 So, welcome everybody to the fall 2018 downsizing group meeting. We're going to try to explore as many options as possible for downsizing for whether you're in your house or you want to leave the house or you want to go somewhere else or you want to whatever you need to do. So I want to thank the team of Phil Dott who started this whole thing going way back in the day, Diane Derby and Jean Olson who have been really working hard to bring this all together. Also, there is, Times Argus is here so he's asked, Stephen has asked if you would identify yourselves, if you have questions when you do have a question. And first I'd like to ask how many first timers are here today? Wow, awesome, thanks. So just to get going, Jean is going to introduce Peter Conlon. Peter Conlon is the owner of a business called Vermont Move Management. He's been the owner since 2014. He joins us today to talk about downsizing and rightsizing your home in preparation to sell, perhaps age in place or simply to feel more relaxed about the space that you're living in. Peter grew up in Montpelier, his mom Muffy Conlon who some of you might know is with us today. Peter lives with his family in Cornwall. He's currently a legislator in the House of Representatives from Addison County. Vermont Move Management specializes in senior moves which usually includes downsizing and so thanks to Peter for joining us. He has a presentation and then some time for questions. Thanks a lot. Peter, thank you. Good morning everybody. I won't go into my biography, Jean did a very nice job except to say that it's always fun to come back to Montpelier and I just got to say that this room full of people who just sort of came together organically and how full it is really shows that this is a major topic. I give a presentation at least once a year over in Middlebury. The draw is about the same amount of people. It's really quite amazing. The one difference is that there I get a nice big screen and a projector and I can use some visual aids and so we'll have to visualize today rather than see some great pictures. When I give a presentation I usually like to talk about it as being more of a support group more than anything else because I think we all sort of share the issue of frankly having too much stuff and not knowing what to do with it in common and I often open my talk with a picture of me in front of my garage with the door closed and I say hi my name is Peter Conlin and the next slide is the door is open my garage is full of stuff and it says and I have too much stuff and it's it's really true fact of the picture I noticed that they has no fewer than three Christmas tree stands in it which seems to be too much so I like to ask folks you know to share in that and it would just with a little bit of a survey and I ask you to sort of raise your hand and look around you can see we all sort of share this I go through a list of a list of things I'll keep it short today but how many of you have a bed in your home that hasn't been slept in in over a year fair number how many of this would be an easier one how many of you have an 8 inch stack of magazines maybe a 20 inch stack how many giant collections of old National Geographics are out there as somebody who often has to haul those out of basements I I rue the day that I have to face those there's also of course the the large basket of orphan socks how many of those I have three kids two of them have finally left the house but even just with our smaller house so we keep a basket going at all times how about LPs cassettes 8 tracks but but but no device to actually play them on and then we'll get to the really easy ones who's got a fondue pot they haven't used in a couple years how about a punchbowl maybe a cut crystal punchbowl that you inherited from somebody set of golf clubs that's been rusty for at least a couple of years so you can you can see that it's a we all share this and it's a it's a it's being part of this world for a while now it's really kind of amazing we'll talk a little bit about you know why it is there's so much sort of stuff out there but I often you know talk again on the topic of you know why people downsize everybody has their their own reasons often is for for getting ready for a move to maybe put a house in show conditions so that you can get top dollar while you're selling it or just simply to prepare knowing that you're not going to take most of what you have with you to where you're going we do a lot of work with folks who are really leaving a house they've lived in for decades and are moving into maybe a senior living community like Westview and on our side it's Eastview and you know really just don't they're not going to a place that has the same amount of space sometimes you're getting ready for renovation what I hear a lot is people deciding to do it for the kids benefit and you know I think that that's a very thoughtful way to go about it my mother and I talk about this from time to time fortunately she's moved over the past ten years several times and boy it's really down to just a few boxes which is which is terrific for me it always is and it sort of recycles each year I want to get my car in the garage for winter time but you know that the fact is is it's hard it's hard for for many number of reasons to sort of start you know getting rid of your stuff you know point one is it's physically exhausting when I was gonna come over here and I didn't have no I wouldn't have a screen I was gonna bring a drawer in our we have a just a sort of a used buffet or sideboard in our mudroom with bunch of drawers and I said I'll bring I have a picture that I usually bring up the top drawer of this which hasn't changed since I took the picture I said I'll bring that along I pulled it out and frankly it was just too heavy to carry around because it has no fewer than at least five or six cell phones four iPods you know satellite navigation systems and cords beyond belief not to mention at least ten pairs of eyeglasses that I keep meaning to donate and you know just that drawer alone is going to be a major physical effort you know you got to sort it you got to take everything to where it's supposed to go cell phones are tricky because they hold your personal information they've got rechargeable batteries what are you supposed to do with it to be safe as well as dispose of things correctly so you know and if when we start talking about boxes of National Geographic or boxes of books or furniture and all of that it's simply hard physical labor and it's a lot easier just to say later you know frankly it's also mentally exhausting you know one of the exercises I often do with people is we just look at flat surfaces in a house and how many things are on them and how much time it takes to make a decision on each and every item and there's nothing more exhausting than spending a large amount of time making small decisions and it's you know it's it's boring it could it can it's just tiring it's not a lot of fun and again it's easier just to put off until another day and then you know finally that goes along with making those decisions it can be emotionally exhausting you know sometimes you are having to you know decide to get rid of things that might be very meaningful to you or that stir up a lot of memories that are hard to go back in and go through again so you know really it's a challenge we'll talk about some tips to help make it easier but it's no surprise that we all just continue to hold on to too much stuff I live in an 1850s farmhouse it has a barn it has an old two-car garage with an attic above it we've got a big attic in our house and if I have to move my son's box of sixth grade chest trophies one more time you know I will finally throw them away which I don't think he'd care about but I still having a tough time doing he's 24 years old and in law school so he hasn't taken them yet so you know let me just ask you to sort of imagine a shelf in your house or a shelf you know that that exists in in any house that has on it five or six items and those items are maybe a couple of awards for 25 years of service to whatever Rotary Club and then maybe a few pictures from 1992 of the family together and you know these are the things that have you know sort of little monetary value but are the hardest things to sort of go through and decide what to do with you know honors are very personal but they're really just personal to you photographs frame photographs we all have many more than we'll be able to take with us if we're moving or downsizing and they're the hardest things to throw away because they carry so much sort of emotional value to them you know maybe it has a pewter candlestick holder that you inherited from your grandmother that in today's world you know may not have a whole lot of value and it just you know these each and every one of these items requires a decision requires an action a physical action and you know it just it's it's you can look behind you and there's a shelf up there with vases that probably came from flower deliveries and I don't know I have never I have never worked in a house that didn't have at least a half a dozen of those they're fragile you know generally people don't take them so we donate them and people even the places that accept donations said oh you know we got way more than these we can do with and they weren't expensive to begin with because they were just used to to deliver flowers to somebody so on on the table back there and I only made 30 copies I wasn't expecting such a great-sized crowd so if you're here as a couple please just share but of some some tips that I like to sort of go over with folks who are looking at downsizing and talking a little bit about the value of items and also talk about some resources that are that are out there not local but but just sort of helpful resources you know when when downsizing we suggest these following tips when you're getting rid of stuff the highest value I feel is giving something to somebody who will appreciate it as much as you did knowing some something is going to where it is appreciated by a loved one is usually more valuable than than money but then we do often with our clients talk about kind of a hierarchy of value and as you're looking to get rid of stuff and downsizing you know we often suggest folks bring in an antique dealer ask around ask for a reputable name there are plenty of them out there look at selling items on Craigslist eBay front porch forum I you know people often ask about doing that and you always have to ask yourself am I comfortable with bringing strangers to my home to look at something and it's a very good question to ask if you're going to get $25 for something is it worth that sort of amount of disruption in your life and effort of course there are also services who will sort of do that for you they often take a large cut of something and if you're not going to get a lot of money for it again it's not that not that valuable over in Addison County where I live we're very lucky we still have an auction house and an auctioneer he's in his 70s and I'm terrified every day he's going to tell me he's going to retire and he you know really used to be a very traditional auction house where he just take what you had and then sell it at auction and every time I talk to him now he says you know Peter that's just getting you know it's not worth it for me to send two guys and a truck risk them walking down a set of stairs with a bureau that I'm going to get $50 for and I'm only going to keep you know 30 or no he'll keep 20 and so even he's getting a lot fuzzier about what he'll take and generally smaller works and larger is you know getting harder to find somebody who'll take it to auction there are estate sale services there's really mainly one in sort of this half of the state estate sales can work really well if you're ready to just sort of walk away from what you have or the majority of what you have and you don't mind the public tramping through your house once you're gone because they'll agree to sell everything take a cut and leave your house broom clean ready for sale or or to put on the market the disadvantages you were essentially relinquished control of the service they'll ask you to vacate the house during the sale and you have to be comfortable with lots of folks coming through your house there's always the yard sale garage sale method and I really just recommend this for folks who really enjoy doing it I've done it enough times in my own house trying to clear things out to know that I put in a lot of effort to sell 25% of my stuff and earn $150 so we really come to the point where that what's really become a very valuable service they often thank you for there for your donation and I thank them profusely for coming and taking stuff away and that is donations you know there's there's goodwill in various parts of the state I think over here you have either a resource or a restore a Habitat for Humanity program or one of the others and these folks again they're getting a little pickier about what they'll take but for a small fee they'll often come right to your house take stuff away give you a tax deduction form for the value of the items which you will set the value of and it's a good deal because any time you can get free or narrowly free labor to help you downsize you are coming out way ahead of the game and then of course we just move into reuse reuse and and recycle just in terms of getting rid of stuff I'm just wrap up here quickly and recommend this book is it's published by AARP so don't be embarrassed even if you're not yet AARP age it's just called downsizing the family home it's written in very conversational tone and I always like to read some of the tips in it because they put it a little better than I can tips to a smooth move or we can also say a smooth downsizing and include some quotes from a couple of folks who do the same business that I do so let's see here create a vision picture what a great downsize looks like quote easier is easier simpler more enjoyable less hectic and less stressful and you have the things around you that you love and enjoy most downsizing is not sad it's a time when you can reassess what matters and choose to put around you what you enjoy the most let's see here you are not your kid's attic I am my kids and I would say for you know some of the people my age and younger you're also not your parents storage unit when kids move out the family house often remains a repository for all their memorabilia baseball gloves ice skate school pictures quote is not your job to save everything from your children's lives box up what belongs to each kid and send it to them if it's furniture you no longer want but your children do tell them to claim it now or never don't be the family storage locker Mary Kay adds that a recurring theme she hears from empty nesters is that they wish their adult kids would have claimed their stuff sooner quote for a while it comforts both parties to have the grown kids belongings at home but when the children are in their 40s and their scouting badges are still in the basement it's time to purge so this gets into a little bit about you know this I don't mean to be this this to be self-promotional but it really is important to say and that is don't do it alone when going through old belongings that carry a lot of emotional weight like the closet of a deceased spouse or a parent or even a child's room after the child has moved out have a close friend or family member with you quote touching belongings that trip memories is a huge emotional stimulus stuff is is a strong connective device it's important to have someone to talk to as you unspooled the threat that's tied to the stuff and kind of a corollary that is also consider an objective party while the items are less emotional experts in this field recommend having an objective as a not a relative outsider help you for a variety of reasons they will bring an unbiased clearheadedness quote I always find when I go to a downsizing situation an awful lot of blaming about who is the pack rat goes on usually the couple has been together a long time and it's a combination a third party can neutralize the blaming you want someone who brings an abundance of energy and won't get overwhelmed also parents no matter how old will always see their children as children when an adult child takes control that upsets the equilibrium quote it can often get messy often what an outsider brings is not another pair of hands but a compassionate ear it gets easier start with the easiest places that's one of my biggest recommendations clear out the basement the garage or the kids bedrooms here's why over time you get desensitized desensitized to the downsizing process so it gets easier it is easier to get rid of the garden tools than the cookware so start in the shed another great tool that we often recommend is that colored stickers are your best friend get packs of them and make a key purple is keep yellow means give away green goes to a family member red is for the garage sale go room by room and put stickers on everything when you're done you will have completed one of the hardest parts of the job making the decisions give choices to yourself when you are downsizing a large collection you don't have to give up the entire curio cabinet for example in the case of a well-traveled client who had collected 85 teapots from all over the world the mover helped the woman select three then they photographed the rest and put them in an album alongside the three that she kept manage your expectations the kids and grandkids don't want what the parents or grandparents have been saving for them for years they don't want the China silver crystal or figurine collections yet the parents think these are sizable gifts you know and actually I'll just stop here and talk about value of items a little bit and what's kind of happened over the years and since many it used to be a few years ago I'd have to really educate clients as to you know your furniture is not worth any more what you what you thought it was there's been so much talked about written about this and you all come together on a regular basis talk about this you probably already know that the that the value of antiques or what we used to call antiques and are often called now brown furniture it's not meant to be a nice term has really has really plummeted you know for many reasons one is everybody's downsizing so you have a flooded market new stuff from IKEA or big lots or Walmart or Wayfair is cheap and cheap and clean and not used and so people are choosing to go in that direction when we talk about things like you know Hummel figurines and other sort of collections I always talk about my grandmother my mother's mother who had amazing toothpick holder collection and she used to tell us all about the value of her toothpicks were just mind-boggling numbers and then the internet was invented and it turns out everybody was collecting toothpick holders and the value of everything just just collapsed and that's that's really the world we live in now so you know manage your expectations about what your stuff is worth it's why I always sort of push home the idea that anytime you can get free labor to remove your items you are saving yourself a lot of money because to move it for example I mean for a local move a mover is going to charge you $50 an hour per person plus a truck fee to have somebody pack it it's going to be $50 an hour so you know if you have a whole crew that will come for $25 and remove 30% of your stuff that you're happy to get rid of you have just saved yourself a fortune and you know of course you can always store your stuff but I think anybody who's talked to anybody who has a storage unit knows that's a great way to devalue devalue your stuff over time until you get totally frustrated open the doors find out the mice have been in there and you have to sort of dump it all anyway I don't mean to end on it on a bad note so I will say is it having done the process with many many people the feeling they get when they're done is really overwhelmingly positive I've never heard regrets of oh I should have you know I'm really sad I threw that stuff away and those who tend to maintain their pack rat tendencies tend to regret it later but but it's more just people really feel unburdened and that they have gone through this exercise and really helps them feel lighter and more light-hearted so anyway I'll wrap up there I hope I didn't go over time that they have but yes yes there are so many things that I'll be happy to let go if they just would go someplace where it's not landfill yeah and so I mean for I don't have toothpick holders some of them might be sterling silver and some of them might be made at crystal who knows what they might have some intrinsic value but nobody wants to even look at them so what happens to stuff like that can we do anything other than landfill I mean is it well you know depending on the services that are out there you know if you've you know good will in Burlington will generally take anything and then they'll sort it but you know silver if it is in fact sterling it is at least worth the melt weight all the craftsmanship is thrown away all the craftsmanship is thrown away and if that's important to you then you know you could I assume a charity of some kind would be happy to take that because for them there at least there is some financial value yeah any other questions yes I forgot to mention absolutely the best vehicle for getting rid of stuff is the free sign I get overwhelmed with cardboard boxes and at the end of my driveway as we speak is about two dozen cardboard boxes all folded up nicely with a free sign on them but you're absolutely right yes that is that is a great so this book I do recommend it it's really easy to read I think you can get it a bookstore or order it online the name of it is on this piece of paper I put which was just helpful tips and resources and I've actually I just finished a big a big move out of Montpelier for somebody I got another one coming up and I've been able to sort of learn more about the resources around here and you know how the whole system works and you know you're very lucky you do have a restore and bury you've got guys who are willing to be hired with just a pickup truck and so ask around the resources are out there to help you out you know if you're sort of taking it on yourself Peter could you just tell us a little bit about your business how long you've been doing it and do you work as far north as Montpelier so this is my third career but it sort of brings me back to my roots during college when I wasn't in school I worked for a moving company that then made me the official mover of both my wife's family and my family and whether volunteer or not and that included several grandmothers between my wife's side and my side my mother several times and lots of other folks I had something I've just continued to do so as I was between careers my wife happens to do a lot of personal bookkeeping with seniors and she had a client who passed away she was in her 90s and her children were all you know high-level professionals that lived out of state and they said to my wife this woman had left an in-town house full of furniture and an attic of you know personal stuff and all that and her kids looked at my wife and said my god what do we do and she said oh I got just the person who can help you out and thus began a company that I quickly discovered was in fact a growing industry across the United States I belong to a organization called the National Association of Senior Move Managers that seems to double in size every day but really what we do is we we partner with people whether they're seniors or busy professionals or just folks who need a hand to to be the support people and the labor to get their house from full to empty or full to downsized or whatever we pretty much do everything except the actual moving of furniture but we facilitate all of that as well we hire the hire the company get the estimates and make all that happen yes you know as you're talking about the famous George Carlin line when he said it's amazing how your neighbor's stuff is junk but yours for your junk is stuff it's true I guess you're talking it's the question of getting an objective person in there rather than two people who are just so subjective about you know that that literally baseball right yeah yeah we had an Argentine exchange student live with us a few years ago and in the springtime you looked around and he said the system of yard sales it seems like you just one neighbor buys from another neighbor to then sell to another neighbor it just goes around in a circle and I said you are very observant well thank you all very much the do I work in my bill yet yes we do we tend to like to stay more local it's a long drive over here but we just moved a woman out of a big house got another one coming up in November so you know I grew up here and happy to come back from time to time and so it does work out well well the like I said the industry grows every day but for now there's a I know there's another gentleman who does it up in he's out of Richmond or Burlington I think and he's up in Chittin County where there's a lot of business he tends to stay put up there but he and I you know I've sort of referred people back and forth but but for now you know that's that's right yeah it's amazing cuz even in the upper valley I got a lot of calls from Woodstock and why a rejection hand over that area and it's clearly you know it's a business where there's a lot of demand not a lot of supply but it's you know it's a hard thing because you're dealing you're traveling a lot and it's a lot of physical labor so there's a lot of options on this and I totally echo Peters interest in the the book that he recommended from AARP we've got it but you got to pay attention to it you know so start a timeline so if you said I said five years ago we're downsizing in five years that was actually that was three years ago so there's two more years to go and you gradually kind of go through that process of de-stashing until you can get to the point where okay we can handle what we've got but if my involvement in a downsizing group is kind of purely personal because knowing that the house is too big it's got a rental unit attached it's all that needs maintenance you know it's not the neighborhood keeps changing so we don't have the community that was there when we first were there and I want to be in a community where it is a walkable and it's surrounded by friends it's age in a senior-friendly home universal design I think a lot of people have heard about that and then age in a place of beauty with open space and among friends so that's kind of where it came to last year at the end of the fall downsizing meeting I asked if there were people who were interested in something like that to kind of come forward and then form a core group and so of that group we have formed the silver maple group and the logo is thanks to my friend Linda McIntyre and Tim Newcomb they've designed the logo so that it's an actual maple leaf but it's colored silver it's not a silver maple so those are so there are five households so and everybody's here so hands up who's in silver maple now yay okay there's Lynn Catherine Bronwyn Kevin Jeff myself and Sarah who is actually traveling coming back today so we've been meeting for about a year and kind of hashing over how do we want to do everything from type of house to location to governance to formation and the rest of it so we are now trying to achieve the three-fold goal was to do whatever was possible to avoid being in a nursing home to live in a community of nearby friends and not to be a burden to our kids so those were our three objectives so what we are talking about is expanding the group to about 20 households to make it feasible financially we've located a number of properties within the city limits that would be accommodating for what we're talking about we're talking about a pocket neighborhood and I don't know there are there's a book out that's called pocket neighborhoods Ross Chapin is the architect and it's just a 8 to 12 houses surrounding a green where you have open space but you're able to be nearby people which allows with the zoning allows for a greater amount of open space which includes gardens and outbuildings could include a common house and having a common house reduces the size of the home you would have to have so you can go from an 800 say you're in a you know 1500 to 2500 square foot house now if you had storage if you had a place like a guest rooms that kind of thing you would have some room that you could have a smaller house yourself and not have to accommodate that so we're looking to expand there is going to be a meeting on November 15th at the handout at the senior center to kind of gauge what the interest is talk to a lot of potential partners who would be terrific compliments to what we're talking about we're also talking about not just senior we're talking about intergenerational as well as the senior community so having two communities where there are some kids so it can be transitional so I went to a conference in at UMass on co-housing now this isn't co-housing per se the structure will be determined by whoever wants to be a resident whoever wants to join Silver Maple will be making all the decisions I'm just kind of trying to open the doors to find out what is possible what are potential partners what's potential land where can we go with this so on the okay so we're looking to be within Montpelier is kind of thinking is like a community within community so that we want to be an active part of Montpelier but it's very difficult in a downtown setting when you don't have land and you don't have the right structure buildings etc so within Montpelier city limits doesn't necessarily mean downtown it would be nice but I don't know how feasible that is for a number of residents we'd also like to be able to have the younger crowd but have them as a separate management group because kids have very different needs than seniors do so but you could be right within each other there was a group I've spoken to out of North Carolina that did a great job with that so they started with intergenerational and they said well we're aging out of this and this is what's happened in Massachusetts where I went where everybody loved their co-housing group where they were living but they were aging out the kids had grown up they moved out and the homes that they were in were not particularly senior friendly lots of stairs lots of you know angled walk ways no garages so they are considering now moving and buying land to be able to create an over 55 community to free up the homes for younger families and there is a nice symbiosis there so the when is really going to be a matter again of who is interested in something like this it'll be between say ideally two to three years but we'll see how that goes that's the questions it's usually when how much and where so the where part is needs to be discussion because until you put money down on a piece of property you really can't say anything about the specifics that will be decided by the group how much between 800 and 1200 square feet I've talked to Huntington homes I've talked to architects it all is kind of over the map but Montpelier and Vermont in general is not a cheap place to build so we're hoping to be self financing because most of us have homes that we'd be selling and again you know it's if you have a big house and you have a spectacular location you could probably get extra money from the sale of the house but for the most part you know you can look at it almost like an even swap so what you're doing is you're you're making sure your kids don't have to deal with a big house that's your big advantage your big plus so from the standpoint of how much if it's 800 to 1200 square feet you're talking about you know 275 to 350 that's about the going rate for a building a built house there could be single homes it can be duplexes possible apartments but there's so many apartments now coming up for rent in downtown Montpelier I'm not sure whether apartments make sense but again this is all be decided by whoever wants to join the group and the governance is really again going to be decided by that but we've looked into dynamic governance which is another word for sociography where it's a difference from consensus so it's not hierarchical and it's not consensus so that's something that the group will also decide and again there's some we can talk about some of the potential partners at the November 15th meeting I don't want to be very specific now because we're still in discussions about it but one of them could be the city one of them could be another complimentary business so to speak not this is also not business driven this is resident driven and this I'm just knocking on doors and cold calling just because I don't have any problem doing that so just try to see what the options might be perfect can I just see a show of hands of who might be interested in something like this okay so there there are enough people who would be able to come to the meeting I'm hoping to do on some kind of PowerPoint at that time and have one or two other people be able to talk in I haven't publicized it because I wanted to see what the interest was here before making that commitment so I'll be happy to please encourage everybody to please come to that 15th meeting and it doesn't have to be if you you know if you yourself is only are interested if you have family member if you have friend or if you have somebody who might want to move into town so two of our current households are waterbury and Plainfield so and what so yeah and so come to come to that meeting or ask your friends or let them know if somebody might be interested in that so I'm done questions oh it's on the handout it's on it's at 6 30 to 8 at the senior center on November 15th oh yeah I did say that I would say between 24 30 not big units yeah how whether they could be duplexes they could be single homes they could be different sizes but they would be close together so you'd be around a green so that your activity is people who are in the community that you see so you have people who are right nearby they're walking in front of the house for the senior homes they would probably have a garage attached because of the just the weather alone but then it wouldn't necessarily have to be the case for for intergenerational so in Massachusetts they had carports so it was just big long it was all solar panels above it and it made really good use solar energy and looking at efficiency when it comes to energy they run in Massachusetts they are running between 20 and 22 acres but it can be smaller there are the same kind of housing in downtown structures but you do have to build that and you do have to manage it in a very different way than what's available in Montpelier so that's normally but it also depends on the zoning so the zoning in the in the area would make a difference but when you have that you have a lot of open space even though your homes are you know clustered nearby does anybody have else have any questions so the legal structure would be as a condominium so that the condominium board would hire that out I would imagine for plowing mowing shoveling that kind of thing I would think and again this is I'll be determined by who decides to make a commitment and you know in November meeting will be okay who wants to make a commitment to see this going forward there will be a financial commitment initially but it would be refundable so that would be I mean because you have to do something you have to get people to commit just for not verbally it's fairly new it's called sociography I took a workshop in that when I was down in Massachusetts it was pretty interesting there is a guy in Amherst who does workshops on this and so he that would be something that you know we would say okay well would you be willing to do a workshop on this to kind of explain it and he explained it quite well I don't want to start explaining something that I'm not as sociocrat socio sociography just the way it sounds and you could you could look up dynamic governance in the same thing and there they do the organization the sociography there is a newsletter you can always learn about that from that yeah well there is the pocket neighborhoods book which is probably the best example if you want to really see what they look like well I'm going to try that because they put together some kind of a PowerPoint at the meeting so they're calling it sociography what oh the pocket neighborhood yeah this is pocket neighborhoods book and Ross Chapin who was the architect for that and he started pocket neighborhoods Ross Chapin but you should be able to find the book it's pretty easy to I have a copy of the you know so yeah so what's being able to question please oh is that how do you avoid going into a nursing home yeah so at first you obviously we were fine in your own single level age in place we want to all age in place as long as we possibly can so the after the possibly can is that one of the partners we're talking to would be an organization that would address that and I really can't say much more than that other than they have three facilities and their whole focus is on holistic farm to table foodie foods and gardening and all the rest of it so it's a really interesting organization I just met the founder the other day so it's it's still pretty new but it's the residential care but it's a different approach to residential care than what you'd find in a nursing home so other than that I'm better off having him explain it him and her co-founders but cool I think I'm gonna wait because I just found out about it on the other day and I will be able to hopefully talk about it in November so my name is Jean Olson my husband and I live we're the first house on First Avenue where we're on the corner of First Avenue and Hubbard Street so we're really a downtown house we're a large Victorian I've been asked to talk about our process for downsizing within our own home my husband and I bought our house in 84 it was built in 1890 as a duplex from the start when we bought it it was being used as three units we're currently listed as a dwelling with one apartment we have one rental upstairs half of the upstairs is rented to give you a brief idea because of the various configurations over the years we have four kitchens three bathrooms three open porches five outside doors you're starting to get the drift right our largely level lot is almost half an acre and the driveway is large enough to routinely park at least six cars our house is too large for us you probably also got that while we use it all and we do enjoy it we George and I want to retire and in order to do that or change our lives in some fashion and in order to do that we have to somehow supplement our income our house is our biggest asset it's the most sort of elastic asset that we have and and so we've chosen to move into the first floor if you own if any of you own a single family home and you'd like to make it into a two-unit your process will be I believe much simpler than what I'm going to describe to you in the zoning in Montpelier you are entitled to create a duplex to create an accessory apartment or an in-law apartment I think I'm in a fairly modest process ours as you've heard is already a dwelling plus plus one rental unit I'd like to share briefly some of what we learned in in in our effort to downsize and create a second rental upstairs and it's not to dissuade you it's simply to give you information that we didn't have first step agree on your goal for us income matters and yet flexibility also matters we want to be able to rent the space sometimes and also keep the space available sometimes for family and friends second piece of information is to talk with the city in advance it is valuable to talk with zoning and to talk with the building departments as you think through what your options might be because of the history of our house we completely minimize the actions needed to make the change our change of moving downstairs and creating the rental upstairs involved no exterior changes the interior change was simply to reinstall a sink reinstall a counter and put in a front-facing cupboard in one of our four kitchens that's all a cost of about fifteen hundred dollars plus labor everything else is in place the city process involved a building permit with drawings of plants to be submitted with a check a pre-visit from the building inspector plus inspection at the end accompanied by another check a zoning permit with the plot drawn to scale including numbers of trees and shrubs and the lot perimeter which must be hand measured as they don't have the measurements in city records we were told we didn't need an engineers drawing though our original drawing was not to scale and was not acceptable a state water permit for change of use although the area in our house has been used forever and and the water usage is already metered my personal favorite a check for $1400 for indirect water hookup to the public works department even though there is no hookup there is more but the point here is that in addition to what was turning into an onerous process we lost site George and I lost site of our first goal which was to keep our space flexible for the time being the process and perhaps the outcome would have been different if we had heard from the city how can we help you you have a downtown house you're within walking distance of everything we talk about the need for housing we have people looking to move into Montpelier how how are we going to make this happen that's not what we heard fortunately though fortunately an interesting idea is coming out of our experience Barbara Connery volunteered to help us walk through various options and included the site visits to her house she came to our house as an architect and a long time member of the planning Commission Barbara has valuable professional experience that she's willing to volunteer this this is actually a nice compliment to what Peter Conlon talked about earlier he's talking about downsizing and and and so on Barbara is familiar with the city regulations the zoning the planning the architectural issues challenges in your in your home she she couldn't be here today so she created a flyer that I I left out on on the table earlier and I think we and in and talking about what we've been working through Barbara came up with the idea of maybe we need a bridge maybe we need a kind of an ombudsman or a liaison kind of role for those of us who are residents who love our neighborhoods want to stay here have something to offer and and and and yet it it isn't always easy to to do that maybe with her expertise and her experience she could be a bridge so I think that that I think her offer is valuable I think the idea is valuable and in the short term we're going to be an Airbnb and it provides the flexibility that we need it does not provide the housing that I think the city is looking for however that could happen down the road for us we're just taking a simpler route to begin with so I'd be happy thank you very much for listening to my story and I'd be happy to answer any any questions yes you can make without a lot of city involvement and then some potentially larger changes to make it income or rearrangement of your finances is an issue the second half of the course which is going to start number 19 is when we're going to be talking specifically about housing I have the exact same frustrating experience with the city we pass this incredible new zone that allows us all to do various things and the city people playing in zoning too busy or too nervous or something to actually give us help we do need to figure out a way that we can get where's the wise about how we can do what we actually are allowed to do one thing I will add though even though we pass the zoning there's still some tweaking going on and part of their hesitation to help is that some of the tweaks haven't been officially passed thank you thank you very much morning thanks for coming down today my name's Diane Derby I am part of the original team of the downsizing group with Phil and then Terry Gurlain I think is part of it and when we started this in 2015 I thought I was still five years away from downsizing at least and still barely in my 50s and I thought but I had a big house on College Street with it an apartment unit similar to what you're describing Jean and I had a similar experience where I thought maybe as I got older it would be great to finish off the third floor it was large enough 800 square feet for it for an apartment unit and similarly when I heard from the city everything that would be required of creating a third floor apartment I just nixed the idea it just wasn't going to happen for the investment it would take so I went in the other direction as I said I was a landlord I had a second floor apartment never a problem in 20 years renting the apartment I will say because it just shows I always rented at a pretty good rate but I it was always word of mouth I never had to advertise so you know that the markets out there for apartment units in in Montpelier and you know suddenly you know I started talking more about downsizing but I the hardest part was the emotional attachment I had to this house it was the only house I'd ever owned I owned it for 20 years I put so much sweat equity into this house I can't tell you owned it for 20 years and now I'm looking at the list of things that I did 20 years ago and thinking I've got to start all over again you know 20 years in and I got to start that list all over painting and roof and so friends of mine had looked at a small house over the other side of town I went I was in College Street and the house was too small for them but they suggested I take a look and I really wasn't planning right then in there and jumping on this but I found a small house ever in Greenfield Terrace that had not gone on the market the woman was moving up to West View Meadows she was in her 80s and it was a lovely small barely three bedroom ranch 1288 square feet had some really attractive qualities had a really nice quiet yard half an acre lot in a in a really nice quiet neighborhood and I just never envisioned myself being in a ranch home in a suburban neighborhood I was always an old-house lover you know and I really emotionally had to get over that and so long story short I start I put my house on the market in June it went under contract or at least an agreed upon price in four days and and so you know maybe I didn't ask quite enough but I have a wonderful young woman who came along who really wanted the apartment the additional income from me or why the house the additional income from the apartment made sense for her and lo and behold we struck a deal and I moved into the you know made the offer on the other house and it just happened really really easy I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop but you know and it was and now so I sold we closed the last week of July on both houses I'm in my new house for a few months now and that emotional attachment that I thought I had is so gone it's so over it's such a relief you know and some of my goals were met I have one minute to wrap up but my biggest goal was to be almost mortgage-free I allowed my you so I pretty much selling from a large house to a small house immobiliar managed to get enough equity out of my old house that I owned for 20 years to almost clear off what was remaining of my mortgage and of course my mortgage kept ballooning because I kept on taking more money out on home equity to do projects in the old house which included a $35,000 kitchen renovation and that was kind of the final straw in how much I could keep on pumping into the house so I did manage in all of this to downsize to pay off most of my mortgage I took out a small mortgage and allowed myself enough leeway to put a little more money into the new house I bought and so that said you know I'm 59 years old my hope is to keep on working for another you know four or five years but in that time to really work on savings that I really wasn't able to do as well with the big old house because all my money but the flip side of that is the equity I got out of the house allowed me to do what I'm doing now so I think I'm out of time but with that if anybody else wants to talk about the ins and outs you know it was I happen to be the daughter of two real estate brokers who are long deceased now but I grew up showing houses with my mother so that that was a great help and and the other one tip I'll give you for selling an old house take the time in addition to everything Peter told you about downsizing and decluttering take the time to really either have a good photographer take good photos and have someone who can stage your home and really declutter it for you before showing because by the time my and luckily for me that was my sister and she managed to make my house look so good I didn't want to get rid of it but that was a really key point to selling to really you know I put it on Zillow and not that I don't want to suggest you don't hire like I said I had lots of experience I felt comfortable going Zillow on it and the really key point was getting it to look as good as it did skate. Thank you. Okay, Kerry's just telling me that if there aren't enough of any of the handouts and somebody wants them just let us know through our email address and we can get those to you electronically. My name's Phil Dodd. I'm just right now introducing the next speakers Barbara Florsch and Larry Florsch if you could come up before Larry and Barbara were here at a prior meeting to tell us about their plan to build a new house. At that time they were just starting the process their longtime residents of Adamant and then looked around for place to buy and couldn't find one and decided to build it well now lo and behold the house is done and they're going to tell us about the process and how it's ended up. Thank you. So I'm just going to talk a little about the chronology of what we've done and then Larry will talk about the house. We started getting ready to downsize in 2015 in the summer and it took us about not quite a year to get rid of so much stuff you know responsibly which is really hard. But we put the house on the market nine months after we started getting ready. It sold in three months. It was about twenty two hundred twenty three hundred square feet four bedrooms two and a half bath 15 acres three and a half miles of dirt road very steep driveway. So we became transient because we didn't have the resources to say we're just going to go buy a house now and live in in one. So we became transient. We spent three months in Bolton five months at the beach in Florida six months in Moncton and about ten months in Burlington and all this time we're looking for we're in Vermont we're looking for a house and could find nothing that we really wanted. So then we started looking for land and it was really difficult. But we finally in October bought land on Dodge Farm Road in Berlin right up by the airport. Beautiful views. I like the airplane. Some people might not. And we started building the house. It went under construction November very first of November and we moved in very first of August. So it was just about exactly two years from when we closed on selling our house and we moved into our new house and the when we moved into our new house we found out we continue to declutter and downsize because what we had kept we were when we were moving we put everything there's our builder we put everything into storage. So we had all of our belongings in storage for two years in a controlled temperature controlled storage. And when we got it all out things we thought we couldn't live without we thought why do we have this. And so the actually that two years was really a helpful sort of purging for more purging. So I'm going to just say that I love the new house. It is wonderful. It's about four minutes from the hospital four minutes from the interstate four minutes from the shaws. And it's less than I don't know a sixteenth of a mile from the hard top which in spring is a big deal. And so my one piece of advice that I'll have about downsizing is you really must be compelled to do it because it can't just be kind of a nice idea because when you get into it it's not only a huge amount of work but you know the bowl your grandmother gave you or this that you've never used in like 25 years. You have to really look at that and I've talked to a lot of people who say I want to do it too but when you really start talking to them they're not ready to do that yet. So there has to be something I was compelled to do it I was impressed by stuff and so it worked for us. Larry's going to tell you about the house and if you have questions we have our builder as well. Yeah he's going to back me up. So the house we designed was 1350 square feet and we wanted something that was going to be energy efficient. So we worked with our contractor and kind of laid out a floor panel. We had started on cocktail napkins and things you know and then eventually became a reality and Malcolm did the Malcolm grade did the floor plan you know made it official and did the elevations everything we take it to the bank and get money for the mortgage there the construction loan. The house is I it is not a passive house but if I'm correct it's the next step down which is a high efficiency house. So we actually have certification from efficiency Vermont that this house uses 35 percent of the energy of a energy star house which is really nice when you get your electric bill because that's really all we're running on is electricity for heating through a heat pump and we would have been a passive house had we not opted for propane for cooking for a gas fireplace to kind of make it nice you know in the wintertime and hot water it's an on-demand hot water heater. Phil asked me to talk somewhat about the economics of this whole thing and I will admit that last year I'm aligned architects. I don't see I don't see Jay around but he wasn't involved in this but we had another architect that we had consulted and and his plan or his his plans for a thirteen hundred fifty square foot house came out to roughly six hundred seventy five thousand dollars which is a bit more than we wanted to spend. So he went back to the drawing board and he he got that down to closer to what our budget was and he called us and said he had good news you know it was going to be three hundred and fifty thousand dollars but the house was only going to be seven hundred square feet so we didn't like that either so that's why we have to put it on wheels and take it to Southern California to sell it right so anyway with working with Malcolm Gray and Mount Pig your construction we came up with a plan and the initial plan was for roughly about a hundred seventy nine dollars a square foot or about two hundred and forty something thousand dollars but you know we're kind of extravagant people and so we didn't quite I have to be nice to the architect because he was partly correct we couldn't build it for two hundred and forty seven thousand dollars because we like nice things so the house cost us more than that but it only came out to around two twenty nine a square foot which we had to you know go to our savings to come up with the difference between that and the what the bank was going to loan us but but it all worked out and we're in the house now and it's operating as advertised our electric bills are running about I'm gonna say a hundred dollars a month for cooling and or heating because the heat pump does either way which was very nice back in July and August when we moved in because it was quite hot and it was nice to get into that house and have the air conditioning working so and and we we would like to be in the country because we were used to a lot of acreage so we have five acres and it our fire our acreage is split by a road but the good thing about that is that no one can build on the other side of our road and the farm beyond it's in conservation and their mountain view so we have a place we can walk this more level but it's in the country but it's still really close to town and Shaw's and Shaw's so the whole I'm not afraid to tell the whole price of our lot between the lot and building the house I think it came to around 306 360 360 with the price of all 360 with the price of the lot for five acres and it's I mean the walls 13 inches thick and we have the the windows are called clear wall because they have the same our value as a wall that's insulated so it's a really well constructed house Malcolm what are the what's the our values on the walls in the in the house and it's all and it's all and all the doors are handicapped accessible it's that universal design yeah and to interpret I was going to say to interpret for you a slab on grade means there's no cellar so we had to we had to compensate for the fact that we had to hide things like the pressure tank for the well and hot water heater had to go someplace in the house in a closet somewhere and also there's an air mover system that brings fresh air into the house and circulates the air within the house but it's a beautiful it's beautiful it's really quite beautiful we're gonna take pictures we didn't kind of get around to it we have one picture of the kitchen which is gorgeous so it doesn't feel small I mean we feel like we have plenty of room we have three bedrooms two baths and one of those bedrooms is an office they're not big but you sleep in them I mean I think the office is 8 by 10 well yeah I think it's 8 by 10 and the guest room is about 8 by 10 and the master is about 11 by 12 hopefully down the road we need to do that because my tractor is very angry with me it's having to spend its time outside now and it's quite used to having a shed yes and these are very nice windows they are called tilt and turn windows if you turn the latch quarter way it'll tilt back which allows you to have it open if it's raining and then if you want to open it all the way you turn it like 8 180 degrees and it swings open like a door well yes there was that issue there were a few things I mean one of the reasons that we went over budget is right behind me we started in November which is not a good time to start building a house and at one point I was buying a tank of propane you know the gas grill size every day to keep to keep the crew warm in the house is the best building but and plowing and all that kind of stuff yes no it's not we do not have that yet we're planning to get that down the road but we at the moment it's just the house and and it's got so it's siding is roofing so it's real nice I have to do is you know watch it it's made you know definitely low and I don't did you bring the picture there's one picture I have that of the house on paper but anyway it the the problem with the windows was that it was just a comedy of errors in a way the the windows were ordered in November and they were manufactured in Ireland and we didn't know that the Irish had this thing about going on a vacation for four weeks at Christmas time and then Ireland was struck with winter storms which they never get so there were places in Ireland they got two feet of snow that never have snow at all so that bogged everything down and then these nor'easters that hit us last year were crossing the Atlantic and the ship that picked up our windows got stuck in Rotterdam waiting for the weather to clear so it took six full months to get those windows from Ireland and that held up things at one point I think we went about two or three weeks with the house just boarded up and no work being done because they we had gotten to the point where they needed the windows to continue and we didn't have the windows so it all cleared up eventually and when the windows came Montpelier construction was very nice they had the entire I think the entire organization was there and they had the windows in and about three quarters of a day yeah so that the house is no we love having no basement when we cleaned out our big basement in East Montpelier and adamant I think we kept two or three things out of the basement you know there was just like it wasn't a real draw baseman I think we kept a couple of we had five coolers any more questions okay And now comes here if anybody wants to ask him questions afterwards. That's Malcolm Bright. Thank you. It's great to hear these stories of people who are walking the walk and some of us are just talk about doing. I'm here to give you what I can of a brief update on new housing developments in Montpelier. There are some. We're seeing more activity in apartments than in owned homes or condos. So I'll talk about the apartments first. You've probably all seen the Maple Lane apartments down by the co-op. That's a six-unit building that was built and completed. It's not quite complete, but it's six two-bedroom units. Each one has two bedrooms, two baths, granite countertops, oak floors, radiant floors in the bathroom, air conditioning. They're renting out those units at 16.95 per month plus heat. So that's the high end of the Montpelier market probably. Those are near the co-op. If you look from the co-op, they were built in the last year. I don't believe so. What I did hear is that four units on the second and third floors are finished. Three of those four are rented, or leased, and the two on the first floor are just about finished. Those are ADA accessible. So that's a new one that came along and apparently filled some demand. I know of two new very small projects in town. Jay Ansel, who's an architect, reports that he is in the process designing what will likely be three new two-bedroom rental units on Main Street in the Red Two-Story Alvarez building. If I'm not mistaken, that was once the location for Capital Market years ago. Each unit would have one parking space on site, and he said it's still in the concept stage, but if you're interested to contact Jay Ansel at Black River Design. Some of you may have seen some new construction over on Berlin Street on the other side of the river before it goes up the hill. That's watershed construction, building two new 1,200 square foot units, each with two bedrooms, two baths. There's a porch on the back and a two-bed garage for each unit. They're building these with other investors, and we'll be renting them out hopefully starting in February. The partner in that organization, Ben Dunham, or one of the partners, told me the rent is not set, but it could be in the $1,500 to $1,700 range. His firm focuses on small, well-insulated, toxin-free projects, he said, called Contact Watershed Construction, if you're interested. Well, you look on Google Map, it's called Memorial Drive, turning into Berlin Street, but I think of it as Riverside. Downstreet is very active right now, and you're all probably aware of the French block that is those units over Abishan that are being built. Those are going to be leased out starting in January. There are going to be 18 studio and one-bedroom units on the second and third floor. No assigned parking, except for two handicap spots behind the building that will be assigned. But the city has apparently made a deal to provide reduced-rate parking permits for people who do need parking. There are going to be... There are 30 people have already sent in applications for these 18 units, but that does not mean it's too late because there are different categories depending on income and not all applicants get approved. Half of the units there are reserved for single tenants with income of 32,600 or less, or two people with income of 37,300 or less. And the rents for those units will be in the 800 to 875 range, including heat. There will be three fully-market-rate units there, also with somewhat higher rents and where income is not a factor. The other project that's starting up now is the Taylor Street Apartments at the Transit Center that will not be completed till next summer. That one will have 30 new units, including studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units. 19 of those units will have the same income limits I mentioned earlier, but 11 will be reserved for people with higher incomes. And so those will be available to people with single people of income up to 65,280 or 74,600 for two people. Applications are not being taken for those, but if you're interested, keep watching the Down Street website. I should mention that we've talked to Down Street about this before. They do, you know, people have wondered, well, I have some assets, am I going to allow it to be in there? They do consider assets, but they assume a very low rate of return. I mean very low rate of return when they calculate how much income you're likely to get from these assets. So some people may meet their guidelines even if you have substantial assets. Watch their DownStreet.org website for more information on these. You know, there does seem to be a good demand for apartments in Montpellier. Greg Gaillet, who was originally up here at our first meeting, since now lives part-time in Florida, told me that he renovated his carriage house behind his home on Elm Street this summer and rented out very easily. He did say and wanted me to pass along, he's happy to share information about the costs of his project and the income he expects. So if you have a carriage house or a place where you could add an apartment to your house, Greg is a resource and contact me if that's of interest. You know, building costs are a concern. You may also have heard about a project Tom Lauzon for Barrie is going to build down at the old gulf station on State Street. He was talking about possibly including two or more high-end residential units on the top floor, but I've heard through the grapevine that he's decided against that because it was very expensive and he's going to rent the top floor to a law firm. So as if we don't have enough lawyers in Montpellier already. So just a word now about owner-occupied units. You know, there have been some false starts there. We know about and heard about at these meetings small units up at the old Neckie building on Upper Main Street. Well, that project seems to have been put on the back burner. The owner has gone silent. There was some neighborhood concern about it and I know there might have been some soil stability issues with the property that I've heard. Also, there's nothing happening at Vermont College where there had been talk of developing housing on land behind the college. Tom Green, I spoke to recently him exactly. He said, quote, while we have an interest in developing or having someone develop our property on Berry Street, one party that expressed interest has stepped away and we are not having any active conversations about development at this time. By looking a little farther down the line, Steve Ribellini, who's a big landlord in town, is still talking about doing something up by the Elks Club where he's bought property. He's building condos that could be for rent or sale out there. One issue is how big the sewer line is going up to the Elks Club. He needs to do more research on that. He said he might be able to build 10 to 12 residential units without upgrading the line, but anything bigger would require a larger sewer line. The other location Steve has some property is off Granite Street where the granite sheds are. He's purchased the old northeast granite shed there and he says after his Elks Club project he'd like to tear down the sheds and build as many as 35 new units there which could be condominiums, but this is obviously a couple of years away. Of course, the other option we heard about earlier is Cary's Silver Maple Group and that's really an exciting prospect. So keep an eye on that. I just wanted to finish with a comment about the real estate market because many of you own real estate so if you're or maybe thinking of buying another piece of real estate and if you're in that category you should know that the local real estate market has continued to be strong this fall according to Tim Heaney although nationwide sales have slowed a bit due to higher mortgages and higher prices and lack of inventory. But I should say and I want to finish with this if you own a house and are planning to make a change at some point my advice is not to wait too long I should probably follow this advice this is an article from the Wall Street Journal called The Boomer Bust what happens when the group of people who own more real estate than anyone in the country sell it all so just to read one sentence here it says when the baby boomers begin to abandon home ownership entirely because they move into rentals and retirement homes they're going to create a slow moving tidal wave of housing supply that a 2018 study by Fannie Mae's economic and strategic research group predicts could cause a huge buyer's market starting around 2026 so we've got a few years but there's your warning so that is the end of the day I don't know if there are any final thoughts Diane do you want to add any more questions nothing imminent apparently I did want to ask from feedback are these meetings useful would people like to see these happen again just to reiterate the e-mail address for those of you who are new and haven't been to meetings before is Montpelier Downsizing Group at Gmail it's pretty easy to remember but then if you have questions and we can electronically send you copies of these you want to sign up and if you're also you could sign up here and I'll spend tomorrow entering the names into the contacts list