A Strange Year

After doing this real estate stuff for as long as I have, you tend to expect certain things at different times of the year. Generally, everyone gears up for a busy spring market, followed by a typically good summer market. Then when fall comes, the buyers become more choosy and mainly look for good deals. Winter is normally slow in Minnesota, so then we just get ready for spring again.

But the last few years - and certainly this year - it is hard to judge just what to expect in any given month. The economy has dealt nearly everyone a blow, so it is not surprising that people are a bit more cautious. But what is most surprising to me is the amount of interest we are seeing from potential buyers looking for properties online...yet not really making contact with agents or looking at homes in person.

The number of visitors on our website has increased tremendously, so I can only assume that most of those people have the financial ability to purchase a lake property of some sort. Perhaps, everyone is just trying to make sure that prices have bottomed before they jump in.

I don't know if we are at the bottom or not, but it sure feels like prices can't really go much lower. It seems like a lot of sellers are deciding to pull the plug, and just take their homes off the market until things change. Generally, that is a pretty strong indication that we have hit a bottom, so we'll see.

If you are a serious buyer and just waiting for the perfect time to get out and find that perfect lake place, I don't think you will ever see a better opportunity to pick up a great value on a waterfront home or cabin. But unless you get out there and see a few of them in person, you may never know for sure.

Price Dips aren't Permanent...and Neither are Dips in Cabin Floors

Much of the lake cabin stock of Minnesota and Wisconsin is getting up there in age, closing in on the 100 year mark. And the northern winters, with frost as deep as six feet, have a tendency to make a few adjustments in these structures - many of them built as seasonal abodes just a level or two higher in quality than the even more seasonal hunting shacks that adorn the northern woods.

Our forefathers - and foremothers - were resourceful when it came to constructing the family lake cabin, and generally used materials that were most readily available. Quite often, those were the trees that had grown up on the surrounding land. And since many of them needed to be removed to create roads and open spaces anyway, using that timber for joists and studs killed two birds with one stone.

Spruce logs and rough-cut dimension lumber (in many odd dimensions not available at your local lumber yard) were not quite as sturdy as the kiln-dried variety used today - and foundations were sometimes only as deep as the nearest rock or tree root to the surface. But who cared about a little bounce or shifting here and there? These places were meant to have fun, and late night drinking parties would cause the floors to seem uneven anyway. So as long as the inhabitants were a half a bubble off, the floors might as well be that way, too!

Back in the twenties and thirties there were still a lot of choices out there when it came to finding a good place to throw up a lake cabin. Even on the most high priced lakes of today, you could find perfect sandy beaches on large acreage plots nearly anywhere you wanted...and at prices even lower than they are this year.

As time progressed the lakes became more developed, and some of those historic cabins disappeared in favor of more modern - and much larger - "lake houses" that took their places. But one intriguing aspect of old cabins is their rustic and authentic charm that is very difficult to replicate, so many of those original cottages grew over time to become "lake houses" themselves through a process called "adding on," which helped retain a bit of the original character that gave the place its ambiance. Sometimes, though, the "adding on" only occurred on the sides and the top of the original structure...and not underneath. And when you increase the mass of any object, without beefing up its support mechanism, something will generally give.

There are two phrases that I've heard more than any other from prospective buyers over the years, as I have driven them from one house or cabin to the next, in search of the perfect combination of lake home; lakeshore type; lake size and quality; lot size; and likely lifestyle they may find in this location.

The first phrase is more often related to actual lake home buyers and goes like this: "If we could just move our house to this lot, it would be perfect." Since I know they are transferring in from Pittsburgh, I find it hard to believe they would pay the transportation costs of their entire home for that distance, so I just drive on to the next property on our list instead of getting off track checking on UPS charges for something like that.

The other common comment comes from lake cabin buyers, and it makes quite a bit more sense than the first one: "We already have a house; we want something that feels like a cabin." What they are really saying is, "Find me one of those places built 80 years ago filled with character. But, since I don't have the knowledge or the time to fix it up, find me one in good shape."

Because a lot of lake cabin buyers do like the true cabin feel, and because a lot of those early cabins also have some of the most prime sandy lots due to their original owners getting in at the head of the line, the older structures are attractive. But there can be a few issues that need to be taken care of, and one of them is dipped or sloping floors.

This is certainly a roundabout way of getting to the main subject matter of this article! But now I'll try to keep on track.

If the place has been there for a long time, it is probably done moving. It may still head up and down a bit over the freezing and thawing seasons, depending on if you leave it heated or not over the winter. But it should pretty much settle in again at the same level once the frost retreats.

There are a couple different methods you can use to bring sagging or sloped floors back to a more level state, and one may be better than the other depending on access to the floor joists and quality of flooring currently in place. Also, if those dipped floors are on the second story, it is quite difficult to adjust the entire house from the bottom up without affecting most of your doors and windows at the same time.

Whatever method of adjustment you decide is best, you should first make sure that everything is solid under the structure. Sometimes you will find cracked or rotten floor joists that need to be replaced or given extra support. Don't add any more weight onto an already faulty infrastructure.

Once you know everything is solid below, then you can begin to bring your floors back to level. If there are minor sags and soft spots on the main floor, and you can easily get under the structure, you can use jacks to slowly bring up those areas to the correct height, and then re-support each of those spots. You may have to do this over time, as wood doesn't not like to make any quick decisions in changing its shape (unlike people, who make quick decisions on changing their shapes for the better, but don't often follow through with it). But if you have the patience, you will typically be able to get your floors quite level again with this procedure.

Another method of leveling is to remove the underlayment and subfloor in the areas affected and either add new, straighter joists, or scab onto the ones that are there. You may or may not have to do this throughout the entire room, but it can be a lot of work if you have a large area to repair. And if it is an upstairs area of the house or cabin, you may run into insulation, plumbing and electrical wires between the floor and the ceiling below, so you have to use a lot of caution in this process.

Fortunately, there is one other method that is not as intrusive as the removal of the flooring system. Instead, you can find your highest spot in the floor and build your floor up to that level. Essentially, it creates a new subfloor over the old floor, and stiffens everything up along with making it level again. You will lose about a half inch of height in that particular room, but unless you are already nearly seven feet tall it should not affect you much.

You will first need to run a straight-edge from the high point to other areas of the room (a long straight board should suffice), and then run a level on top of that to see what thickness of shimming will be required to raise the floor. Then, figure out the surface area of the room for your new layer of flooring. If you are going to run carpet, floating floor, linoleum, or a similar finished flooring product, then a half inch layer of plywood works well for your new underlayment. So now you just have to figure out how much of it you need for the entire room, and what other materials will fit underneath it to support it all.

Once you've figured out the difference in height from the high point to the low point of your floor, you should use sheets of plywood, OSB, or another product in various thicknesses ranging from 1/4" to the total thickness needed, or be able to stack them to get to that thickness. So, if you have a 2 inch drop, you might want sheets of 1/4", 3/8", 1/2", 5/8" and 3/4". Then use small pieces of each thickness to slide under your straight-edge to see what the actual total thickness is needed to support that 1/2" plywood sheet just perfectly, then measure the distance needed for each thickness before it begins to push the straight-edge up again. You should also have a couple bundles of 1/16" construction shims, which are 3 foot long strips of cardboard that can be stacked to fill any thinner gaps.

If you have a large drop in the floor, it is easier to build the floor back up throughout those regions with larger sheets of plywood, and then run two inch strips of your shim materials over that new surface to fill in the remaining gaps. Smaller dips can be remedied more easily with just using the correct thickness of shim strips off of the existing floor. You should run each strip no more that about 6-8 inches apart to give the best support to your new layer of flooring. If you go much wider than that, you will tend to get some bounce between those new shim supports.

When all the shims are in place and level, you can put down your new layer of flooring with subfloor screws no more than one foot apart throughout the surface. Make sure you run the screws directly into the shims, instead of the gaps between the shims, so you don't pull down on the unsupported areas of your new floor. Now you can add your new baseboard, and trim any doors that may be too tight with the higher level of flooring. You will find that your bounce in the floor will be gone, and it will feel like a new room.

I've shown lots of interesting cabins over the years that had similar issues to those we have talked about here. With the right materials, and a few days of focused determination, you can have that rustic and charming lake cabin...and level floors to boot!