Local Habitat team sells eighth house

Gone is the purple checkerboard plexiglass sun porch. And the crumbling stone foundation.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20121204/NEWS02/712049950

Local Habitat team sells eighth house By Susan Smallheer Staff Writer | December 04,2012 SPRINGFIELD — Gone is the purple checkerboard plexiglass sun porch. And the crumbling stone foundation. In its place are 144 panes of clear, well-glazed glass, a tight foundation and new heating system designed to keep winter’s worst at bay. Those are just the tip of the hundreds of hours of work that members of the local Habitat for Humanity group put into its eighth house sold Friday to a participating family. David Yesman, president of the local group, and Habitat members Vicki Ball and Oliver Peck on Friday were putting the finishing touches, and cleaning up a few odds and ends, in anticipation of the closing on the sale of the house at 9 Whitcomb St. A fourth volunteer, Richie Wyman, walked in, and summed up the work: “Looks good.” This year’s project was a rehabilitation of an 1842 house with a stone foundation that was so leaky before the work, Yesman said an energy audit showed the leaks were equivalent to a gaping hole measuring more than 4-feet square. “A classic old Springfield house,” is how Ball described it. The local Habitat for Humanity group bought the house during a foreclosure auction a year ago. It had stood vacant about a year, Yesman said. It needed new plumbing and new wiring. The roof needed fixing. Dozens of Habitat volunteers, along with the Springfield couple Jeremy Desmarais and Jennifer Bixby, worked on the house for the past five months replacing windows and window panes, refinishing floors, moving kitchen cabinets, fixing the leaky foundation and replacing some slates in the roof. The large backyard has a new stockade fence, and the vinyl siding has been scrubbed. The new blended family includes three children, Yesman said. “We call it a ‘hand up, not a hand out,’” said Yesman, summing up Habitat’s goal of putting people in their own homes, with “sweat equity.” Habitat requires the couple to put in 250 hours of work, or sweat equity, into the home before being allowed to purchase it. Yesman said a total of 56 gallons of donated paint, (the local group only had to pay shipping) were used to spruce up the eight-room, four bedroom house. All the rooms have been painted a soothing combination of white and beige. In some cases, the plaster in the walls and ceilings was so deteriorated, it had to be replaced, said Ball. In other cases, the old plaster walls were skim-coated, then painted and painted again, Yesman said. The previous owner had a penchant for unusual and hard-to-cover colors, including the unusual purple checkerboard plexiglass porch, he added. Yesman personally tackled that job. The group had to hire professional craftsmen for part of the work, but the craftsmen often donated much of the work. Brian Goodrich of Cavendish was hired to fix the plumbing, and he also worked “several days at no charge,” Yesman said. Carl Gerhart of Chester was the electrician on the project, who also volunteered as well, he said. Yesman said the Habitat group had built new homes and rehabilitated existing homes. And while building new was the group’s preference, he said finding building lots for sale was a big challenge. The house is now appraised at $113,000, and the house is being sold to Desmarais and Bixby for $86,000. The group paid $55,000 for the house in November 2011. The Desmarais and Bixby family won’t be able to turn around and “flip” the house, said Yesman, because of Habitat covenants included in the home’s deed. Habitat for Humanity has the right of first refusal if the couple wants to sell the house, he said, and the couple only gets to keep 25 percent of any increase in value. The goal is to keep the house “affordable housing” in perpetuity, said Yesman. “A lot of people have the wrong idea about a Habitat house,” said Yesman, who is a real estate agent and member of the Springfield Select Board. “People think that they aren’t working. But they’re paying taxes just like you and I, and paying for heat and lights and mortgage. It’s their house,” said Yesman. The group would love to have someone donate some land for the next project, he said, noting the group has 401(c)3 tax-exempt status. Of the eight homes Habitat has built or remodeled, Yesman said seven were in Springfield and one in Bellows Falls, with the homes split between rehabilitation and new construction.