Step zero - choosing a site. Goldilots and the Three Beaches

It probably hit me around the same time as it hit every other city-dweller in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic: I need to be in the countryside. My sourdough starter needs a back yard! I need a treehouse for my succulents! I can do my job from anywhere and I do not want to do it from here. At least, not all year long.

I have had these pastoral longings forever, and sure, I could run away to the countryside, but guess what - they keep all the money in the city. I don't have a trust fund, and I love museums, so giving the city a try seemed like a good idea. Still does.

But now that the city has slumbered a bit there's less of a watchful eye on those of us who are easily able to log in and produce good work from pretty much anywhere. We've been creeping out to country houses and home-countries and parents' suburban homes - anything to get away from the closed museums and restaurants that now feel fraught instead of exciting.

For me, the ultimate countryside is New England. I've spent long summers there roaming the woods and canoeing lakes and marshes, scrambling over stone walls (did you know there's a fine for damaging those now?) and although I still love the city and want to keep my museums and friends and public transportation, I want to have a little corner of countryside to hang my hat on too.

I have limited my search to properties with access to large, deep lakes. Excluding Winnepesaukee - because it's a very busy lake, and just not my favorite (yes we have favorite lakes now). There was a flurry of real estate activity in this area. Anything under $300k has been snapped up in the last few weeks. New listings on the lakes are often over half a mil.

At first, I had a fantasy of lake-side property. Walk out the door and directly into the water. Sunsets over the beach, that sort of thing. Take a look at the taxes on those places! Do you have $15k a year to burn? Not me. And really, they're not on the market much. They seem to stay in families. So then, condos. A lot of those have $400 monthly HOA dues, and many restrictions. I think I could run a vacation house for less than that, given the seasonality of it. So on to associations - you get the beach but none of the other amenities.

The beach is the key thing. One needs ingress to the water and a place to lay down ones canoe.

My search turned up many unsuitable houses and many that were sold as soon as I laid eyes on them. I have settled myself that the best way forward is probably to acquire the land and then build my own house on it over the coming years. At least with this method I could secure the spot near the lake I wanted and the option to build.

Aside: sometimes investments in real estate are treated like stock options - buying land represents the option to build infrastructure; investing in infrastructure represents investing in an option to build a house... Framed this way, you can get out of the build at any time by selling your option on the next stage. You do this when you find that the investment in the next stage will not create a profitable return on the finished project. This is why you sometimes get half-finished subdivisions and such that sit for years - there's some developer out there avoiding sunk costs and declining to further invest in an unprofitable project.

Three lots are available that fit my criteria.

Contender 1: On the east side of the lake. This is my favored side, due to deep water and fewer shared beaches. This property turned out to be extremely steep and have a marshy spot in the centre. It would require a lot of filling and levelling, and at that grade I just wouldn't trust it. It was also the most expensive of the lots at $90k.

Contender 2: Located in a funny little subdivision where everything is King Arthur themed. West side of the lake, where the beaches are a bit shallow for my swimming taste. Dead-level lot though, and very low HOA dues. On the main road, but a big enough acre+ lot that building toward the back is possible. On the market for $70k.

Contender 3: North-west side of the lake, nice big beach (although still shallow - ugh, west side of the lake problems...) and nice quiet lots. Also a bargain - $27k! But then on touring the lot it turns out to be a 10,000 sq ft building envelope, with the association owning the land around it, and you can build any house you want as long as it exactly conforms to one of the 4 allowed designs. HOA dues are a reasonable $100 a month and then skyrocket to $400 a month as soon as you build your house. Yikes. Beautiful spot though.

Mike, my realtor, favors the last one because he's a boat guy (you can get a mooring without too much of a wait). I go home to run the numbers.