An Exhilarating Hour

This afternoon I was up in my reading room, settling in to my trusty recliner, when I opened up my browser and spotted yet another email from Zillow. For the past year or so I have been obsessed with lake house hunting in Maine, so these Zillow emails are a daily occurrence. I always open them even though at least 50% of them are for land only, another 40% are dumpy little shacks on some lake I’ve never heard of two hours from Camden, and the rest of them are for multi-million dollar estates. Yet, I open every single email thinking maybe, just maybe, this might be the one.

Imagine my surprise when I discover that today’s featured camp is on Quantabacook, a mere six camps up the lake from Loon Landing?! I thought I might fall out of the chair I was so excited. I immediately sent the link to A. My real estate agent, Tiffany Ford and B. Carolyn and Keith May, the owners of Loon Landing who know everyone on the lake and serve as our eyes and ears. They also have the distinction of being the sweetest, most generous people in Maine and since we love their camp so much they know exactly the sort of place we are looking for. 

The next hour was a whirlwind of texts, pictures, tax assessment statements, and a million unanswerable questions flying back and forth. The basic facts were that this place was built in 1940 but had just gone under a complete overhaul and upgrade. It had a main house close to the water’s edge with two bedrooms and a full bath, along with a guest house out back with a third bedroom and bath. This was no show-stopper like Loon Landing, but it was on the perfect lake, and the inside was quite charming. But in real estate, like in real life, it’s easy to get ahead of yourself. As my wise friend Keith May observed, “If you love something, it makes you pay.” How much, you ask?

Ok, the main house weighs in at a tidy and cramped 900 square feet. The camp is seasonal, which means you could only use it from May to October. It has no fireplace. Did I mention it’s only 900 square feet? That’s smaller than Nancy Pelosi’s walk-in closet! On the plus side, it comes with a 2011 Bayliner boat. All of this for a cool....$595,000.

Gulp...

Tiffany warns me that it will not go for any less, and frankly, will probably become the subject of a bidding war with someone from New York City who won’t care that the place is only assessed by the town of Searsmont at $258,000. He’s gonna pay cash anyway. 

She then explains that the market has been taken over by rich city people who are distorting values, but in a couple more years will be gone and prices will then drift back to something resembling normal. Further, she suggested that even if we have to rent for a couple more years, that would be better than paying $200,000 too much for a camp that you can only use for half the year. 

So, after an hour of exhilaration and wild dreams, eventually cooler heads prevailed. But one day, someday, we are going to find our camp.

Wonder how much this place will eventually go for??