Painting is an American gem
Close-to-home travel opens profit avenues for homeowners, property investors
Q: I am looking for some information about a marine oil painting signed in the lower right “Chas. P. Gruppe.” It is in the original gold frame and the size of the painting is 35.5-by-41.5 inches. We think this painting was probably purchased by my husband’s grandparents in the 1920s or ’30s. Hope you are able to help.
A: This is certainly a dramatic painting! Some may even find the heaving ocean a bit stomach-churning.
Today, the internet can tell collectors a lot about what they own, but it can also lead them down a rabbit hole into a maelstrom of misinformation. It really helps to have a little experience interpreting information gathered online, and always remember to look for a second source to act as confirmation.
Charles Paul Gruppe was born on Sept. 3,
1860, in Picton, Ontario, Canada. His father, Henry W. Gruppe, died when Charles was 3 years old and his mother, Albertina, moved Charles and his brother and sister to Rochester, New York.
Gruppe was a self-taught artist and somewhat of a prodigy when at age
12 he became one of the founders of the Rochester Art Club.
In 1897, Gruppe moved his wife and family to the Netherlands, where he worked with the Hague School and also as a dealer, selling paintings by Dutch artists in the United
States. The Gruppe family returned to New York
City in 1913 just before the outbreak of World War I.
Back in New York, Gruppe joined a number of prestigious art clubs, including the American Watercolor Society, the National Arts Club, the New York Color Club, the Philadelphia Art Club and the interestingly named Salmagundi Club, which began its existence as the New York Sketch Class (later the New York Sketch Club).
Other than Gruppe, the Salmagundi Club included such members as N. C. Wyeth, Norman Rockwell and Louis Comfort Tiffany. It was founded in 1871, and many say its name was taken from a kind of hodgepodge stew that was often served to the members in the club’s early days. But it is really from a French word for “a desperate assembly of ideas, things or people.”
Gruppe had four children, all of whom were in the arts — one a cellist, another a sculptor, another a watercolorist. His son Emile Albert Gruppe (1896-1978) was also an artist who specialized in coastal and marine paintings like his father.
Today’s questioner might be interested in knowing they own a piece by an artist whose work can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution and the Detroit Institute of Art, among others. Charles Gruppe’s paintings usually sell for between $5,000 and $15,000, and his most desired works feature boats, boatyards, wharves and people.
In our opinion, the painting in today’s question should be insured for $7,500.
Helaine Fendelman and
Joe Rosson have written a number of books on antiques. Do you have an item you’d like to know more about? Contact them at Joe Rosson, 2504 Seymour Ave., Knoxville, TN 37917, or email them at treasures@knology.net. If you’d like your question to be considered for their column, include a high-resolution photo of the subject, which must be in focus, with your inquiry.
Statistically speaking, Idaho is one of America’s greatest economic success stories. The state has low unemployment and high income growth. It has expanded education spending while managing to shore up budget reserves. Brad Little, the state’s governor, has attributed this run of prosperity to the mix of low taxes and minimal regulation that conservatives call “the business climate.”
But there is another factor at play: Californians, fleeing high home prices, are moving to Idaho in droves. This fact can be illustrated with census data, moving vans — or resentment.
Home prices rose 20% in 2020, according to Zillow, and in Boise, Idaho, “Go Back to California” graffiti has been sprayed along the highways. The dichotomy between growth and its discontents has fused the city’s politics and collective consciousness with a question that city leaders around the country were asking even before the pandemic and remote work trends accelerated relocation: Is it possible to import California’s growth without also importing its housing problems?
“I can’t point to a city that has done it right,” said Lauren McLean, Boise’s mayor.
That’s because as bad as California’s affordable housing problem is, it isn’t really a California problem. It is a national one. From rising homelessness to anti-development sentiment to frustration among middle-class workers who’ve been locked out of the housing market, the same set of housing issues has bubbled up in cities across the country. They’ve already surfaced in Boise; Denver; Nashville, Tennessee; Austin, Texas, and many other high-growth cities. And they will
become even more widespread as remote workers move around.
Housing costs are relative, of course, so anyone leaving Los Angeles or
San Francisco will find almost any other city to have a bountiful selection of homes that seem unbelievably large and cheap. But for those tethered to the local economy, the influx of wealthier outsiders pushes housing costs further out of reach.
Frustrating as this is for prospective homebuyers, the real pain is felt among low-income tenants, a quarter of whom — about 11 million U.S. households — are already spending more than half their pretax income on rent. As rising costs filter through the market and the rent burden gets more severe, food budgets get squeezed, families double up and the most vulnerable end up on the streets.
In city after city, studies have shown that homelessness has a distinct financial tipping point. As soon as the local rent burden reaches the point where renters on average spend more than a third of their income on housing, the number of people on the streets starts to rise sharply, according to
researchers at Zillow and elsewhere.
Cities are built around jobs, and the nation’s inequality reflects that.
In a trend that has been exhaustively documented by economists and journalists, over the past four decades the U.S. economy has bifurcated into high-paying jobs in fields like tech and finance and low-paying jobs in retail and personal services. It could be described as two separate societies, but in U.S. metropolitan areas these societies are intertwined.
This is as true in Boise as it is in San Francisco. Some work has to be done in person. No matter how high housing costs get, there is not, as of yet, a way to telecommute to a cleaning job. So unless the hordes of expatriate Californians flocking to cheaper cities expect their children to be in remote school forever, to never again eat at a restaurant, to always tidy their own homes — and unless companies leaving California expect to do without the services of janitors and security guards — the underlying problem will persist in every next city that has the misfortune of becoming desirable.
COVID-19 has changed how people travel in addition to the way people work and where they want to live. Companies like Airbnb and Vrbo allow homeowners to rent out rooms or properties for short-term vacationers, and have seen shifts in traveler preferences since the start of the pandemic.
Both companies report that travelers today are more likely to stay closer to home. Demand for accommodations that travelers can drive to, rather than fly, has risen, and vacationers are more likely to visit places with outdoor activities instead of urban centers with indoor landmarks and attractions.
For homeowners, these changing tastes could be an opportunity for a little extra cash. If you have a home in a newly-popular vacation area, you could rent it out and use that money to help cover your mortgage, boost your savings or fund other big purchases. These shifting travel demands could present a good opportunity for those looking to get into real estate investing, too.
“Once people feel safe to travel, they will. But it will look different than before the pandemic.
Travel will be viewed as an antidote to isolation and disconnection,” Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky wrote in a report the company released in January about 2021 travel trends. “People don’t generally miss landmarks, crowded shuttles, and lines and lobbies packed with tourists,” he added. “What people want from travel now is what they’ve been deprived of — spending meaningful time with their family and friends.”
The report found that more than a third of vacationers want to travel this year specifically to reconnect with friends and family, and that more than half preferred a domestic or local destination.
Vrbo had similar results in its own 2021 travel report.
“Vrbo’s newest top emerging destinations align with shifts in family travel behavior due to the pandemic, such as vacationing closer to home and embracing the great outdoors,” Melanie Fish, a travel expert at Vrbo, said in a statement. “Booking a Vrbo in these off-thebeaten-path locales means families can enjoy the privacy and comforts of home while reaping the mental health benefits of being in a new environment, and spend quality time together exploring places they may have otherwise overlooked.”
Both Airbnb and Vrbo saw demand spike in vacation spots close to natural amenities. Airbnb said places like Rodanthe,
North Carolina and Forks, Washington, saw surges in reservations for 2021. Vrbo reported that Emory, Texas, Smithville, Missouri, and Slade, Kentucky, were the site’s top emerging destinations for this year.
The real estate market has been unusually busy throughout the pandemic, a trend that has extended to vacation communities.
“The buying and selling of the homes did not stop because of the pandemic,” said Rob Johnson, a
Coppel, Texas-based Realtor with RE/MAX who serves a number of communities, including Emory. He said people these days are more likely to look for vacation spots closer to their primary homes.
“I believe there’s definitely pandemic-related
motivations. Just the need to do something with the family or to get away, you can just drive and not have to worry about flying.”
Anecdotally, he said, sales for vacation homes in the communities where he works are definitely spiking. Recently one office he works with on closings in a small town processed 28 transactions in one week — five or six times the normal rate.
Johnson expects that vacation homes in towns like Emory will remain especially popular even after the pandemic subsides.
“The demand is there and as more and more people get vaccinated, I think we’re going to find that more and more people are interested in doing this sort of thing,” he said. “They’ve seen the future and this is a piece of it for sure.”
If you already own a home in an area where
people might want to come to escape the city, you could be sitting on your own personal piggy bank.
“I have an associate who owns a vacation home in Colorado where he does use Vrbo but he also owns a lake house in East Texas,” Johnson said. “He’s considering making it a Vrbo-available short-term rental because he’s had so many inquiries.”
As demand for this kind of accommodation rises, you could make a little extra income by renting out your own property. Johnson said he understands from his clients that having a clean home and enough space are the keys to success in the vacation rental market.
“Everybody likes clean, everybody likes space.
They don’t necessarily want to be away from their technology all the way, they want to be able to connect,” so you’ll want to make sure you have a stable internet hookup.
Also, it’s important to know why people are coming to your area. Emory, for example, is situated between two lakes and is known for its fishing and other watersports. So, the most popular vacation rentals are close to those activities.
“If you’re wanting to lease or rent a property for the short term, you’re certainly going to want to have access to the water,” Johnson said.
In other places, the main draw might be the ocean, a ski mountain or hiking trails. Vacationers usually want to stay in a property that is close to whatever attraction they’re visiting.
If you don’t have a vacation home now, it could be a great time to think about buying one. Especially as demand for rentals in vacation communities spike, you may be able to cover your costs more easily than you think.
Here are some key things to consider before buying a second property:
Make sure you know what you can afford. Factor in potential rental income as you think about your mortgage payments, but remember lenders usually won’t take that into account unless you have a signed, long-term lease.
Familiarize yourself with the area where you want to buy. It’s good to know what the local real estate market is like and what the top attractions are. The closer your property is to those, the better.
If you plan to use it for short-term rentals, make sure the property has enough space for visitors and a versatile layout. And make sure local regulations support your plans. Buying a vacation home you plan to rent isn’t the same as buying it for yourself. The property needs to feel comfortable for lots of different people.
Q: The grout line between my kitchen granite countertop and the tile backsplash has cracked for the umpteenth time. Each winter the crack appears, and each year I regrout it hoping it will be the final time. Am I using the wrong grout? How would you repair this, and why does the crack disappear on its own in the summer? I have the same issue with other cracks around my home that mysteriously open and close depending on the time of year.
A: I swore off almost all gambling years ago when my wife caught me trying to make double-or-nothing basketball shots with my young son. She made me pay the $100 I was up to when she opened the garage door and discovered me frantically trying to make a basket. Of course, he ratted me out because he thought he was rich. I’m pretty certain he still has that money, and the shameful incident is brought up with regularity at family gatherings.
That said, I’m willing to bet that a lot of my readers have a similar issue in their homes with cracks that appear in the winter months and then disappear in the summer. It happens in my own home.
The source of the pesky cracks is water vapor. You won’t find these cracks in well-built motels made from concrete and steel. Concrete and steel are very stable and don’t change shape when wet. You find them in structures built with wood located in climates with hot and humid summers.
Wood is hygroscopic. This means that it changes in size in response to moisture content. Think of a piece of wood like a synthetic sponge. When you get it wet, it swells. When it dries out, it shrivels.
The change in size can be fairly dramatic.
This shrink/swell issue isn’t as bad in older woodframe homes. I’m talking ones built using old-growth timber from the late 1800s or early 1900s. Modern framing lumber has been hybridized to grow faster, and the light-colored spring-wood bands of wood fibers are much larger than the darker summer-wood bands when the tree growth slows because of the lack of water and oncoming winter.
This newer hybridized lumber is much more reactive to changes in water content than the wood of old. It swells and puffs up slowly as the humidity rises in your home. Here in the
Northern Hemisphere, by the end of August the wood framing in your home is like your lungs after you take an enormous inhalation of air.
As your home transitions to January and February, this water is liberated from the lumber and the cracks bloom in your home like flowers in the desert after a 1-inch rainfall. The water in the wood is pulled out by the drier winter air in your home.
In my opinion, the best way to deal with these cracks is in the dead of winter. Stop using hard grout and switch to the best caulk with the most elasticity. This characteristic is often called out on the label of the caulk. You’ll discover high-quality caulks at a
home center or large hardware store.
Remember, the more expensive the caulk is, the better it is (usually). Why? In these cases, the manufacturer puts in better ingredients that almost always are more expensive.
Large, deep cracks might have to be filled with a foam backing rod before you install the caulk. You’ll probably end up using a water-based caulk. As this kind of caulk dries and cures, it shrinks. You minimize shrinkage by minimizing the amount of caulk you use.
Carefully scrape away all the failed grout. The granite top is pretty hard and very scratch resistant. That said, I’d use plenty of water and
a new stiff 1.5-inch putty knife with a sharp edge. I’d get the countertop wet and slide the knife across the grout much like a snowplow pushes snow. I’d angle the tool so the grout is pushed toward the tile.
After going about an inch or two, I’d use a damp sponge to pick up any of the grit the putty knife loosened. You don’t want to grind that grit into the granite. I’ve never had issues getting up old grout from granite. The polished granite surface usually surrenders the grout with minimal work.
You do the same process to remove any grout from the vertical tiles, but it takes far more patience and skill. Work slowly and use a deft
touch. Great lighting will aid the process. Feel free to use a child’s squirt gun to rinse grit down onto the granite top. Imagine you’re a dental hygienist for a day. Think about that. How cool is it to have one of those tiny fancy squirt guns they use to rinse teeth?
Once you have the grout all cleaned off, slide the tip of a paper towel into the crack between the tile and the granite to get liquid water that’s hiding in the void. Once you have all the water out, allow the crack to dry for 48 hours before caulking. I have a great caulking video on AsktheBuilder.com to show you exactly how I get a smooth joint each time. You should watch it.
Q: I have a question about the timeshare property that was owned by my late husband. My husband died of a sudden heart attack recently, without a will. He was the sole owner of the timeshare and he had no estate and there’s no probate case pending.
I don’t want the timeshare. I just mailed the timeshare company the death certificate. Since my husband had no estate, I think I can abandon it if I wanted to. Am I correct? My name is not on the deed.
A: We often get letters from timeshare owners asking us how they can sell or get out from under their timeshare agreements. For many vacationing travelers, the lure of a timeshare is too much and they take a leap of faith and buy one. Most — at least from our mailbox — don’t imagine there would come a time that they wouldn’t want it. But five, 10 or 20 years later, they’re paying monthly for something that goes unused.
The question then becomes, why is it so hard to get rid of timeshares?
A timeshare purchase generally involves the payment of an upfront sum to a timeshare company. In exchange for that payment, the buyer gets the right to use a property for a week or so every year. Frequently, the timeshare buyer gets the exact same week every year in exactly the same unit. Sometimes, and this is happening more frequently, the timeshare buyer gets allotted a certain number of “points,” which allows them to apply their timeshare slot to a larger number of properties in a network, with properties located all over
the globe.
Many future timeshare owners go to the “free” lunch or dinner, checkbook in hand, and think that the initial payment is all they’ll be making. Not quite. Depending on what type of arrangement you buy into, the buyer must also pay yearly assessments and yearly real estate taxes. Beyond that, if you do buy in a specific property, and something goes wrong, you may be asked to kick in for special assessments down the line.
Some people love their timeshares. And for those wondering about the company we keep, let us assure you we do know people who purchased timeshare properties and happily used those properties year after year.
The problems come
when the timeshare owners’ fortunes change, and they no longer want or can afford the payments. Selling it is the trick, and you have to be very careful to avoid getting taken.
Depending on the type of timeshare you own, the only way you can sell it will be to some other buyer willing to buy into your exact week in the exact property you want. In these situations, the timeshare companies will often charge a transfer fee on the sale of a timeshare, but in others the timeshare company will assist in the sale and expect a commission. For hotel timeshare properties, you may only be able to use the hotel timeshare office to sell your timeshare points, if you’re allowed to sell or transfer the points at all.
In the worst situations,
you can’t sell the timeshare because no one wants it. At any price. Even free.
What happens if you simply don’t pay the expenses and pretend like you don’t own the timeshare? Well, when a timeshare owner fails to make the monthly or annual payment, the management company can sue the owner, send the debt to a collection agency or take over the timeshare unit.
That leads us to you.
Your husband purchased the timeshare in his name, and he has since passed on. The payments obligations on the timeshare were your husband’s and when he died, that responsibility passed on to his estate. It does not matter whether your husband died with or without a will, with or without assets or with or without
debts. When he died, all of his assets and all of his debts belonged to his estate.
As his surviving spouse, you are entitled to the timeshare but can refuse to accept it. So, where does that leave you? If you don’t own it and you are not responsible for his estate, the timeshare company might be out of luck going after your husband’s estate and might just take over the timeshare and leave it at that. Depending on the state in which you live, as the surviving spouse, you might have a responsibility to take care of the affairs of your husband’s estate. But what your responsibility might be and what duties you might have to dispose of assets is dictated by state law.
In the meantime, you did the right thing by sending the death certificate to the timeshare company. We wouldn’t say that you are abandoning the timeshare but, rather, that you are not accepting the ownership of the timeshare resulting from your husband’s death. Unless the laws in your state require you to take ownership or to pay for your husband’s debts, you should be fine.
On the other hand, now that the timeshare company knows of your husband’s death, we think the timeshare company should close his account, take over the timeshare, and that would leave them free to resell the timeshare to another person.