One of the great pleasures of watching this MLB postseason has been the incessant airing of the McConaughey™ Lincoln commercials. And I think I’ve finally figured out the larger play.
Just alone with some thoughts, staring intensely into the future. Alright, alright, alright. Etcetera.
Boom.
Say wha?
While thumbing through this past weekend’s Sunday New York Times, I stumbled into the headline, “Buying a Second Home First.” Then I think I may have gasped slightly.
In March 2006, while on a freelance writing run that would prove to be exhausting yet invaluable, I pitched a story to the Times. My editor then wrapped it up for his people this way:
When your first home is a second home. The story is about three New York City friends who bought a second home together before any of them had bought a first home. Six years later, two have families, all still get along (so well, in fact, they prefer everyone goes up together), and they’re expanding the house. These guys say they’ve inspired others to do the same. If DAVID A. PUNER can find another example or two, we’d be golden, no?
This is not the same story that ran this past weekend. Regardless, I was surprised enough to see that headline in print. My story was killed after months of back-and-forth, with more forth-than-back for long stretches. Typical freelance writing shit. My story was for the Times’ now defunct Escapes section, which at the time was wanting quirky real estate-ish stories to fit the section. Michelle Higgins’ (a fine writer, I should point out) article is a real estate piece and decidedly a trend piece, something the editors and I, at the time of pitch/approval, agreed wasn’t a prerequisite for publication.
Foreground: Manila folder from yesteryear. Background: Reggie, also of yesteryear, because he’s been there through it all.
So why am I going on about a story that didn’t run almost a decade ago (hey, it happens) and the frustration that can come from an assignment that goes awry for an array of reasons (some within the writer’s control and some far beyond)? The freelance writing life is incredibly difficult and I’m in awe of anyone who pulls it off, let alone thrives at it. Not much longer after this experience, I went corporate and used words mostly to push coffee and donuts for a few years. And it was good. Dunkin’ Dave himself even received coverage within The New York Times itself (scroll down, he’s in there). Weekends were again days secured for leisure, a home was bought (first home first, incidentally), and health benefits secured.
I’ve now embarked on yet another new chapter. A freelance assignment is among the current mix. Gulp.
Here then is the last worked draft of my long-ago Second Home First article. It’s odd to finally have a reason for it see the light of day.
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[Puner – SecondHomeFirst – 5-24-06]
By DAVID PUNER
On a recent sunny spring afternoon, three men gazed out on their land in South Londonderry, VT., with horseshoes in hand. It was Saturday and all was well. For a moment the only sound was the crackling of a daylight bonfire.
Breaking the tranquility, Joe Farina addressed the situation – in-hand, as it were – with a simple suggestion – “Shoes?”
Mr. Farina’s friend, Ken Begasse readily agreed. “Yeah, let’s throw some horseshoes.” The third, Mike Sanzen, was also in.
Throwing horseshoes is a crucial (warmer-weather) activity, one of many leisure pursuits (snowboarding, shuffleboard, Jenga, paintball, poker, pool, among others) for these three 32-year-old New Yorkers when spending time at their vacation home in Vermont.
The three men bought the house together in 2000, a time when they were all apartment renters in New York – none had previously owned a home. Now, said, Mr. Begasse, “we always joke – we bought our second home first.”
Eschewing [alt: Bucking] vacation home buying convention is a growing trend for urbanites, says Chris Palminteri, 35, a sales associate for the Corcoran Group in New York City. “Without question, the No. 1 reason people are buying second-homes-first, especially Manhattan renters, is the restrictions co-ops put on first time buyers,” Mr. Palminteri said. “Co-ops are about 75 percent of the sales market in Manhattan versus condos.” Co-ops, he explained, usually require a 20 percent down payment, a debt-to-income ratio that does not exceed 25 to 30 percent and liquidity in the bank after a property’s close that would cover between one and two years of mortgage and maintenance payments. In other words, Mr. Palminteri said, “You have to make at least $100,000 to afford a $400,000 apartment”– a small studio or one-bedroom. “It’s crazy – anywhere else in the country if you’re making $100,000 lenders will give you money to buy anything you want.” Even in Washington, D.C., recently one of the hottest real estate markets in the country, he said, buying an apartment is possible for someone making a modest living. “All new construction in D.C. is condos,” he said.
As it turns out, Mr. Palminteri and his wife, Kathi, also have a love for Vermont and over the years went in on a number of share-houses, including one nearby Mr. Begasse and crew, with whom they spent some time. In 2002, the Palminteris, then Manhattan renters, bought a Vermont home – a four-bedroom ranch – with two other New York couples. They bought the house for $185,000. “Basically, we wouldn’t have been able to do it on our own,” Mr. Palminteri said. The house was recently reappraised at around $375,000.
Despite home price inflation, deals are beginning to surface again in southern Vermont, says Sharon Emmanuel, who sold the Palminteri’s their house and is the Principal Broker of Bondville Realty Group, the agency Mr. Begasse and friends bought their home through in 2000. “The market has flattened out,” she said. In the last year, she said, the sellers’ market that began just after Mr. Begasse and friends bought their home in 2000 has shifted back to a buyers’ market. There is a glut of real estate for sale in her region, she said, but likely nothing comparable in price and portion to what Mr. Begasse and friends paid for their house and land six years ago.
At that time, after four ski seasons renting shares in Vermont houses with many participants, Mr. Begasse, Mr. Farina, and Mr. Sanzen wanted to rent a nicer house for only themselves for the upcoming ski season. “We were basically renting a box,” Mr. Begasse said, of their previous shares. Buoyed by burgeoning careers – in advertising and on Wall Street – yet still living single lifestyles reminiscent of their college careers, the three men, then in their mid-20’s and living in Manhattan and Hoboken, camped in the Green Mountains for two weeks in the summer of 2000, while looking a winter rental.
The few available high end rentals started at $15,000 for the season. The price seemed steep for what they could get. Then, said Sanzen, they were in their real estate agent’s office and noticed some flyers on the wall – they ran the numbers and “figured it was possible to just buy something.” Despite having never owned primary homes, the friends pooled their funds for a down payment on a house, mainly because “we had to have a place for snowboarding and we were really starting to worry about how to make it happen,” Sanzen said.
Owning a second-home-first in places like Vermont and Lake Tahoe makes more sense than buying a beach house, says Chris Palminteri. “A beach house can be pretty bleak during the wintertime,” he said. “Anything you can use year-round is a better investment for a first house.” Especially for recreation-oriented (read young) people who enjoy a variety of year-round outdoor activities.
When Mr. Begasse and friends started looking to buy, they drove around with their real estate agent and saw houses that needed major renovations. They kept looking and, finally, Mr. Begasse said, “We made a favorable impression on the real estate agent.” The real estate agent, he said, had been hesitant to show them one house – a New York v. Vermont-thing, he figures – “They save the cherry places for people who are local.” The real estate agent had this particular house in mind for a friend. It was “a beautiful A-Frame, in perfect condition.”
Built in 1976, the house, situated on 4.25 wooded acres—smack in the middle of three major ski areas: Stratton, Magic Mountain, and Bromley—had two bedrooms and a loft. It had seen limited use and seemed frozen in time. “There was a 1978 New York Times sitting by the fireplace,” Mr. Begasse said. “Everything was brand new. The appliances were yellow, but they were new.”
They bought the house for $125,000. It was assessed last year, with the same mustard yellow appliances (but without the newspaper – they regret having used it to start a fire), for $385,000.
The friends needed $25,000 upfront to secure the house. “At the beginning we didn’t know what to expect and whether the mortgage would kill us,” Mr. Begasse said, of their uncertainty about what they were getting into. “It was the first time I bought anything – a car or anything” he said.
“Our parents thought we were crazy,” Farina added.
Russ Baruh, a real estate agent in Lake Tahoe for the last 30 years, says he has seen similar second-home-first situations increase in his area in recent years. Last June, for instance, Mr. Baruh sold a 4 bedroom, 2 bath cabin on Carnelian Bay, the northern tip of Lake Tahoe, to an air traffic controller whose primary residence is a sailboat on San Francisco Bay. “People are making $100,000 to $200,000 and they’re renting because they can’t afford to buy in the Bay area,” Mr. Baruh said. “They buy here because they are looking for some tax relief and they love Tahoe.” Besides the tax benefit, he said, Tahoe real estate has been a good investment, yielding a “steady appreciation of 10 to 15 percent each year for the last three years.”
The air traffic controller is 43-year-old John Schulte, who has dabbled in a few real estate investments before he bought his Tahoe home last year but had never before owned a primary residence. Not counting the sailboat. “I’d rather live in a marina, where I want to live, than buy a home in some crappy area where I don’t want to live,” he said. Mr. Schulte bought his Tahoe home for $640,000—now, a year later, he figures it’s worth at least $700,000. “There is no bubble in Tahoe,” he said.
The Tahoe bubble did burst—a self-induced puncture—two years ago for second-home-first owner Chris Wiedenmayer, when he sold the A-Frame he bought as a single 20-something while renting in San Francisco during the dot-com boom in 1998. He sold the house that he bought for $260,000, for a considerable profit ($425,000) but regrets selling – he figures it’s now worth $600,000 and, he misses it. Now a primary home owner and working in commercial real estate in Denver, Mr. Wiedenmayer, now aspires to buy something in the Colorado mountains with his wife within the next couple of years but, he said, property is “very expensive to pretty much get nothing.”
Mr. Wiedenmayer’s Tahoe house incidentally, wasn’t expensive to furnish – essentials were provided by visitors in lieu of rent. “One guy bought a big screen TV,” Mr. Wiedenmayer, 33, said recently. The furniture, other than “new couches to bunker down in during the winter” was picked up secondhand. Another friend bought the blender and margarita glasses; another bought the Foosball table – Mr. Wiedenmayer later married her.
Back in Vermont, five miles up the road from Mr. Begasse and crew, in Londonderry, VT., Brian Murphy owns his second home, which happens to be his first home. Mr. Murphy, is a 34-year-old Yahoo account executive and Vermont house-share veteran who rents an apartment on Boston’s Beacon Hill as his primary residence. He bought his cabin in April 2005 after casually looking in the area for a few years.
Mr. Murphy, who is originally from the New York area [Fairfield County, CT], wanted to buy a Vermont house that was accessible from both New York and Boston – as opposed to northern Vermont or New Hampshire which tend to be skied by more Bostonians than New Yorkers – a design for a possible, eventual move back to New York. Mr. Murphy owns his first home – which happens to be his second home on his own and uses the house about two weekends a month, year-round. He often brings guests. “I’ve gotten a couple of free dinners out of the whole thing,” he said. “Someone gave me an Adirondack chair, which is kind of a nice thing,” he said, adding: “I should register on William Sonoma.”
Mr. Begasse, Mr. Sanzen and Mr. Farina formed a legal partnership agreement when they bought their Vermont house – or, what some might consider a recipe for disaster. In six years, there have been no fall-outs, divorces or legal skirmishes. There have been two marriages and two children – one of each for both Mr. Begasse and Mr. Sanzen, who are also founding partners in a Manhattan health care advertising agency and both have bought primary homes in the past year – but the three friends still share their Vermont home. All house members get along – so well in fact, that they’re planning to buy property in Puerto Rico together as well.
Initially intended as a ski house, the group started favoring the other seasons (even before the 2005-06 Winter of Rain). “In the summer you do a little fly fishing, sit in the hammock, take a hike, or shoot some shoes,” said Mr. Beggase, whose horseshoe-throwing footwear on this day was flip flops with a bottle cap opener built into the outsole. “A lot of thinking goes into shoes,” he said without irony, as he popped open a beverage with his flop.
The owners’ favorite weekend comes in August when they host a pig roast – “kind of a free-for-all,” Mr. Begasse explained. Friends (and friends of friends) pitch tents on land Mr. Begasse cleared with a rented excavator – about 50 people gathered for the last roast – a Porta-John was ordered to accommodate the crowd. “You’re in the middle of the woods and the land takes over,” Mr. Begasse said.
The first pig was prepared for significantly fewer people and weighed 35 lbs., Mr. Begasse said. “The last time, it was an 80-pound-pig.” The pig roast brings a lot of different worlds together, he added – including the pig, which is imported from Queens.
Just as the pig roast’s attendance is growing, in the next year or so a major house expansion project is in the works – doubling or tripling the size of the existing structure. “We don’t want it to be a share,” Begasse said. “We want everyone to be up there at the same time.” He added, “Our place is a communal, family place. And family isn’t blood, its friendship.”
After an afternoon of throwing horseshoes, the entire crew reconvened around their daylight bonfire (“I don’t know what it is but people burn stuff everywhere up here,” Farina offered). This activity, they said, is one of their favorites—“hanging.”
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If I win my Masters pool, I could pocket around two-thousand dollars.
With my winnings, I will buy a golf team and become a fat cat owner.
As a fat cat golf team owner, I will have someone OpenTable reservations for me every night at someplace real nice, like the Ruth’s Chris Steak House, which I cannot physically say. Like, I flat out cannot say Ruth’s-Chris-Steak-House.
This will lead to a session with someone who knows a speech therapist — the best MapQuest can immediately direct me to within a 10 minute drive. I will discontinue pseudo speech therapy with the ability to say both “Ruth’s Chris Steak House” and “thesaurus” (bonus!), without having to even think about it. This will allow me to give the golf team pep talks and whatnot. Mostly whatnot, probably.
The golf team will be the best professional golf team the English-speaking, North American-accented WORLD will have ever seen. We will make lots of money, be beloved by ALL and, perhaps most importantly, we’ll ride a never-ending green carpet (turf or otherwise) to glory. In matching green sport jackets, which will be the sharp touch that puts it all over-the-top
.
Until I became a homeowner–in 2005, in Chicago–I didn’t realize trees needed maintenance. And I’m not talking about those fancy designer trees that someone’d, like, put in a pot outside a store and then you’d plant it in your own backyard soil. Like the kind Romney’s got illegals attending to now in Belmont. Not that kind of tree. I’m talking about those trees that-just-stand-there-and-do-nothing trees. Big ol’ trees. Turns out, they occasionally need cleaning up.
We, as Americans, are all about clean. Clean this, clean that. Water and air. Yeah, yeah. We’re sanitized, or as I like to say, hand sanitized. That sounds an awful lot like hand Satanized to me. Just saying. Let’s face it, we’re too clean. We clean with stuff that isn’t clean, that’s how clean we are. Am I right that the clean clean stuff just doesn’t clean? We’re so clean, we wash dirty clothes–together. Only then do they become clean. So, as it turns out, a negative plus many negatives, equals a positive. I like that. Hey, Reggie, make a note to get Ed Olmos to do that line for me as Jaime Escalante, okay?
Clean clean. Right. Clean … Pigs eat slop. Since the beginning of time, I’m told. The chickens we eat, well they eat their own excrement. What’s that say about us, right? We eat shit eaters and we smoke the unleaded dirt pipe everyday when we take a run to the food mart. Right? We’ve got the V8 Rover with lacrosse stickers on it. We efficiently grab some Reds … or chew, a couple scratchies, and a Rajon Rondo Limited Edition Red Bull. Americans are hard workin’ folks. We’re the salt of the earth and the earth is plenty salty.
HEY! And that’s a long vowel “ay,” like in McConaugHEY. The great sage. Food marts … right. Food marts are as American as Donald Trump’s hairpiece–although the verdict’s still out on that thing–and he still hasn’t released a receipt. That mop is dirtier than Karl Rove’s election night boxers. Which brings me back to the trees.
So you’re probably wondering, why were those trees dirty? Now look, you’re gonna laugh. Well, turns out they weren’t dirty after all. Turns out, some squirrels had been harassing me. The squirrels on Greenwood Ave. are fatter than Newt Gingrich after practicing cannibalism on Rush Limbaugh. I’d be mowing and they’d be dropping stuff on me. Then there were the worms that were just relentless on my Ford Escape Hybrid. Reggie, don’t forget to leave me with a full tank of gas at the end of my second term–that shit’s gonna be expensive in four years! And then there were leaves too. Just menacing they way they’d always fall. But that’s a story for my Inaugural Address–and then for later, when Oliver Stone uses it for the Pacino soliloquy in “Any Given Sunday II.”
Yeah, yeah–Bruce’ll be playing the Inauguration. Reagan’s been dead long enough that Bruce is actually gonna do “Born in the U.S.A.” … for Trump’s hairpiece. Bet you Romney’s ten grand that thing was made in China.
This weekend Milton, Mass. celebrated its 350th birthday. Of the many parade highlights, this one rises to the top of the list and then heads straight off the charts. Mini 18-wheelers (little rigs?), piloted by Shriners and Tiny Elvis-adorable.
It matters to me that hot soup be hot and cold soup be cold.
Why?
NEIL LEADAPRON, DDS
Do anything for Mother's Day?
JEREMY IRONS
Yesshhh.
NEIL LEADAPRON, DDS
Got any summer plans?
JEREMY IRONS
Yesshhh.
NEIL LEADAPRON, DDS
Flossing regularly?
JEREMY IRONS
Uh, Yesshhh.
Neil Leadapron, DDS whistles along to
string version of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" for 17 minutes.
NEIL LEADAPRON, DDS
Super job, guy. Really super.
JEREMY IRONS
Meessh.
NEIL LEADAPRON, DDS
Red Sox, right?
JEREMY IRONS
Muh, Yankesshhhh.
NEIL LEADAPRON, DDS
Ho. That's rich.
JEREMY IRONS
Glurssp.
NEIL LEADAPRON, DDS
Right! [beat] And we're just
about finished here, Jer.
Neil Leadapron, DDS turns to face dental x-ray camera.
NEIL LEADAPRON, DDS (CONT'D)
The Borgias airs on Showtime,
Sunday nights at 10. Ladies and
gentlemen, Jeremy Irons is due
back here in six months. Jer,
we'll snail mail you a reminder.
Ha! Jeremy Irons!
BIGHAM, Mass. — Sandwich Man, aided by fine herb mayonnaise-smeared crutches, hobbled out of a cafeteria today, in what could be his last appearance in a corporate dining uniform. With nothing left to prove, Mr. Man had been producing sandwiches at a level typically associated with a sandwich maker with many more ingredients at his assemblage. Some wondered if he could potentially eclipse records previously considered impossible to sandwich artisans from elite delicatessens across the hamlet. For now, in the least, his work week is over. Plastic wrap is on standby for Monday, awaiting another set of hands.
The accident was sustained while Mr. Man was juggling bacon, pickles, and pepper jack cheese. He stood slightly off a rubber mat behind the deli counter. It was an activity he had enjoyed for years and considered to be an essential part of his training regimen. He slipped and in an instant, an ACL was torn and a career put in peril.
“The Jack just didn’t have my back. Heheheheheh,” said Mr. Man, shortly after dropping an array of profanities and some baby spinach out of his coat pocket. He added, “I really did think everything was better with bacon. Heeeccchhh.”
Unable to bike home, Sandwich Man grimaced as he climbed into the back seat of a navy blue Chevy Corsica. As the car moved toward the open road, he opened his window and gestured to onlookers with a two-handed meat-slicing wave.
“Yeeeoucheheheh”
TODAY’S DELI SPECIAL: Cubano Sandwich with Pork, Ham, Pickles, and Mustard.
SM: Number five, she’s alive! Heheheh.
SM: Yeah, today’s Jamaican Day. It’s theme five, so it resets after this one.
SM: I haven’t seen you in the garage lately.
SM: Jamaican BOB-sled. Haa, heh.
SM: She’s fun to look at, but not very nice. [Pause] Usually that doesn’t bother me.
SM: With pickles? [Nods] Very good.
“Bacon on your Cuban? LOVE it.”
TODAY’S SPECIAL: Some kind of panini
SM: What’s the gang up to? Turkey burgers?
SM: You got a toaster up there? Heheheheh. Oh, I gotta come up there and show that toaster how to toast. Heh.
SM: When she goes to hug you, hold onto your wallet.
SM: That’s why I don’t kill anybody anymore. Haaaeecchhh. Because you can’t get away with it anymore.
SM: That’s why I don’t watch Cold Case.
SM: Doritos. Heheheh. They’ve tried everything. They’ve tried this, that — they’ve tried the Jala-pee-no. Now they’ve got a black bad and call ’em “Ultimate.” I want to try those.
SM: Pickle? Chips?
"Too much?"
davidpuner.com 