Selling The House on Cameron

It all began when I fell and broke my heel April 3 2010. It really hurt which goes without saying. It also woke us up to the fact that this house is too big for one person to take care of. At that time we started to talk about what we would we want to buy to replace this old house and where would we want to live.

We started to really look into what the real estate market was like out there. How much would it cost, we decided that we would move to Windsor ON. at some time. Then we had to decide what we would want in a different home. Location was important as we wanted to be close to shopping and transit.  Then we had to decide what type of house we would want. How much yard did we want since our yard here is so large. What about the trailer? Trailers bring a lot of important points. There are laws in towns regarding where you can and cannot park RVs. The trailer has to be behind the front of the home. We wanted a home where it would fit on the right hand side so we could open the awning toward the house as we do here in Essex. We wanted a garage and paved driveway three bedrooms and two bathrooms.

You can find pretty much anything on the net these days so we started to look for a home. After a bit of searching we found a site that showed open houses that would be available to see on Sat. and Sun. We had decided that we would want around $250,000 for our house and we for sure did not want a mortgage due to being on a fixed income. Finally we started going out on Sundays to see the open houses that looked promising. What a shock we were in for.  The houses we were looking at, that on line looked promising, all needed too much work. They were in the dollar area or slightly above our limit but we could not wait to get back home.

Then came New Yeas Eve 2012! Judy and I were sitting on the family room floor with the TV on the real estate channel. I know most people would be watching the ball drop. How else would you know when it is 2012 EH! We were playing Backgammon Judy was winning! We heard the street name Watson! Wait, that is a street we are interested in. WOW There is was 409 Watson in Windsor. It was a three bedroom one bath on a nice lot close to everything, including buses. We went on line right away and checked it out. It looked perfect for us. We then emailed the agent and waited.

Jan 2nd we heard from the agent that he would contact us on the 3rd and we could see the home.  We toured the home on that day and thought wow this is nice but it is so small. Then we thought well we want to down size right! There was room, with some effort we could fit the trailer. We said goodbye to the agent and were ready to leave. As we sat in the truck we decided then and there we would buy this home and pay $145,000. They were asking 149,900 On Jan 6 the agent came to our house to appraise it and write up an offer.

So like a couple of children on Christmas day we headed home and started getting ready for the agent to tour our home. He came by and thought we had a really nice home and could sell it for 199,900. Then the real rush was on to finish work in our house and get ready for buyers to come and make an offer. The upstairs ceiling needed to be done and we built in a linen closet. Little trim work was to be finished and clean, clean, clean! A couple weeks later a very young couple came to look but felt the house was just too big.

Now we come to the first week of Feb. and the house is almost done. The agent says that a second couple has put an offer on the house and we have 72 hours to with draw our conditions or we loose it. We wanted that house so we said line up the inspection. We went there on Feb 4 and during the inspection we had our eyes opened. There was nothing real bad just a bunch of small problems. The real trouble was the they were problems we do not want to deal with. Besides this the windows well nice and new were too high for Judy to see out. So we have decided to keep looking and hope to find a house we like better in a good location that needs less work.

This is a shot that was taken upon completion on the renovation of our front porch. It was a really tough job that required a lot of sweat equity. When the job was done as usual we were over whelmed by the work we had done.	This is the photo I use on the website main page. It is a stunning spring picture I took a number of years ago. It was used, with my permission, on the Realtors website.	This is a picture of the west front corner of our home. The huge beautiful rose was planted by my dad about 1969-70. I take time every year to tie the branchs to the house so it can grow taller and taller. At one time it was all the way to the roof. We have had people turn their car around and come back to make sure what they only thought they saw. When we started talking about selling this house I took time to attempt to propagate this plant by stripping some bark of a low stem and covering it with dirt. When we listed the house in January The ground was soft so I cut it loose from the main, dug it up and found it loaded with roots. For now it sits in a pot in our shed waiting for us to go to our new home.
This is the first house we looked at and while it is a really nice 4 level side split. It has 2 kitchens and bathrooms. 3 bedrooms and just lovely storage. The two main problems were the lot was too deep 286' and there was no way to get the truck in the garage with the trailer in the drive.	This is the house we saw on New Years Eve. We were really thrilled with it when we first drove by and then took a look inside. But as stated in the first part of our story it was not to be.	This is a home at 12483 McNorton Tecumseh. We will see it on Fri Feb 24. Will we buy it or even offer, not sure but we will know more tomorrow.... Well went to see the house in Tecumseh. We were disappointed in what we saw inside. There is more to a house than a nice yard and big garage. The house was not bad inside but just would not work for us.
This is the home we will buy and take possession on March 30 2012. The house has it all, as we see it. There are a few little jobs to do but mostly the work is all done.	This is the side view of the new house. There is a lovely 12'x 21' breezeway between the house and garage. It will be used as the get together place when the family comes to call.	This is the back yard of our new home. It does not look like much right now due to the big old tree that we will have cut down soon after we take ownership. Well this tree plus the two behind it were cut down on Tue. 20 March. What a difference in our new yard.

Now it's valentines day 2012 the house is almost all done. To-day Judy is painting the back hall down stairs ceiling tile to make them look fresh and nice. This past week we worked real hard to get it spic and span as the Realtor set up an open House. Four couples came through while we were gone to Windsor and Wed. another couple is coming. We wonder how long before someone says WOW I want that lovely home!

The Princess home! In summer 2011 we found a home for sale in Windsor on Princess Ave. It was a corner lot, smaller than the lot in Essex, a brick to roof home that needed work and a driveway. We talked about it and after a while we called the Realtor. The reply was sorry it is already sold. The asking price was 119,900. It was bought for a bit less and we said darn oh well! Then we said well maybe they will fix it up and flip it, then we will buy it. It will be more but will be done. Fri. Feb 24 we were in Windsor at Terry Anne's. When we left we decided to drive by a house on Queen Elizabeth just to check it out. When we went by we saw it would not work for us and decided to drive by the house on Princess Ave. to just check it out.

WOW! What a difference! It was as we expected the work was done from our vantage point at least. It had a new roof, new windows and where the cement driveway had ended before the garage, they had dumped a load of gravel. There were two signs that said House for Sale, the type that mean private sale. Judy had her cell phone so she called the number and the man who answered said he would be right over. He seemed very happy to see us and to show us all the work that he, his wife and friends had done inside. We had never been inside the house so we could only wonder at what had been done.

There are two new kitchens 1 up 1 down. The original hard wood floors are all redone. The house is all repainted and the electric upgraded to 100amp. The basement is all redone with two rooms that could be bedrooms, a bathroom and two other rooms that could be living rooms. The owner said if you made a window in the basement larger you could rent it out as an apartment.

His name is Tony he lives not far from this house on a little crescent. He is a really nice guy and we said we would see what we could work out. We went home and talked it over and decided it really was just what we needed small yes but big enough to suit our needs. We decided since he was looking to get 188,000 and we knew what he paid for it we would try 175,000. Having done so much on our Essex home we had a pretty good idea what he had into this place.

We came back a couple days later and looked it over again and this time his wife, Helina was also here working on the wood trim. We joked around with them a bit and Tony said if we gave him a big chunk down he would hold it for six months if need be until we sell our Essex home. I told him we had come to 175,000 as our offer but he was not to happy with that. e said Helina and I will talk it over. They went to a room down the hall and came back with 180,000 . We looked at each other and said okay. Just like that we had a house. They were happy and so were we. 

Tony said feel free to start moving your stuff into the garage any time. We told him we had a bunch in storage. He said bring it here no reason to pay storage fees. We hemmed and hawed about closing dates and Tony said he needed a big chunk of cash by April 1 so we went to the bank and talked about how we could get money to do this deal and settled on a Home Owners Line of Credit. From our savings we came up with 20% down and thought what the heck lets just close on March 30th. We knew we wanted the house and the money would be tight but doable . March 30th we became the proud owners of two homes.