens of glorious mornings of this summer in my family's lake place in western Maine, staring out the window at the ripples on the water, listening to the loons call to each other -- I imagine they're talking about what a great summer they've had too.  I'm sure spending nearly twenty-five years coming up to this house has drawn me to appreciate a water view and, therefore, at some level to have pulled me toward the big old house.  But more than that, it's created a sense of the pleasure of place, that four walls and a piece of land can connect one to parents who are now gone, to conversations and laughter and hugs that are part of the indelible background of a life, to the quietness of being in a spot that touches nature so closely.  Certainly a house in the city is a different species than one in rural Maine but what I see as offered within those many many walls and nearby gardens and river and ocean makes me certain I can find my place, our place, there too.

I wrote my financial proposal and sent it off to Jim, the bank president, yesterday and he's still speaking with me by email so my dream still lives.  Nikki, in the meantime, has sent me another discouraging note, wondering how I'll make the extra loan payments before the new apartment is completed and rent is coming in and speculating that it will take several months to finish the renovation, a position she has completely reversed herself on in just a couple of days.  Well, as she says, someone has to play the devil's advocate and it's clearly not me.  

Today I officially take up the apparently God-given mantle of every parent of an adolescent in the new millennium, no matter one's own personal predelictions -- "soccer mom."  Kanha's first game of the season is this afternoon, producing the first busy (read: ruined -- oh, sorry Kanha) weekend of the fall.  Oh well, the sun is shining, I have a book, I love to see my kid play -- it will be fine.  

Points 1 to 4

A beautiful sunny day back in Portland, a glorious day to think about buying a house with a view.  I'm feeling a little more relaxed -- perhaps it's a good night's sleep, perhaps it's knowing I don't have to be back on an airplane until Tuesday -- but I like to think it's mostly because I've taken a paring knife and excised, almost completely, my emotions from the cold hard financial facts of this house purchase.  Since my brain works like it's still solving problems from my high school math team, I need to clearly lay out those facts that must be faced -- four of them, to my count:  

1. Assurance from the city on two issues:  a)  I can buy the house and get the commercial space converted to residential and b) they'll work with me to resolve the fact that the two small rental apartments are out of code
2. An appraisal that's high enough to allow me to borrow enough money in a conventional mortgage once the new residential space is in place for the list of known repairs 
3. An inspection that doesn't add TOO many more very expensive repairs to that list
4. (Here's the big one) A source of a $50-$75K loan to do the apartment conversion and other initial repairs

Just this morning I've made good progress on points 1 and 2 -- another reason this is a good day!  I talked to a lawyer (painful $$ signs but worth it I think) and then went to the city of Portland's code enforcement office to look up some documents.  Bob, my new lawyer, thinks it shouldn't be hard to convert the commercial space to residential (apparently much easier in that direction) and the boss lady in the CEO -- named Marge, which seems like a good omen -- took a few impromptu minutes to discuss the situation and, without making commitments, said she would try to work with me on all issues if I bought the property.  So that seems point 1 is 3/4ths addressed.

In addition, Rusty, a freckle-faced real estate agent/contractor/appraiser with a pencil behind his ear and a Blue Tooth stuck in it, took an hour in the house this morning to come up with an estimated value;  while he made no commitments (appraisal report will come next week), he talked, in a somewhat awestruck way, about how unusual the house is -- the artsy nature, the views, the amount of space -- which makes me (a little) optimistic on where the appraisal will come in.

Beyond that, inspection (point 3) is scheduled for Monday bright and early, and my ex, Chip, gave me a smart suggestion about point 4, which puts him on my plus side for today.  He reminded me of the bank president who we both know -- he better than me since his bank account is quite a bit bigger -- and suggested I go talk to him.   As Chip said, if anyone would know whether this kind of loan was possible, he should.  So I've set the wheels in motion on that front -- should have a meeting with him later this week.  

Lots to do, which is not a bad place to be -- easier to keep the incision between emotions and finances clean.  I'm going to take Kanha with me on Monday morning for the inspection -- I look forward to seeing the look on her face as she runs from one unexplored and alluring room to the next.  

The Way the Dominoes Will Fall

The sellers said yes, and agreed to leave most of the furnishings I asked for -- the bookcases in the hallways, the pot racks in the kitchen -- and even volunteered to leave the white antique hutch in the dining room.  At that moment, all my anxiety washed away and I remembered exactly why I wanted to live there -- it's a glorious home with a sense of warmth and place that Kanha and I would love.  

Unfortunately, my anxiety had only disappeared briefly.  My biggest concern isn't about all the work that needs to be done but about having enough money to make the necessary fixes, in the necessary amount of time.  As I've said a million times, the numbers work well once the commercial space is converted and that new, third, apartment is rented, but so many hoops to clear before then.  Will the city allow that space to morph from a quaint old retail shop into a shiny new living space?  Can I convert the owner financing quickly into conventional financing, perhaps even before the apartment has been created?  Will I be able to get enough out of the conventional mortgage to finance enough improvements to keep the place from falling over?  Is there a real risk of it falling over or can I do the repairs sequentially as I find the money to fund them?  To mix a metaphor, it's more like a series of dominoes -- will they all (mostly?) fall neatly into place?  

The good news is if they fall askew, I can exit with very little financial pain -- the fees for the appraisal and inspections -- although substantial emotional hurt I expect.  But one can always get over a broken heart, even if it's such a huge gorgeous house that breaks it.

I am in fact in Detroit, staying right downtown in the Omni Hotel that sits on the Detroit River, with Windsor, Ontario directly across the watery divide I see out my hotel window.  I went out to walk for a few minutes along their Riverwalk when I got in;   the city may be beat up and abused -- broken windows, broken buildings on every block on the drive here -- but what a glorious spot tonight to clear my head.  Breeze blowing, smell of bread baking from a factory across the border, people biking, dogs barking.  My load feels a little lighter.

Plunged

Late at night, the offer officially in, feeling exhausted.  Lots of contingencies, lots of potential outs, but it's another big step forward, a $15K check if nothing else.  The thing to remember is no one else sees the house with my eyes, for better or worse -- I would argue I see all the possibilities and am not worried about the difficulties, the unfinished edges that may last a long long time, while my friends, my protectors, tell me the difficulties will overwhelm me and my pocketbook.  Who is right?  The problem is  I can't know until long after I take the plunge.  But, in any case, won't I -- we -- have had a great place to live?

The sellers' response is due by 6 pm tomorrow when I'll be on a plane to Detroit.  Heading for the most depressed city in the country might be good -- any celebration will be appropriately muted.

Craziness

Lots of phone calls back and forth with Nikki this morning, see-sawing price and financing ideas.  We're at $535K with the sellers' mortgage terms, which is a better price than I thought I would get but doesn't leave me any money to fix the place up.  Where will that come from?  Oh, I think I asked that question yesterday.  

I'm meeting with Nikki at 5 pm this afternoon to put it in writing -- I also have a call in to a commercial real estate broker in Portland and an appointment with a lawyer who does real estate work with the city on Friday.  And I'm not signing anything without an out through the inspection -- they may not bring the price down any more, but I can still bail out if - as my friend Barbara (who thinks I'm crazy) suggests -- all the walls have to be ripped out so that wiring has to be replaced and the repair bills go from $100K to $300K.   (If that's true, I would agree that I'm a bit crazy.)

Hard not to feel anxious but as I said to Barbara -- I like excitement in my life and nothing in my life right now, except Kanha, is exciting.  This would be, to say the least.  

Living or Escaping?

I went to see another house with Nikki today, and brought Kanha too - a house at the other end of the scale:  sloping floors (not just crooked or soft in spots but at least a bunny ski hill routing through the kitchen), carpeting instead of hard wood, odd shaped rooms sold as extra sitting areas, a tiny bowling alley of outdoor space, and, for sure, no view.  Of course the price is only $189K -- too bad it doesn't work that I could buy a view with the differential I'd save vs. my desired house.  

When we had finished walking through the property and stepped out onto the street, Nikki said to me, "Oh, I have some information about the other house" -- to her, it's just "the other house" -- and my stomach did that slight flip that comes whenever news that matters is about to be given or received.  I looked at the flowering garden in the next house's yard and froze the moment in place, then listened.  To fairly good news, as it turns out.  They've come down to $575K, a full $120K down from their asking price.  Of course, this is a price that no inspection can undo -- it's take it or leave it.  Which would (will?) be fine as long as I don't have to get financing.  If the sellers can't finance it -- and that seems slightly less certain based on Nikki's feedback today -- and I have to get a bank or mortgage company to come up with the money, I will no longer be the one with the final say.  

Nikki is going back with a counter offer of $525K and then we'll have to put something in writing if we're still talking.  Another offer is still threatened, which might or might not happen.  As Nikki said, better not to think of that and pursue my own interests independently.  Whatever else happens is in someone else's hands, hands that have been persistently unforthcoming so far.  

I'm feeling hopeful now and, more surprisingly, nervous.  I suppose it's the natural outcome of getting closer to the reality of what has been hard to get -- it's the old problem of loving something you can't have;  once you can have it, perhaps it (he?) is not so hot.  For me, I think it goes beyond that though.  I went to see the uber-chick flick Eat Pray Love tonight after dropping Kanha off, all about a woman's search for identity and meaning in life after a searing divorce -- it's put me in that soul-searching zone, a place I visit often for reasons confusing to me as visiting rarely feels either comfortable or particularly clarifying.  So am I searching for a life, my life, in this house, a place to put my energies and passions and creativity?  If so, is that wrong?  Perhaps the better question is -- is it an escape from the life I'm living or can it become the life I want to, was meant to, live?  No Ketut, Julia Robert's Balinese spiritual advisor, to answer me tonight.  

Everything is Negotiable

So the offer was made on Friday, Nikki and Francine sitting on the stoop of the house, the breeze blowing the wildflowers, the boats gliding past into Portland Harbor, and Nikki didn't get laughed off the property, although she said Francine winced -- almost imperceptibly, but it was a wince -- when she heard our price.  But she said she would share it with the sellers.  And I just checked my email and Nikki says there will be counter-offer news tomorrow.  So I haven't fallen totally off the table, out of my dream.  Not yet.

The most interesting part of their discussion was about financing:  the sellers are now offering to finance the whole price, assuming it's a number they like (big assumption since we are now $220K apart...), but the terms, which they say are non-negotiable, are interesting -- $150K down, 15 years, 4.5% interest.  Not terrible, but not optimal either since the downpayment would take a big chunk of the $$ I was planning to put into the house, the length is twice as long as I had hoped to get, and the interest rate, incredibly, is higher than I could get on the open mortgage market.  Of course, to say something is non-negotiable when you've been trying to sell a house for 7 months seems foolish, naive, perhaps even an oxymoron.  As far as I'm concerned, at this point, EVERYTHING is negotiable, particularly since their willingness to finance works greatly in their favor:  someone else -- ME -- buys the house and takes over all the problems that the city could confront them about, which they, in the 9th decade of their lives, understandably have no desire to deal with.

But it is also appealing to me, assuming I truly want to buy the house, because it would allow me to buy it soon (and move in!!), without having to jump through financing hoops, and then have a little time to figure out how to fix it up and get it to meet the city's standards before the code enforcement officers were banging down my door.  Obviously lots of negatives too -- have to find another way to get the $$ to do the fix up (who else will loan me $100K??) and the responsibility for all the fixes could turn out to be a lot to handle.  (That last statement, I'm sure Nikki would say, could be the understatement of the decade that I am committed to living there.)  But if I want to buy it, if I want to create this life for Kanha and me, maybe this is the way to make it happen.

Tonight Kanha and I watched Last Chance Highway on Animal Planet and fantasized about the dog -- she: big, hairy, slobbery;  me: tiny, non-shedding, house-trained -- we'll get once we have our own place to live.  Whoever we get -- Pepsi or Hope or Champagne or Spot -- I'm sure will love the big house with the view.  

Letter of Love of a House

Last night, alone in my friend Lynn's apartment (I was in Cambridge for work, she was on the Cape for fun), I wrote my letter of love and longing:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Blake:

I so much would like the opportunity to buy your home. From the time in January I made the decision to return to Portland with my nine-year-old daughter, Kanha, I have been searching for exactly the right house for us – somewhere in the West End, an older building that hadn’t been shined up too brightly, not too small but not too big, with a piece of private outdoor space, and, most important, a strong sense of personality and warmth. When I walked into your home a month ago, I felt I had found exactly the right spot; since then I have been working hard to sort out all the details so that I can have a chance to buy it. To give my daughter the gift of growing up at 26 Brackett Street would in fact be a tremendous gift to me. 

The research that I have done on all these details is, unfortunately, leading me to make a very low – perhaps shockingly low – offer. Please know this is not at all a reflection of how I feel about this amazing house. However, between the advice I’ve received from my contractor who came to evaluate the property with me, my real estate agent and her colleague’s experience in selling old houses in Portland, and the things we don’t yet know about work that may need to be done, either related to necessary repairs or city requirements, I feel I have to make a low offer to protect myself financially.

On the positive side, I have already sold my home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where we’re moving from, and have a significant down payment available in the bank. In addition, I have been pre-approved for a residential mortgage.

However, because I do need financing to purchase the property, I would have to meet the requirements of any lender related to inspections and insurance (as any other buyer would who needs financing): I would need to get inspections for the general building, air quality (to check for asbestos), and electrical (to check for knob and tube as that affects my ability to get insurance). In addition, due to the significantly less favorable terms of a commercial loan, I would be looking to get a residential loan, which would require an agreement from the city to decrease the amount of commercial space in the property to less than 25% of the house’s total square footage, a process that would require me to pay for architectural drawings and take several weeks. Finally, any questions re: the structure and designation of the building and its total number of units would have to be worked out to ensure the building accurately conforms with city code – this could also take time and involve additional expense.

I suspect this sounds a bit daunting – a lot of work would have to get accomplished for such a sale to go through. But you should know that I, in fact, am not daunted by any of it – I would consider it a labor of love to take on these details in order for the chance to live in such a special place. However, because it would indeed involve a lot of labor, my real estate agent and I thought it would be best to present this idea to you and Francine verbally to see if we could possibly come to an agreement, before I begin such a large but ultimately so rewarding endeavor.

Thank you for your consideration. I hope to have the opportunity to meet you in person soon.

With very best wishes

Marge Stockford

Nikki will present it to Francine, the sellers' real estate agent, tomorrow morning with an offer of $475K -- Nikki convinced/shamed me into not being any crazier than that.  I hope I'll be thanking her tomorrow, or maybe some other day. 

Too Much Time

For the first time, during this whole dream, I'm feeling a bit down.  Not because of the price, or the work that has to be done, or the regulations I have to figure out, or the approvals I'll have to get.  The problem is it all adds up to time.   While we were developing our plan today, Nikki told me that she thinks I'll be lucky to close by the end of the year -- and that's assuming the sellers agree to my measly offer quickly and we get all forms and conversations with the city, the contractors, the mortgage broker, etc. etc. moving right away.

Not that I care so much -- I have lived in smaller spaces than this cute apartment for longer times -- but how fair is it to Kanha?  She's about to start 5th grade - she's going to have homework to do and friends that want to come to visit, and, believe me, there's little space for either in our three rooms, plus unheated office area.  This is a girl used to doing cartwheels in the living room and dance routines in the kitchen -- better than TV! -- how long can she live without?  I realize I could move into a bigger space while we work out the purchasing details but that is even more horrifying to me -- another move?  More boxes, and stairs to climb, and apartments to clean, and bodies to crash?  I don't think I can do it but once more, for the final, hopefully, dream house.

In any case, we did come up with a plan.  Nikki's going to write up the details of what has to be included in the offer, I'm going to turn it into a loving, plea-ing letter to the sellers, and she's going to approach them with it and a verbal offer of $500K.  And the laughing will begin.  

Climbing Mountains

Back from vacation, back at my desk (such as it is, on the little "dining room" table in my tiny  - hopefully very -  temporary one bedroom apartment), back in the hunt for the huge and creaky old house with the view.  And still no offer on the table from anyone else.  Me thinks the other real estate agent was stretching the truth a bit.  Or -- I'm feeling kindly this morning after my week filled with sunshine and laughter and very few electronic devices --  perhaps she was misled by her client.  In any case, it seems like better news for me -- perhaps there is no longer anyone else in line to immediately top my measly offer.

So I'm ready to take action -- might as well put my little offer on the table, absorb the incredulous response, the derision, the hilarity, the disdain, from the sellers, let it all run off my back, through our mini-apartment, down the hill, into the Fore River, and, then, wait.  Maybe, just maybe, the offer won't seem so laughable over time.  (Seriously -- I can hope.)

But before action, we need more info, specifically from the city of Portland.  And hurray, today, finally, Nikki heard back from them (Note to self:  build lots of time for their approvals into the offer conditions) and the plot thickens further, which is no longer surprising to me.  The person who wins this house will have climbed the most mountains of bureaucratic red tape among city governments, banks, mortgage companies, inspectors, code enforcement officers, architects, builders, uncomprehending real estate agents, overpromising real estate agents, lovely elderly artist sellers, etc. etc. etc.  

Today's bump has two peaks:  first, it turns out that "my" beautiful old house is known to the city as a two unit, not as the -- whoops... --  FOUR unit the elderly artists have it structured as.  Apparently some time during their thirty years of ownership they exercised their artistic skills on a large 3 dimensional wood-based "canvas" and cut and pasted a few walls and appliances, an effort that produced two more spaces but not the inclination to tell the city about their creation.  Oh well, guess we just fixed that problem.  

Fortunately that bump should have little impact on me as my mortgage guy has pre-approved me for a loan that doesn't take into account the rents that will be coming in on these additional fictional units from the city's POV.  (Not that I could actually afford this gigantic mortgage without the rental unit income -- didn't Congress just fix this problem??  Oh well, it works in my favor this time around).  However, bump number two is a little larger, causing a little more distress to my time and pocketbook.  Apparently the city is open to the possibility of me taking a big chunk out of the 2200 square feet of commercial space and adding it back into the owner's unit in order to make the the residential mortgage equation work -- i.e. shrinking the commercial space to less than 25% of the house's full 5700 square feet.  Terrific!  I'm scurrying up over the hill, hands clapping wildly.  

HOWEVER -- whoops, I'm starting to slow down... -- prior to making that determination, they must see an architectural plan -- hmm, architect, that word seems to flash big $$$ in front of my face -- that lays out exactly how the commercial space will be reconfigured -- I'm slowing to a walk -- and details how it will meet the city's code -- I think I just tripped over the bump and my butt has hit the ground.  Yes, this can happen after I've agreed on a price with the sellers but it won't be approved until AFTER the plan is developed and, of course, paid for (to those high-priced architects flashing those dollar signs at me).

Still, I'm undaunted.  I'm a girl who can leap over hills, hike up mountains, scale cliffs -- well, figuratively at least.  I know how to ask the right questions, find out details, follow up, organize and prioritize, find the right people to do the right work, budget and scrimp and save -- I've done it for years for pay on projects that still, strip, and stop my passions so it is only right, even wise, to do it for something that thrills me.   

Nikki and I meet tomorrow to cook up our plan.  I can't wait to see what it is.    

Looking Out for Me

Now it's Thursday and the supposed other buyers have not been heard from and the seller's agent has headed to Acadia for vacation.  So all the drama appears manufactured, which is neither unexpected nor upsetting.  The calmer and cooler we can stay the better deal I'm likely to get is what I think.    

Unfortunately I'm not sure my real estate agent Nikki and I are on the same page.  She's made it pretty clear she doesn't think it's smart for me to buy this house and every piece of feedback she gives me is twinged with the negative  - we have to get the electrician and the city and the structural engineer and the inspector in before we can agree to a deal, it's uncertain the city will approve the shrinkage of the commercial space, we'll never know what other offer comes in so we won't know what to offer.  Sometimes I feel her goal is more to protect her own position -- cover her ass, as it were -- than to help me buy the house I want to buy.  Which is a bit counter-intuitive since she'll only make money if I buy something.  When it comes time to make the offer, I'm going to have to give her a big pep-talk about making sure she's presenting things in the best way possible for me, and not letting her personal feelings seep into what she says.  I appreciate that she thinks she's looking out for me, but I'm not sure she knows me well enough to see what to look for.  

Still need to know whether the city will approve the smaller commercial space -- but after that, I think I'll put an offer on the table -- $525K?  Or even less?  

Best Offer

On vacation this week, in another house with a view -- my parents' place on Kezar Lake in Lovell.  Sunny, warm, green leaves, a flat lake, hanging out with my family who I really like -- great time so far.

In the meantime, back at the other beautiful house in the big city, another offer is being threatened, although apparently not until Wednesday, which my advisors here (my niece, Becky, and her boyfriend, Jonathan, who recently bought a condo in Cambridge) say sounds fishy but I guess the competition is on vacation until then.  So what to do?  I just found out from Nikki that if we make an offer in response, we never know the content of theirs.  So all I can do is make my "best" offer possible and see what happens.  I suppose that is a bit freeing -- you let go of the consequences - very Zen.

Everyone -niece, boyfriend, Nikki -- is recommending I offer no more than $500K but I seriously doubt that that's going to do the trick.  But what if it could?  And is it worth the gamble?  For some reason, $525K is seeming more saleable, but am I being a fool?

Becky also suggested that I have to make other terms of the offer very appealing -- reasonable downpayment, quick closing, and my story -- that I love the house, want to live in it, bring my daughter up there, create new memories and maybe even a new artist.

I think Becky is right -- make the offer the absolute best, and then let it go.....

Old Age

Back from the visit -- unfortunately I continued to love it while the others from my village weren't so enthusiastic.  Lots that need to be fixed -- roof, deck, electrical, chimneys, shingles, a section of the foundation -- OK, I know it doesn't sound good.  But Craig, my contractor friend, said he saw potential -- after he told me it would cost $100K -- yes, I do understand the conflict of interest implications.   Mary Ellen, on the other hand, is acting cautious and Nikki isn't acting at all -- she just thinks it's a mistake, which she has pointed out in the nicest way possible.  

The question comes down to -- is it a house that deserves to still stand?  Because either you do all this work -- you invest in propping it up and patching it and bringing it, not back to life as it clearly has life, but up to standards.  At risk of over-anthromorphizing a 121 year old building, it feels unloving and ignorant of potential to imagine giving up on it, now that it's old and a little wheezy.  A little surgery and a little face paint won't make it young again but perhaps vital, just as vital as it ever was.  Isn't that a worthwhile value?

Smack in front of my beautiful old dream house is a brand new 5 story condo building with perfectly symmetrical brick siding, front balconies from each apartment looking over the water, and a full footprint roof deck.  I can see its appeal, from afar, both physically and mentally -- it looks impressive when you ride across the bridge from South Portland, its commanding view of the water is hard not to desire.  And the idea of it appeals:  everything -- materials, appliances, paint -- shiny new, every view available.  But it replaced something, I'm sure, something no longer good enough, no longer of value in our 21st century economy, no matter how historic or unusual or unique it was.  Should we - should I -- allow that to happen to another Portland property, especially one I've already been seduced by?  

Now I can hear my village reminding me of the funds I'll need to retire, which I will have to think about, but later.  

A Village Visit

Today I go to see the house again, with my friend, Mary Ellen, my real estate agent, Nikki, the seller's real estate agent, Francine, and an old friend and contractor, Craig -- who knew that it takes a village to buy a house?  Craig is there to protect my finances - to make sure the necessary repairs won't break my bank account -- and Mary Ellen is there to protect my future -- to make sure I haven't entirely lost my mind such that I'll be stuck with a house I hate and can't afford and am faced with a life I definitely didn't want.  Only your closest friends can tell you that, and truly only a subset of those -- I know Mary Ellen is up to the task.

I've done a little more research on the issue of a commercial loan.  Yes, it turns out, I can get one. Apparently you don't actually have to run a commercial enterprise, they'll lend money to pretty much any fool who wants to take on the challenge AND - and this is a big AND -- can prove that the commercial enterprise is commercially viable, i.e. it can actually make money.  Which, it turns out, in this case is not so easy to prove.  

When they do the loan analysis, they look less at your income - kind of nice that that isn't the biggest issue for once --  but more at the total revenue you can bring in from the property.  So the apartment that I'm dreaming of living in, to them is just another place that can generate rent, even if that's not my plan, along with the two one bedroom apartments and the big chunk of commercial space.  Once they have that revenue number -- in this case it comes to around $50-$60K per year -- they subtract out all of the expenses, and not surprisingly, those, from the bank's point of view, are a lot larger than what the seller's agent printed on her glossy brochure.  The bank needs to think beyond just taxes, insurance and heating costs to the expense of having a unit vacant and keeping the building maintained and all the other little expenses that I can't even imagine but they're paid to remember.  In the end, those expenses come out to more than $20K per year, making the building's net income in the $30-$40K per year range.  

Sounds pretty good to me, I thought -- should be enough to cover the principal and interest on any loan I need to take, especially if I can get the house for less than $695K.  But -- you knew it -- there's another problem -- well, actually, two more.  First, the terms of a commercial loan are far less attractive than those for a residential mortgage -- more than 6% interest rate, twenty years at the longest, has to be adjustable, etc.  My monthly payment, no matter how much the house costs, would be a chunk bigger than I first imagined.  I won't be living for free any time soon.  

Second, and quite a bit more important, the bank will only make a loan based on how they value the property, not the value that the lovely elderly artist sellers see in it.  It's a cold hard calculation for them, based on a capitalization rate (or cap rate), which the bankers I'm talking to are setting at 10% -- here's the formula:

I did go to business school but I'm not going to try any fancy explanations -- suffice it to say that the bank wants to make sure they're loaning money on a property that is at least making back 10% of its value every year.  

It doesn't take a math genius to figure out that, by this calculation, from a banker's unemotional, mathematical, dollars and sense perspective my dream house is worth at most $400K, more than 40% less than what the seller's are asking, which is already a price that's come down 30%.   One banker said perhaps he could go to $450K, thanks to its beautiful location, which could push the income up a bit.

Ouch, $450K.  Hard to imagine making that kind of offer to this lovely couple -- I know, I haven't actually met them but in my dream scenario they're eccentric and lovely;  it's likely that this is their planned retirement money.  I don't want to turn them into the old lady with the cats and canned food that I first imagined in the house.

However, I realize there's a silver lining in all of this news:  this is not a personal problem, just for me, owing to the skimpy size of my bank account or lousy credit rating or anything else less tangible.  Perhaps someone will arrive on the artists' doorstep with several hundred thousand dollars in cash and buy the house without a loan (although personally I suspect anyone in that cash-rich situation would be taking their money elsewhere, not to a house that is more project than living space);  but anyone else who wants to make an offer will eventually end up in front of a commercial banker who will be offering the same bad news.  

I understand -- it still makes my dream all the more complicated and daunting and seemingly impossible.  But I'm looking at it as good news -- why not? -- for the time being at least.  

Off to meet my village...

Money Always Complicates Things

To buy this house turns out to be a little more complicated than I might have imagined.  First of all, it's expensive -- right now they're asking $695,000, a price that has fallen in $50K chunks from just under $1M since January.  (The dramatic descent is nice but it's just barely dropped the price into a level I could consider.)  Moreover it's obvious there's a lot of work to be done on the structure -- just walking by you can see there are shingles missing from both the roof and the clapboard siding, and that's before an inspector starts digging around inside.  So I know I will need lots of $$ to make this happen.

However, the problem goes beyond the amount of money I need to buy and fix it;  I also have to find someone willing to give it to me.  Obviously this wouldn't be a problem if I had the cash myself - I could make an offer, negotiate a price, hand over the check, and walk off with the deed, and my dream.  But I don't.  I'm just a working single mom, with a decent down payment from selling a house in Cambridge, MA, a job that will cover a reasonable mortgage, and an appetite for both a great place to live AND a challenge.   But my assumption that all I need is a standard issue mortgage to fund this project -- what I would need if I was buying most any other house I've looked at in the past several months -- turns out to be a bit spurious.  Well, in fact, very wrong.  

It turns out you can't get a "reasonable" or "standard issue" or any other type of residential mortgage for this house.  If it was just apartments (up to four total), you could.  But because there is commercial space in the house -- that adorable little artist's studio/shop filled with old books and dust -- that takes up more than 25% of the total square footage (2200 out of 5700), I cannot -- nor can anyone else -- qualify for a residential mortgage, one of those 4.5% interest rate deals that bankers say we'll almost surely never see again.   Because this house houses this "big business," it will only qualify for a business, or commercial, loan.

I first get this report from my mortgage guy who I used to see more often than my plumber, and for much better reasons -- he helped me refinance my Cambridge house at least three times for better and better rates.  So I trusted his report, and then I heard it again from an insurance guy in Portland, and then finally from a commercial loan broker himself.  Apparently there are no creative angles around it.

So, she - a girl not to be daunted in her quest- thinks to herself, why can't I get a commercial loan?  Next question to be answered.

Appearances

When I first saw the picture of the house, I wasn't bowled over -- perhaps you can see why. It looked (read: looks) like a house someone else would own, in another country, with a different job.  Perhaps it would sit on a bluff in Cornwall, England, presided over by an eccentric aunt who owns two dozen cats and gets by on canned beans and the kindness of neighbors.  It made me curious but not covetous.

However, on the day I found it on the web, soon after its price had dropped another $50K bringing it in to the very tip top of my search (although not necessarily price) range, I wanted to go see another place I had just found -- another multi-family, in a great location, for a reasonable price, a place I knew would either be another nightmare or would sell in just a few days.  So why not see both?  I'd have a little comparison.  My real estate agent was away that Sunday so she arranged for a colleague with lots of experiences in old Portland multi-family buildings to show me around.

The first place was, in fact, not bad --

three flat renovated, although not fancy (no dishwashers!) apartments with gorgeous wood floors and a lovely little roof deck off the owner's unit.  But there was no other outdoor space -- about a foot of grass surrounded the building -- and I'd have to put two of the units together to make it functional for Kanha and me.  More important, although the location was great -- on a good block in the West End -- the building didn't excite me.  When I did the mental movie of life in the house, it felt humdrum, not alive, and at this age and stage in my life, in my sixth (how alarming!) decade, my home needs to make my heart beat, either faster or more warmly, but not the same.

So we were off to the big house on the corner down near the water, on a less good block but with oodles of green around it.  Actually more than green -- pinks and yellows and purples, all kinds of wild wildflowers in this little city.

From the moment we walked in I was, in fact, bowled over.  We saw the commercial space first.  It was dusty and unkempt but expansive and had charm, perhaps since it was the artist owners' own store for the approximately thirty years they have owned the house.  It looked a little like a well-organized basement, with stacks of books on a bench and old paintings leaning against a wall -- it was hard to tell what was for sale and what wasn't.  Perhaps nothing was now since there was no cash register to be seen, no prices on items.  But you -- I -- could see some kind of business there.

We then headed for the owner's apartment -- a large kitchen, dining room, living room, porch, and deck on the first floor (which was in fact the second floor of the house), and three bedrooms above with a bath and a half mixed in.  I can't remember many of the details because there were so many, but here are a few -- old wood cabinetry in the kitchen including a central island mixed with a black circa 2000 electric stove (which would have to be replaced for gas in my house) and hanging pots and utensils throughout, wide gray pine floors in the dining room, nooks and crannies for tables and bookcases in the living room along with a checkerboard painted floor, a green marble bathtub smack in the middle of the bathroom with a matching oversized tin sink against the wall, and (I'm skipping so much...) views throughout -- to the right toward South Portland and the Fore River and the gigantic oil storage tanks and to the left toward Portland Harbor and the marinas and the islands and in the middle to the Casco Bay Bridge to South Portland that looked more like its million dollar predecessor to me that day.

The coup de grace was when the seller's real estate agent took us up into the unfinished attic -- a future project I could see -- up the steep ladder of twenty or so steps so I could stick my head out the window.  On the roof, there was a little platform, about 50-75 square feet, not yet finished (another project!, need a railing, for sure, before Kanha comes close), from which you would have the most stunning view of the entire swath of the waters of Portland, Maine -- Oh my goodness me is all I can really say.

And I thought, how can I find a way to buy this place???

The Pipe Dream

Last Sunday I looked at a house that now appears to have taken over my life, or at least my brain.  I've been house hunting in Portland, Maine for several months on the web, and now for a few weeks in person.  The good news, and the bad, is I know exactly what I want.  I know where I want to live -- the West End, the little downtown section of mostly 19th century homes "on the peninsula" (a term I never heard until I started house hunting), where the ship's captains homes of yore are now either owned by the same out-of-towners who keep their yachts in Portland Harbor or Prout's Neck, or else they have been chopped into 1000 square foot condos with granite kitchen countertops and restored moldings that we upper middle class professionals are supposed to die for.

But, I can't afford the houses still in one piece and I don't want them once divided -- I don't want to live in a condo, without a piece of patio to myself where I can sit and sip my glass of Pinot Grigio, with neighbors downstairs who complain about the bumpety-bump of my daughter, Kanha's living room cartwheels and neighbors upstairs who can't afford to pay their share of fixing the roof.

So I've been on the search for the unusual, the nearly impossible, for months now.  I've made myself ready to pounce when the rare single family house of about 1700 square feet shows up in my email inbox courtesy of NewEnglandMoves.com;  I've expanded my horizons to consider a multi-family, to become a landlord in order to live in a place I could love.  I've found few single families to look at, and too many multi-families in my price range all in various states of disrepair.

Until I found the house, this house -- gigantic, multi-family, multi-office, surrounded by gardens, home to an elderly artist couple and perhaps Harry Potter's ghosts, ordained with the kinds of water views you know you will never possess.  Could I?