Every year around this time I start looking at lake cottages for sale. They are always out of my reach financially, though at one point they felt “only just” out of reach, as if at any moment we’d find the perfect one and we’d finally have enough money to feel comfortable making the stretch. Then came the Pandemic. Since then, lake houses have gotten crazy expensive, just like other homes, and our spending power has been eaten away by inflation.
Occasionally I see a cottage at a price that makes me hopeful, but only until I’ve finished reading the details. There’s always a reason many, many reasons why the price is lower. Here’s the sad truth: if a lakefront home in any Northeastern state is even close to affordable, that’s because it’s strictly seasonal, and/or one-bedroom, and/or a mobile home, and/or on rented land, and/or on an island, and/or dilapidated, and/or part of a high-cost HOA, and/or lacking plumbing and electricity, and/or not actually on a lake but merely in the same general vicinity, and/or is located outside the range any sane New Yorker or Bostonian would be willing to drive (their range is the same as mine, and they take everything that’s decent within that range).
Sometimes I wonder if I’d even like having a lake cottage. Not only are they pricey, but they come with a lot of extra work: more laundry, more cleaning, more outdoor maintenance, more bills, more driving, etc. I’m getting older and dislike the cold more, so moving in a northward direction, which is where many of the cottages are, might not be the best idea. Many lakes are warming due to climate change and have related problems, or have major pollution or invasive species, so finding a cottage is only half the battle. For example, who wants to spend a fortune on a cottage only to find that you can’t use the lake half the time due to toxic algae blooms or bacteria? You really have to do your research.
Anyway, we could simply rent a cottage or do some other type of summer vacation, but we don’t in part because a vacation for four is practically unaffordable. Given that, I have no business even thinking about buying a second home, which would be even more expensive. And yet, the dream refuses to die. Next summer you will find me parked in front of my computer again, searching various real-estate websites, looking for the impossible: an affordable, conveniently located, all-season, 2+ bedroom cottage on the shores of a deep, clean, beautiful lake.