I read this week that New Hampshire set a record in July for the median sales price of a single-family home. It was $580,000, as in bucks, smackers, clams, greenbacks, dough.
As they used to say, Ain’t it rich?
I suppose my fellow baby boomers who managed to snag a house before the market, umm, boomed, are happy. Kinda sorta. How pleased can we be if our kids don’t have the same good fortune?
The New Hampshire Realtors Association cites “a persistent shortage of homes, especially starter homes.” When we moved to Lebanon in the early 1980s, we found a fixer-upper for $39,000. We are still in that house — and while I joke about four decades of deferred maintenance — my wife and general contractor Dede pushed me and the bungalow forward.
It has paid off for us. A rising tide lifts all boats, even the dinghies.
But others have done much better. Out of curiosity and nosiness, I went online this week to search for area million-dollar homes awaiting discerning buyers.
Barnard leads the way with a $29 million (price reduced!) offering named Monsalvat Farm. Google “Homes Barnard VT” and it’s easy to find, with heaps of photos to make you ponder fine architecture, wealth inequality and you. While most listings merit a “cozy’’ or “nice fireplace,’’ this one touts a “private gated entrance.” It’s an “architectural masterpiece” with “mountain views” and a “private FAA approved heliport.”
A real estate website said little old Barnard had 12 million-dollar-plus home listings, out of 27 for sale in town. I don’t know if they provide lunch at Town Meeting, but if they do it should probably be catered.
Hanover had 20 listed at more than a million, with $4.5 million at the top of the heap. That one has 11 bedrooms, so bring along some friends!
Woodstock had 19 million-dollar-plus listings, with a $14.9 million top asking price. Norwich had only six, but there’s not much turnover.
So maybe I’m a little bit jealous, but everyone can dream — with envy. I look at the real estate ads in the weekend paper and appreciate the cheery language of Realtors. Every property has room for your vision, charm to spare. A dump is not a dump, it is where opportunity is unlimited.
If only people were judged as kindly. Who wouldn’t want to be described as stunning, filled with potential, not chubby, but generously proportioned? I myself have many original fixtures such as knees and hips and a pretty good head of hair for a guy on Medicare. Some touch-ups are needed, naturally.
Alas, our West Lebanon estate lacks a gated entrance. I settled for a one-car garage. At least it contains vintage license plates, used motor oil and a Shirley Temple album cover. And where would I fly my helicopter, really? The Circle K? The landfill? It would be handy to zip to Route 12A when the Dry Bridge is shut down.
Still, the voices in our heads (not those kinds of voices, the sensible ones that are in touch with reality) are whispering that time or circumstances could force — gulp — a different future.
We have started de-cluttering, but the clutter is conducting a rear-guard action, particularly in its basement stronghold.
Someday we will toss out our son’s grade-school poster of a ring-tailed lemur. He has no attachment to it, but it’s precious in our museum of memory.
Someday we will dispose of dozens of “books” our daughter cranked out in first grade, when Mount Lebanon School was promoting free-range writing. She seemingly turned them out by the hour, using invented spelling to create wondrous words like “1drful.”
Yes, they must go, but not today.
When homes go up for sale on our dead-end street, we wish for young families with kids who could learn how to ride a bike here, the perfect place. But most of the house lookers have gray/white hair and shiny new SUVs, not old Corollas or work trucks.
The market is all kinds of sideways.
Eventually our house will go on the market, minus the lemur, school books, vintage license plates and Shirley Temple.
It will seem kind of empty, I guess, but it was very full for a very long time. I wish a new young family could have the same experience, but the market is not their friend.
So this is how we live now: growing older with puffed-up net worth, unsettled about the fairness of it all. Experts and politicians have lots to say about affordability, but I don’t see any changes. Meanwhile, prices rise.
The writer lives in West Lebanon. He can be reached at dan.mackie@yahoo.com.
