decayed houses? (middle-class, real estate market, renters)

[mollysmiles]

wonderful post NMLM I'm out of reps, but I'll send some your way tomorrow!

[elston]

Originally Posted by msina

Now why can't these houses be turned over to people that would love them? I know,.. there's people that own them, but it just seems to me that it's so sad. Those houses look sad and lonely.

When my folks had to go into a "community care facility" they left a cute little older house in a northern maine town. They had high hopes of getting well enough to Move "back home". They didnt get better and had to move into nursing home care. Inorder to be eligible for medicare to cover the considerable bills for their care--they had to pauperize themselves. They couldn't sell their house or they would lose eligibilty and before the paper work could be done to confiscate any proceeds and then to re establish eligibility, there placement would be jeapordized. They allowed the lady who used to provide home care for Mom to have the free use of the home, with the understanding she would maintain it and pay taxes. It didnt work out! The house wasnt maintained, it became a neighborhood nuisance with her relatives and transients using it as a flop house, and eventually the town took it for taxes. I never really understood the process and don't remember all the legal twists and turns, but there really wasn't anything they could do other than abandon their property. (I never told them what happened to the little house that they loved so much and which represented 50 years of hard work and sacrifice.)

We have laws to protect the inheritance of the Heinz children and the Hilton girls and the Bush twins and other rich kids, (no death tax) but the average middle class family loses everything if the parents require extended nursing home care, at the end of life.

[msina]

I understand your point elston. When my Dad passed away, my oldest sister took over my Mums finances and put everything in Both her name and my Mums. When the house was sold the money was put into a trust so that it wouldn't be eaten up by medical costs. My Mum went to live a couple streets over from my sister in a little apartment in a small senior complex. My sister drove her everywhere and made sure she had prepared meals and whatever else she needed. Thank God for my sister. Mum never went without, and when she passed away,... again, Sis took care of everything.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by 7th generation

The goal of LURC is to stop sprawl. In their "wisdom," they decided to create "open" spaces that are community owned by the inhabitants of the developed parcel. Socialism at it's worse. So if I own 100 acres and want to develop it, I can't divide my land into 10-10 acre parcels and sell it. I must sell 10-5 acre lots that are lumped together and have the remaining 50 acres as open space. What a joke. The only way around this is to sell one lot every 5 years and thus avoid the "subdivision" rules. Community land-yeah that's where I would want to live!

However, I hate sub-divisions altogether.

In my travels I have seen far too many sprawling sub-divisions that have taken over.

The area where I grew up was all farms, today it is housing tracts.

What thirty years ago produced 60% of our nation's food, today produces very little.

To at least define 'sub-division', to regulate and restrict such, can be viewed as a good thing.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Some towns down in lower Maine have realized the error of community property or open space. This clustered development didn't work out as they imagined. If they had known our history they would have known that the Pilgrims found it didn't work either and that was nearly 400 years ago.

What happened in those subdivisions in progressive towns was that the community property became the dumping ground for appliances, the old Subaru, roofing shingles they wouldn't take at the dump, brush, leaves and all manner jousehold waste that wouldn't fit in the trunk of the Volvo. Those towns now prohibit community space, but it's too late for the subdivisions created during the early community planning binge.

[7th generation]

Originally Posted by forest beekeeper

However, I hate sub-divisions altogether.

Agreed, however who wants our state government determining what "we" can do with the land we pay taxes on.
A lot of people purchase a tract of land, choose the lot they want and sell the rest to pay for their house/land. It's a smart way to do it.

[elston]

I was looking at a piece of property that include some shared river frontage...I asked who maintained the trail down to the river and looked after the common property. The realtor said, that hadn't been a problem, that the people who used it took care of it as needed. Now that is a bit different from What the beekeeper and the 7th generation are talking about, it is a fait accompli, not a restriction on what you can do with your own property, and I don't think there is much upkeep other than moving a fallen log or pruning an over hanging branch on undeveloped river frontage.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by 7th generation

Agreed, however who wants our state government determining what "we" can do with the land we pay taxes on.
A lot of people purchase a tract of land, choose the lot they want and sell the rest to pay for their house/land. It's a smart way to do it.

It is one thing to own land, live on it, and decide to cut off a piece to sale.

It is another thing to buy land with the intention of chopping it into wedges and squares, putting in streets, municipal style sewage systems, building cookie-cutter houses and selling them on 50 foot lots,

[Zymer]

"We have laws to protect the inheritance of the Heinz children and the Hilton girls and the Bush twins and other rich kids, (no death tax) but the average middle class family loses everything if the parents require extended nursing home care, at the end of life."

This is not true, it is a matter of planning correctly, in advance. Wealthy people do this because they know to, but anyone can use the laws to the same advantage. But, you have to have the plan put into motion years before it will be needed.

My own property is set up in a trust. The death of a trustee imposes no inheritance penalty, plus it cannot be taken if someone were to sue me for something.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by Northern Maine Land Man

In Northern Maine we have had four events that decimated our population. The first was the Civil War. Next came the "Spanish flu" in 1917. You see many tombstones with 1917 and 1918 dates. Then came WWII. We lost more men in WWII than we did in WWI. The most recent cause of lost population is rural cleansing. It is just as vicious as ethinc cleansing in places like Serbia. The difference is that people here don't die, they just leave. They certainly don't want to leave; they must leave to earn a better living for their families.

Rural cleansing is not limited to Maine. The Northern Forest Alliance wants rural cleansing in Maine, NH, Vermont and the Adirondacks of NY. It doesn't stop there. Michigan, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Idaho and Montana are seeing the same thing. The green machine knows that forest land will be extremely valuable in 25 to 50 years. That's what they are looking at. If they control it they will be even wealthier than they are now with their huge multi-million dollar trusts.

Rural areas in different parts of the country are entirely different when it comes to demographic issues. The population declines in the rural Great Plains are much higher than the population declines in the Upper Midwest or interior areas of the Northeast. In fact, many rural areas of the Upper Midwest are gaining in population becuase they are turning into retirement areas because of all the outdoor activities avilable in the northwoods. In the interior Northeast the population in most of the rural counties is stable or growing, but many of the younger people leave because of a lack of job opportunities in some areas.