ANOTHER FINE MESS...

June-uary has settled in on us here in the great North-wet.  And not just in Washington, but extending six hours east to our sometimes vacation home in North Idaho, where we just spent the past three days watching it rain.

I had not been there in two years, although Hub goes in the winter to feed his snowboarding addiction. We bought the property eight years ago and for the first few years I loved going; we made the trip about once a month for several days at a time, longer in summer.  When I was working full time at a sometimes stressful job, had errant teens and college boys giving me fits, and a mother sinking further into dementia, it was a very welcome respite from the every day struggles that were my life at that time. I loved the solitude of that little house on the short, quiet street.  No internet, no TV, no obligations.  It is 1/2 mile from the base of Silver Mountain in a small town that is struggling with economic setbacks, due to silver mine closures (and lately the systemic consequences of a generally crashed economy).  Still, we believed it had such glowing potential as a tourist and recreational mecca, that we told ourselves that certainly one day soon it would be a boom town and our real estate investment would net us a nice little payday.

Well, not yet.  Over the years, kids grown, mom gone, career over, I found I was less and less drawn to make the trip.   My life at home was moving into a slower, happier pace and I had enough I loved at home to want to hang around.  Going to Idaho felt like an obligation and the house took on the form of, well, an albatross.  Our initial thought when we bought it (before the crash) was to hold on to it for a couple of years, maybe three, and then sell to the highest bidder -- one of several investors driving around town scooping up properties.  Except the investors left, the resort development stalled, housing prices plummeted and we were stuck.  Ugh!

We've tried listing it as a vacation rental with VRBO which ended up meaning we had to pay personal property taxes and comply with a bunch of silly city ordinances about off street parking.  So we went to short-term rentals which worked for awhile, until our management company changed hands and a crazy embezzler took over and started to double and triple charge for so-called "maintenance" issues.  We had to watch every statement and contest charges and fight for every dollar owed us.  We fired them.  We found a new management company who has only been able to find one relatively long-term renter, and since December it has sat empty again.

So this trip we went over to meet with a new property manager.  She refuses to do fully-furnished vacation rentals ("too much work") and will only do a long-term rental of an EMPTY house.  So, we'd have to clear out all of our belongings unless, as she put it, "you are willing to have everything you have here lost, stolen, or destroyed."  She did not speak highly of the average renter.   "A house this size will rent to a family with kids.  They will jump on your furniture, color on that solid mahogany buffet, and break your dishes.  They will steal your towels and their dog will dig up your yard.  However, I don't allow cats."  Wow.

I looked around and remembered the weekends our sons and their friends came with us to paint the whole interior of the house.  Lots of laughs and empty pizza boxes resulted.  I looked around and remembered the friends (our 'Tribe') who have joined us for summer bike trail rides, trips up Silver Mountain on the gondola for concerts, winter snow-sport vacations.  I looked around and remembered the times we've offered the house on our church auction and netted a bit of money for the Fellowship and a vacation destination for our friends.  Mostly I looked around and knew the story of every piece of furniture (mostly my mom's things after we cleaned out her house), and wall art, and dish in the cabinet.

I looked around and remembered the hours and hours Hub and I had sat planning and sketching the remodel we would do to add a bathroom and a porch and an upper deck.  I thought of the picnics in the yard, the chats with neighbors, the attempts to become part of the community.  I looked around and realized I actually love that little house.

It's really too bad that this community, nestled in the considerable natural beauty of the Silver Valley of Idaho, is still stagnating on the very far edge of a slow economic recovery.  Most of the Uptown buildings remain vacant (in spite of wisely converting to a mining theme over the Bavarian Village motif fancied by some decade-ago City Fathers who had taken a trip to Leavenworth and came back with the derivative idea for their own little town.)  The streets need refinishing (pothole alert!), the homes look sad and neglected in many parts of town, the Gondola Village looks more like the Gondola Ghost Town since the bank has taken ownership of the condo/retail development.  The water park is mostly empty, as is the championship golf course.

Still, there are lots of events on the mountain and people in and out.  Mountain bikers and trail riders were jamming the parking lots this past weekend, bars were full of happy patrons, a pig roast in the park looked to be attracting a small, but enthusiastic crowd.  There's a new brew pub which we quite liked and an old favorite restaurant that still serves great food with a friendly staff and comfortable, attractive decor.

We just wish that the house was someone else's dream deferred.  Hub and I meet with a financial guy periodically who tries to keep us on track so our money doesn't run out before we do.  Frequently at these meetings I would refer to the house as an "investment".  He was patient with that characterization for a good long while, but once he got to know us better and was less concerned about offending me, he set me straight:  Apparently an investment assumes relatively low risk of loss, with moderate gain; a speculation is a significantly higher risk "gamble"that a big payoff could occur, but could actually go either way rather easily.  "The house was a speculation, Donna." he said.  Point taken.

So, we are hanging in there for now.  We've decided to keep our furnishings intact, listing it as a short-term rental, hoping vacationers will find it an economical home base for exploring the valley, that  mining engineers or medical personnel at the nearby hospital might find it to be a fine place to spend a week or a month or six when they are in town on temporary business.  And we will use it too.  It's ours to enjoy and share until the investors return and the Big Real Estate Lotto Payday comes to pass.  Any day now.

At least, that's the view from here… ©