New House Build

A friend of mine asked me to check out some land he’s interested in. It has a decent gravel driveway and a cleared level area where a trailer is currently parked. My friend does not want the trailer so that would be the first thing to go. 

His real estate guy told him it would cost a minimum of $20,000 to connect to the grid. I’m assuming that the electric company doesn’t want new rural customers. Either that or they think that people are stuck and will pay whatever they ask. 

For $20,000 my friend could install a pretty decent off-grid electrical system. The site gets good sun and has excellent wind potential. Actually, he could probably get up and running for a lot less than that. 

Since it would be all new construction minimizing electrical usage could be built in. For example it could be heated using methods that don’t consume electricity. He’s thinking of putting in a woodstove anyway. There are propane heaters that don’t use electricity and could provide decent backup power. 

Oh yeah, the property comes with a pretty decent shooting range so that’s a plus. 

-Sixbears

When Insurance Unravels

Everybody complains about insurance. The medical insurance industry is awful. Car insurance is a pain. Right now I’m going to concentrate on property insurance. 

If we are going to talk about property insurance problems we might as well start at ground zero: Florida. 

Private insurance has pretty much completely fled Florida. What’s left is Citizens. If it wasn’t for a state run company a huge number of properties in Florida would be uninsurable. That doesn’t bode well for the future. Private companies have bailed out of Florida because they see nothing but losses. Citizens is badly underfunded considering its exposure. Unlike private companies they can always hit up the taxpayers to get an injection of funds. 

The way Florida has been built up is insane. You don’t build multimillion dollar buildings on barrier islands and expect everything to be fine. It used to be there’d be nothing more substantial than shacks on those islands. After a storm would wipe them out they’d be rebuilt with debris washed from somewhere else. There wasn’t a lot of investment as people knew they’d get swept away eventually. 

Insurance makes building expensive properties in bad places possible. The big question is: how long can the game be played? The last hurricane season did a number on Florida. A few bad storms this season could be the tipping point. 

Then again, Florida has a long history of being able to kick problems down the road. A few more band aids on the problem could hold it together a bit longer. 

For non-Floridians, why should we care? Florida is a basket case but it’s not alone. What happens in one part of the nation affects all the other parts. Heck, just think how billions in property loss will affect the national stock markets? You can’t take that much money out of the system without causing problems. 

Insurance is one of the legs our economy stands on. It’s a boring part most of the time because it generally happens in the background and mostly just works. When it doesn’t work there are serious problems. 

-Sixbears

Property in Florida

My parents retired to Florida some years ago. I was offered a “free” trailer in a retirement park when my dad passed. I politely refused. The monthly park fees and maintenance would have been a real strain on the budget. Don’t even get me started on the price of Florida insurance. 

Another Florida option we seriously considered was to keep a boat in Florida year round. We’d live on it during the cooler months and put it on the hard during the summer. That would have been less expensive than the whole trailer set up -if we picked our boatyard carefully. However, we’d still be worried about it during hurricanes. 

Right now we rather like just being visitors to the state. There’s some excellent camping, especially in state and Federal parks. We also enjoy bringing our sailboat to Florida. It would be nice to have a slightly bigger one, but it would still have to be trailerable. It’s pretty hard to avoid a 500 mile wide storm sailing in a boat that goes 6 knots. On a trailer a boat could 60 knots down the highway. When it’s time to get out of Dodge speed is a virtue. 

My lovely wife and I have spent a lot of time in Florida, but we don’t want to own anything there. It’s difficult when home base is way up in New Hampshire. One more thing. If you think Florida property insurance is high now, just wait until the bills come in from Hurricane Ian.

Hope my Florida readers have evacuated to safety or are well hunkered down. 

-Sixbears

Property Values

House prices shot up in my area (northern NH) during the pandemic. They were pretty low before. We lost a lot of jobs over the years but if you have remote work it doesn’t matter where you live. 

I see in some areas that experienced the pandemic boom prices are coming down. A lot of that is city people finding out they aren’t country people. 

Of course, it looks like the housing bubble in general is starting to burst. I’m old enough to have seen this cycle numerous times. 

House prices only matter if you are buying or selling. If you have a home already and plan to stay it’s all good. If you don’t use your home value like an ATM and withdraw value you are ahead of the game. If you do have to sell it’s nice not be upside down on it. 

To me the value of my home is only partly monetary. It’s true value is that it’s where I want to live. How do put a dollar value on that joy? What you can put value on is things me having my own water supply and easy access to hunting and fishing. Firewood for heating is all around me. Just having a place to be able to work on my cars and fix other things is valuable. 

Right now the current property value means nothing compared to everything else. 

-Sixbears

Property in Florida

I spend a fair amount of time in Florida. A number of people have asked me if I want to own property there. Plenty of people up here in New Hampshire have winter homes in Florida. My dad ended up selling his place in NH and only owning a trailer in Florida.

Obviously I enjoy being in Florida. However, it's not a place I'd care to own property. Owning a place would restrict me to one area of Florida. While I spend a lot of time in the state, I spend it all over the state. This past winter my lovely wife and I camped from the Keys to the Panhandle and everywhere in between. We love the St. Augustine area in the Northeast, but also like areas in the Southwest part of the state.

There are plenty of places where it's great to vacation, but you wouldn't want to live there. For example, the natural attractions might be nice, but the local politics could be a mess. I've talked to people who've sold land they've owned because they couldn't afford the bribes needed for a building permit. Even without blatant corruption, it can be difficult for an outsider to find one's way around.

Of course, I love boating in Florida waters. You don't need property for that. Sure, there are times when I think that a small place with a good boat dock would be ideal. Then I think of the price of waterfront property, taxes, flood insurance, and hurricanes, and wake up from the dream. Sometimes I think most of the state is a sandbar that might just get washed away one day.

So for now, while my health is still reasonably good and I'm strong, the snowbird thing works.

-Sixbears

Don't Buy Anything Down Here

That's the advice a few of the locals gave me. Don't buy a boat, a car, a house or even rent something. The odds that the hurricane messed something up are too great. They only told me this after I'd hung out with those guys for a few days.

I can see where they are coming from. At first glance, the campground I'm in looks in pretty good shape. The security guard told me parts of the place were under four feet of water. There are a series of permanent trailers on the property. Most of them look undamaged from the outside. However, just about all of them have had at least some water damage.

A few have been quickly fixed and are occupied again. Others are waiting for things like new floors. A number of the residents are staying in the campground part while their trailers are being repaired. Some people just gave up. One 96 year old woman decided to abandon her place. She had someone open the place up and give everything away.

My lovely wife picked up some odds and ends herself. One was a neat little folding dolly that's perfect for hauling groceries or laundry. When she got it it was a struggle to unfold it and the wheels could barely turn. A liberal application of oil got everything running smoothly again.

The thought had crossed my mind that there might be some good sailboat deals down here. Considering how many boats were plucked out of the mangroves or raised from the bottom, I'm going to pass. I was talking to the owner of a dive boat. He'd just spent $6000 on new bottom and top paint for the boat. It was well secured, but other boats broke lose and smashed into his. He felt lucky that the boat was still afloat, but the new paint job was trashed. Apparently a lot of people did almost nothing to secure their boats.

The more I think about it, the better I like the idea of buying a boat up north and hauling it south next year. Not only were the boats not in a hurricane, they are only used a few months of the year. As long as they are winterized properly they should be in decent shape.

Those local guys really opened my eyes. It was nice of them to warn me off.

-Sixbears

Hurricane Matthew and why we can't have nice things

I've spent enough time in Florida that I could vote there. That would be illegal as I'm still a New Hampshire resident. Apparently that's not such a big deal in Florida. People do it all the time.

My lovely wife and I have spent time all over the state. This storm is not just something happening 1500 miles away. We have favorite places and people we know down there.

Someone tried very hard to sell us a condo that is now very close to the predicted landfall area. We did not buy one, but their final offer was tempting -to my wife. I held firm and it didn't hurt to be tight on funds at the time.

We were seriously considering storing our sailboat at one of the boatyards in the path of disaster. Imagine if we'd have hauled the boat out, repainted the bottom, replaced and installed hardware. Then we'd have paid storage for 7 or 8 months. Matthew could have destroyed our boat. Good thing we lost it in a shipwreck back in February. That's right folks, get your disaster over early and avoid the rush.

A free house trailer was offered to us in an area that's at least in the tropical storm band. If the winds don't get it, flooding might.

Once the storm moves on, the damage remains. The bigger the area that's affected, the longer it will take to get things fixed. Take electric power for example. If damage is limited, workers come from outside the affected area and restring the lines. For example, Georgia power workers could come down to help Florida crews. However, if Georgia is also affected they will have nobody to spare.

The storm surge could flood salt water into fresh water supplies. Imagine if a major city lost its water supply. Sewage systems will be overwhelmed: knocked out then raw sewage will pollute the flood waters. Someone will have to clear downed trees, fix roads, check bridges for damage -the list goes on.

On top of that, now imagine if the storm loops around and hits everything all over again. Frankly, if I was in charge of restoring infrastructure, I would not budge until I knew for sure that danger had passed. Why fix something only to lose it a few days later?

There is a lot of potential for civil disturbance. Most people pull together in a disaster, at least in the short term. The longer the disaster lasts, the less good will there is to go around. When supplies get short with no end in sight, it could get ugly.

Here's a thought. I wonder what will happen to all those Zika mosquitoes? At the very least, eradication efforts are on hold.

Pray hard folks.

-Sixbears

Stopped them this year

While walking my dog, the power line tree trimmer guys came by scouting out my land. I caught up to them and identified myself as the land owner. I made it clear to them that they do not have permission to cut down my trees.

5 years ago they came around when I wasn’t home and they butchered the landscape. It wasn’t a surgical removal. Everything got mowed down. All I had left was 2 foot stumps sticking out of the ground. Pickers had even taken any of the good wood that was left behind.

Months ago the power company sent some innocuous looking paperwork in the mail. A careful read of the document revealed that not answering the form would be taken as permission to cut the trees down. Does that seem kinda shady to anyone else? I filled out the paperwork and mailed it in. Sure enough, after the guy checked his records, my lack of permission was down in black and white. My mind has serious doubts that he’d have checked the records if I’d not been around.

In 3 or 4 years those trees will be a bit bigger. Then I’m going to selectively cut a few and turn them into firewood. That’s much better than the trees getting chipped and hauled away. Better for me anyway.

If you aren’t around to take care of your property, no one else is going to take care of it for you. (that’s right Paracynic, I want to darn kids to say off my lawn.)

-Sixbears

The propane company, final chapter

Today the propane guy showed up at my door to let me know he was taking away the empty 250 pound propane cylinder. That should be the end of our dealings with that company.

They used to be a pretty decent company, as far as these things go. However, they grew too big too fast and then went bankrupt. Since then they’ve racked up an impressive record of environmental violations and non-payment of taxes.

My propane usage has steadily dropped over the years. The last fill up of the tank lasted over 3 years. My lovely wife and I were going to eliminate the last two items that used propane. We have a dryer and a 2 burner propane stove. We did not count on our daughter moving back in with us with our granddaughter. No way did my daughter want to do without that dryer.

When the big tank finally ran dry, I wasn’t going to fill it up again. Instead, I connected a 20 pound propane cylinder (like on a barbecue grill) onto the regulator and called it good. That handled our very limited propane usage.

Three weeks ago a worker from the propane company noticed my little tank and took some offense to it. Unfortunately, I was down to the lake and my lovely wife talked to him. He wanted that tank removed immediately. The guy told my wife that I’d better call him that afternoon. Nobody tells me what to do on my property.

I felt no need to talk to him. In my mind there was no problem. Things went merrily along until this morning when the guy showed up to remove the tank and regulator.

As soon as they were gone, I rummaged through my stuff. It just so happened that I just happened to have a regulator of my own, along with all the fittings and hose to connect my little 20 pound tank. All the connections were tested using soapy water. Nothing bubbled up so the job was safe and successful. Everything is running just as before.

Once my daughter is on her own again, I’ll be done completely with propane. In the mean time she’s happy to have it at her disposal.

-Sixbears

Scouting Mission

My lovely wife, Brownie the Sailor Dog, and I did a little scouting mission. I borrowed my dad’s car and we hit the coast.

Earlier in the day my lovely wife and I did some research on the Internet, but nothing beats boots on the ground. With a list of addresses we hit the road.

We were looking at places to take a sailboat. The first order of business: boat ramps. Florida has a lot of them, but the quality, prices, and rules vary. Often there is a difference between what you see on the Internet and how things really look on the ground. The one we checked out . . . checked out.

Looking to the future, we’d like a bigger boat, but don’t want it to financially break us. We really like the idea of leaving a boat down to Florida. Trailering a bigger boat would be a pain, or even impossible. One option is to leave a boat drydocked for the summers. We checked out a number of marinas to see their operations.

Since we were in the area, we drove down plenty of side roads, checking out the houses on the water. There are plenty for sale, not that I’m buying. I’m not interested in buying property in a community where I don’t vote. At least I can go to town meeting back home in NH and have a voice. More property goes against our desire to live a more mobile existence. However, for the right price, renting might have potential.

The next thing on our list was to have dinner and drinks at a funky restaurant on the water. There’s aways a funky little restaurant on the water. This one delivered. Funky atmosphere, good food at reasonable prices, and decent beer on tap.

Hey, scouting is thirsty work.

-Sixbears

Letting the neighbors know

When you live in a sparsely populated rural area who you call neighbor changes a bit. Around here, it’s people within about a 2 mile radius.

I’ve been letting my neighbors know that my lovely wife and I will be away this winter and that people will be house sitting. It’s not necessary to tell all the neighbors. As long as a few of the more outgoing ones know, everyone will know. Such is life in a small town.

People want to know what’s going on. I don’t want my guests to be mistaken for thieves or squatters.

Then there is the inevitable question and answer game of who they are. Everyone has a relationship to someone else. Once they figure out which family they come from, who’s kin to who, it’s all good. The guy has ties to this area so it’s fine. He has an aunt and distant cousin with cabins around the lake.

It seems that a lot of property has gone missing in nearby areas. One of my friends had a generator disappear. This was a heavy 5000 watt unit secured with a 1/2 cable. The cable had been cleanly cut. A place near him was totally cleaned out and destroyed with an ax. That’s just adding insult to injury.

Having people watch the place is nice. I don’t worry too much about property. Let the insurance company do the worrying, I say. However, there are some things that money can’t replace: one of a kind items, art, photos, and other odds and end that only have value because of the memories that are attached.

-Sixbears

Land Ownership

There's a piece of land out behind my house that's "owned" by some holding company. One day for grins and giggles, I tried to find out who the real owners are. I gave up a few shell companies in when everything turned to oriental characters instead of English. Apparently, the real owners are somewhere in Asia.

They might own the land, but it's only sorta kinda theirs. My guess is that they plan on sitting on it until wood prices get high enough. Of course, the price of harvesting that wood might be higher than they planned on. Neither me or any of my neighbors are willing to give road access to the woodlot. They'd have come in from the backside, a long ways from the quality wood, and haul everything uphill. It can be done, but it raises the cost.

They own the land, but can't seem to do much with it. On the other hand, every winter I put in snowshoe trails. A couple years ago, I ran into a cross country ski trail that someone put in from the other side. I've hunted on the land. One year I heated my house for several months with the dead and down trees and branches within walking distance.

Someone else owns it, but I use it. No one's going to bother the cross country skier or myself. The Asians don't know what's going on and their's very little they could do about it from far away. Right now, there is some enforcement from local authorities. If I'd bulldoze a road and cut down all their trees, someone would notice. However, the use I make of the land treats it lightly and leaves little evidence. I get to enjoy it, and pay no taxes on it.

I believe you only "own" your land as much as you can control it. Two days ago, I heard someone crashing around on my property and checked out what was going on. It was a guy looking for the neighbor's well, as he was hired to do some work on it. Made sense as the well's close to my property line. I directed him to the well and everything's fine.

Once I ran into a bunch of people at my beach. Since in one of the more isolated beaches on the lake my first thought was that someone decided it was a good picnic spot. They were very apologetic when I showed up. They had outboard motor trouble and the wind blew them onto my beach. The story checked out. I didn't have a problem with that, but word gets around when a person watches their property.

You only own what you can control. Since I've got a fairly small piece of land, it's easy for me to control it. Ted Turner has absolutely huge landholdings, but I'm betting he doesn't control it as much as he thinks he does. Plenty of those acres must be paper ownership only. I'll be he has plenty of naughty little neighbors like me.

-Sixbears

Walking the dog and neighbors

Our town technically has a leash law, not that we pay attention to it all the time. Still, I do walk the pooch a lot. It's good training for the dog, good exercise for me, and it's a chance to see what's going on around the lake.

We meet other people out walking. It's good to catch up with the neighbors. Like it our not, they are the other people in my lifeboat. When disaster strikes, those are the people around me. It's best to know them.

There are new people moving to the lake. Summer cottages and year round homes used to change hands a glacial pace. When they did change, usually the property went to a descendant or other relative. Those days are over. Property is being listed and sold on the open market. Anyone with the bucks can move it. That's fine. I'm all for the freedom for people to live where they want to. It just takes a bit more effort to get to know them.

A couple years ago, some real jerks moved in across the lake. They put in a water skiing boat that was way too big for the lake and ran it all hours of the day and night. Traditionally, the early morning hours were left to the fishermen. The play boats would come out a bit later. The new people didn't care about the fishermen. They paid for their boat and cottage and were going to use the boat when they wanted. Sure, it was legal to do so, but darn rude. Some people don't care about others. That was but one example in a long list of "don't give a darn about anybody else." Their place burned to the ground. I was actually surprised to learn it was because one of their kids was smoking in the attached shed. Had their immediate neighbors did it, it would not have surprised me. They shed no tears.

The dog also seems to be a pretty good judge of character. She really doesn't much care for the guy who lives down the road. He's not the nicest guy in the world, and it's no secret. He used to be a boss in the mill, and still thinks he's a boss. However, even he makes some effort to get along with the neighbors. He most likely doesn't care that much for me either, (long haired hippy freak) but we both are cordial to each other. Things are smoother that way.

The place right next door to me has a sale pending sign. I'm going to introduce myself to them on one of my dog walks. Can't wait to see what the dog thinks of them.

-Sixbears