UNDER THE MAINE SUN

STATE OF OUR ASSETS AFTER THE DOWNGRADE

Watching British films, I've often heard a phrase, "Safe as houses." I heard it in Howard's End among others. The housing market may be rocky right now but a house isn't likely to curl up and disappear. 

I've been watching the commentaries about the stock market's aftermath since the big S&P downgrade of American debt. The people who panicked and sold off at a loss are the big losers. Unless they're quite young, there's no way to recoup. I agree with the experts who say to hold and wait it out.

Meanwhile, most of my money is in houses -- and they're still there. Their prices might be lower than I would like, but I won't be wiped out. Even though there's some leveraging through mortgages, I didn't over-extend beyond what payments I can keep up with. I hope you don't either.

I'm not a financial expert by any means -- haven't made any fortunes. But even though I don't have a lot of money, my assets are still there through all this.

I just heard Jack Cafferty on CNN giving his opinion -- ranting about the politicians who are on vacation now through this stock market drop. I don't have much sympathy for those of them who caused this state of affairs due to their politicizing the country's financial crisis. But I do take exception to his criticism of President Obama who bore the terrible burden through these last weeks. He was under enormous pressure and still is. Mr. Cafferty, who I used to like, criticized him roundly for celebrating his 50th birthday at this time. I think our President deserves a break! He was, after all, live on TV today trying to reassure investors and the American people that our country's financial status is a lot better than the S&P downgrade would indicate.  My opinion is that our President deserves some R&R -- he doesn't get much!

No houses selling just yet, but sooner or later they will. I'm impatient but not panicking!

Jean, Still in Maine

SHORT SALE, AUCTION and OTHER REAL ESTATE EVENTS

My recent experience with short sales has been quite a trip. I made an offer on a sweet little house in North Carolina for the full asking price of the short sale. The owners accepted, but it had to be approved by their bank. Short sale means the bank is supposedly willing to accept less than the seller owes them. 

All seemed well and we were waiting for confirmation of our closing date. Waiting. Waiting. The bank kept asking the seller for more documentation on their end. Waiting. Then my realtor got a phone call from their realtor. The bank had "accidentally" let it slip into foreclosure. Real bummer for the sellers who now have a foreclosure on their credit record. Bummer for me, but not hopeless -- I could just keep looking.

I decided to wait until winter to look for the next little place to fix up and "flip." Meanwhile, my realtor, Bill Millwood, suggested that we follow up and try to buy the property at auction. He knew I was still interested -- after all I had already drawn up a budget and made the plan for the fix-up.  I went out and bought 3 books on buying at auction and am now wading through them. They pretty much say the same thing -- I could have saved a couple of bucks by only buying one.

SHORT SALE, AUCTION and OTHER REAL ESTATE EVENTS

My recent experience with short sales has been quite a trip. I made an offer on a sweet little house in North Carolina for the full asking price of the short sale. The owners accepted, but it had to be approved by their bank. Short sale means the bank is supposedly willing to accept less than the seller owes them. 

All seemed well and we were waiting for confirmation of our closing date. Waiting. Waiting. The bank kept asking the seller for more documentation on their end. Waiting. Then my realtor got a phone call from their realtor. The bank had "accidentally" let it slip into foreclosure. Real bummer for the sellers who now have a foreclosure on their credit record. Bummer for me, but not hopeless -- I could just keep looking.

I decided to wait until winter to look for the next little place to fix up and "flip." Meanwhile, my realtor, Bill Millwood, suggested that we follow up and try to buy the property at auction. He knew I was still interested -- after all I had already drawn up a budget and made the plan for the fix-up.  I went out and bought 3 books on buying at auction and am now wading through them. They pretty much say the same thing -- I could have saved a couple of bucks by only buying one.

PROBLEMS AND FRUSTRATIONS

I knew the well was "slow." I had hoped it was due to corroded pipes as that's a common problem with old houses. But my plumber, Ira, has broken the news that I will eventually need a new well. I can use the present one as long as I nurse it along carefully -- no watering the lawn, etc. It also probably means bathing in a teaspoon and being careful about washing clothes. OK, so now I know. The next thing to find out is, since this well does have some water, can the new well be drilled as a continuation of it? On my next trip down, I'll have to see if Ira knows a good well drilling company, and get their opinion. Unfortunately, a new well is one of the things that will have to wait until the Maine house sells.  Life has to wait until the Maine house sells.

Some people looked at the Maine house and I tried not to get my hopes up. They took almost a week to decide, but the husband loved it, thought it was perfectly done. His wife thought it was "too done," and not enough left to do to make it "hers." Of course, she won. So it's wait some more.

Meanwhile, I had been thinking that once I sell this place I'd be in a quandary as to how to make the move. It's clear, especially with the well situation, that I can't live in the house and keep the five cats safe during the building phase. Why not go ahead and see what's available for the next project. Something livable that I could be in with the cats while the first house is being done, then move into that house while I finish and sell the second house. Good plan.

I checked the internet and found a really cute little place with large rooms (not many but large) and a sunny kitchen. It was only a mile from the first house. I sent Bill to check it out. His report was disappointing. Although one traveled through a pleasant neighborhood to get there, once there one would be surrounded by trailers and not nice ones at that. They could all be seen from the windows of the house despite fencing all around the yard, and bushes. I sadly returned to the internet and found three more possibilities.

When Bill looked into it, he found that one was already under contract, but he would check on the other two shortly. Meanwhile, I decided to wait a bit longer so told him not to make the trip. Then the potential buyers appeared on the horizon. It was encouraging even if they didn't buy -- it was a sign that there were people out there who would realize the value of the property and possibly buy. I went back to the internet. Only one of the little houses was still on, but it was the best one. Not only that, the price had dropped by $10,000 in less than two weeks. I immediately contact Bill to go as quickly as possible to see it.

MY LEGACY -- AND LESSONS LEARNED

I recently saw a quote from Karen Kaiser Clark:  Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.

Although I'm sure I have grown, I haven't always chosen wisely.  Who has? But at least I believe I've learned from the unwise decisions.

When assigned to give thought to my legacy and what it might be, I asked my daughters what they thought. One declined to respond. Perhaps she thinks I'll leave nothing of value to be remembered. My other daughter gave me a wealth of characteristics and values that she feels she has gained.

OLDER WOMEN REINVENTING THEMSELVES -- THEIR LEGACIES

Aging is a difficult challenge for everyone. Some people do it gracefully (I'm not one of those), and some do it kicking and screaming with face lifts and tummy tucks (I'm not one of those either). I struggle to find my own path and it's sometimes a rocky one. Far be it from me to find the easy road. That's boring.

In my women's Wisdom Circle we have recently had the assignment to determine what our legacy is to our children and future generations. What will we be remembered for? I look back at my own ancestry and what has come down about the women in it. I know quite a lot about my great grandmothers, but little about the women who came before them. For instance, of Dorcas Woodbridge Bragdon, whose ancestry can be traced all the way back to the Plantagenet line and Eleanor of Aquitaine, I know only that she was born in Maine, went to Pittsburgh with her family as a child and settled on the farm next to my great great grandfather, married him when she came of age, and produced five surviving children. What she was like as a person, I have no idea. Nothing has passed down.

GETTING TO NORTH CAROLINA IN MAY - DETOURED PLANS

This was to be another driving trip. I was set to enjoy it as there would be no threat of snow storms this time and I would be overnighting at my sister's in New Jersey. When requesting my days off from work, I included an extra one before the trip began so I could leisurely pack the car and get an early start on the day of leaving.

The weather was good on this day so I let some of my cats outside since they would be cooped up in the house for more than a week. I was not even dressed yet and just about to get myself organized for the day when I heard cats screaming in the woods that separates my house from the next property. Most of that woods is on my land.  Knowing that Lola (my darling) must be involved, I raced out of the house in robe and slippers and frantically called her name. The screaming continued. There were still cries when I saw Mikie, my young alpha male, slinking along in the underbrush, heading toward home and away from the battleground. Mikie makes love, not war. That meant Lola had no one to defend her out there. I figured it was probably the feral cat attacking her, but there were other, even worse, things it could be -- like a fisher. I had never seen one around but I had heard about them. They are lethal to cats -- their favorite meal. Eagles have also been known to snatch a cat, although since the screaming was coming from the woods, I didn't think an eagle could be involved -- no room to swoop.

WAITING FOR GODOT AND THE REAL ESTATE MARKET

Do you remember that play?  I think it was by Pinter quite a few decades ago. The focus of the play is these guys standing around waiting for Godot to show up. I don't remember why they were waiting for him, but it was certainly something pivotal. They couldn't move forward until he arrived. The kicker is that Godot never shows up. So they've spent all this time waiting and doing nothing. That's symbolic of something.

Well, I feel like I'm waiting for Godot, waiting for a buyer to show up, money in hand, to buy my house in Maine so I can get on with my life in North Carolina. The problem is that my seventy-second birthday is looming ever closer and my plans for my new life involve spending quite a bit of energy. I hope that by the time Godot shows up, I will have the energy to carry them out. Fortunately, my health and energy are unusually good for a person my age so there's hope.

OLDER WOMEN AND RISK-TAKING

As we age, I think many women are more prepared and open to taking major risks in their lives. Our life experiences help us to gauge the level of risk and the worth to us of the undertaking. 

Of course, I do not refer to foolish impulse or ill-thought-out risk of the daredevil variety, or risk that would impact or endanger others. In my research, Gloria Steinem in her book "Revolution from Within," tells of one woman who had always feared flying. She came to a point in her life where she knew it was time to break out of old patterns and she decided that she would conquer her fear and learn to fly. She accomplished that and then applied the principles to her life in general. She found herself able to "solo" intellectually and ended up working on a project for MS Magazine that has helped reduce the reliance by colleges on ambiguous SAT scores when evaluating students for admission. It followed that the validity of other standardized test scores have come into question as well.  AN ASIDE: (I hope our President looks into this before his new education improvement project places an unreasonable and unjustified burden on our teachers and that he discovers the fact that there are many outside influences over which a teacher has no control that influence the outcome of these tests. He's usually very sharp and does his homework on issues and hope he takes the same care with this initiative.)

Some women have turned to an Outward Bound-type experience to overcome old fears and learn to let go of the unimportant. Suzanne Braun Levine, the first editor of MS Magazine and author of "Inventing the Rest of Our Lives," took that route and learned that holding everything together, being in control, isn't everything. Taking charge is about coping with the unexpected. She advises asking yourself, "What's the worst that can happen?" Usually what we imagine isn't what happens at all. 

FINANCING THE HOUSE DEAL -- MORE FLIES IN THE OINTMENT

On my return from North Carolina last week I learned about the first fly -- just a small one. The title search showed up the fact that there was no clear title to the property at present. Which member of the family actually owns it? The mother died without a will, specifying that the house was to go to her son. Apparently the family just assumed. 

This is one of the problems that can be encountered when buying property. I have been assured that it is not at all unusual and almost always gets resolved. The title attorney will meet with the family and sort it out.

My own fly is a bit more of a headache, but equally resolvable, one way or another. My financing plan is a little complex, relying on the credit lines of two sources. The local one has a zero balance, the other a relatively small one. Plenty of credit to pay for the NC property. Should have left well enough alone.