Category Archives: Real Estate

Nice end to 2021

So before I get to the main story (lol), yesterday I got a set of Michelin X-Ice Snow tires installed on the Lexus IS and now that car is ready for the winter weather.

Anyway yesterday our cottage in Belleville closed and woo I went by today to take a look. 🙂

No pictures of the inside, the previous owners did a great job cleaning things out but it’s quite dated inside but a new coat of paint, floors and lights should fix that right up.  Going to remove the pool and fencing as well, then in 2022 we’ll enjoy it as a cottage as well as putting it on Airbnb while we’re not there.  When I purchased our other properties I wasn’t excited but for this one I am, it’s going to cost a pretty penny to get it up to snuff but one it’s ready it’ll be great.

Downtown Belleville

This morning we decided to take a drive to Belleville, wanted to do a pass by the new place (that’s always fun) and to see the city of Belleville.  It’s small but to be fair all cities in the province will feel small compared to Toronto.

We walked around the downtown core, there was a small farmer’s market and Maggie picked up a few things & we had lunch at the Tiger Chicken & Rib restaurant.  They’re revitalizing the downtown core and it certainly gives you that small town comfy feel.  Were a few homeless people on the streets which makes me wonder what type of support structures they have in the city, it’s going to get cold soon and with the close proximity to the water, I figure they’d get a lot of snow.

We didn’t stay long as we only really went out there on a whim and came bay in the early afternoon.  Nice that it’s not too far out, in the morning it was 1 1/2 hours to the cottage, coming back traffic was heavier so it made the trip coming home 2 hours.

We take ownership of the house at the end of the month so it’s a bit tight but everything is looking ok so far. 🙂

Early Christmas?

Yesterday Maggie and I went to see two cottages, one in Belleville & another in Bancroft and we liked both of them.  Maggie liked the one in Belleville more (I preferred the Bancroft one) so of course we bid on that one and well we won. 🙂

The house is meh, just over 900 sq ft but we bought it for the view in the back and it’s pretty damn nice.  Better yet, the house is on a double lot and is 85’x176′ wide so potentially we could split the lot, build two houses and sell them for a pretty big profit.  The house backs onto the Moira river and if you look across the water, you’ll see a new sub-division, the houses there go for $800k and they don’t even back onto the water like mine does. 😉

Yes this lot has a lot of potential but I think for 2022, we’ll use it as a cottage and put it on airbnb when we’re not there.  The house closes pretty quickly, end of Dec so we’ll have a bit of time to bring it up to snuff cosmetically before the warm weather hits.

Darn

All the memories of looking at houses is rushing back as we didn’t win the cottage unfortunately, sold for $537k which was way over the $450 max we set.  Based on comparables our initial bid looked good but well I guess it just wasn’t enough which is a shame but that’s how it goes.

A few more pictures from the weekend, it was fun and beautiful out.  There’s another on Thursday we’re interested in, I guess we’ll see how it goes.

Driving weekend

So we put on a ton of kilometers on the Lexus NX this weekend and you know what, that’s alright with me.  It’s such a comfy car, great on road trips only thing that sucks is it guzzles the gasoline but then again it’s a SUV and not really fair to compare to my old Toyota Prius which was one of the most efficient cars lol.  Anyway with the fall colours coming in, Sunday we decided to drive Northumberland Best Loved Fall Colours route and lol it was mainly green unfortunately.  Not a surprise we headed mainly East and it hasn’t been as cold.  I stuck the Go Pro Hero 5 on my roof and this was what I saw…

I forgot to remove the audio for this video so all you hear is wind noise but yeah it was a fun drive.

Yesterday we resumed our search for cottages and this really rustic had the coolest drive so on the way out I recorded that as well.

Maggie hated the cottage, it uses an outhouse, outdoor shower and well yeah way too rustic for her.  I don’t think I’d mind too much as I’ve done those types of cottages before and it was a lot of fun.  We did find one that we really liked and will bid on it tonight.

It’s a 3 bedroom, all season cottage with direct lake access.  Mmm it’ll be sweet there’s another we like as well but they’re taking offers on Thursday but hopefully we can land this one.

That wraps up my Thanksgiving long weekend, put on like 1,500 km onto my car and it was totally worth it. 🙂

Sold a house

So we sold the house we purchased back in March, after getting the keys in June Maggie and I came to the realization that unless we wanted to dump ~$100k into the house to fix it up, it wouldn’t be suitable as a rental unit.  There are a few problems, nothing structural (previous owner did a lousy hack job) but enough to make renting it difficult so thankfully we were able to get rid of it.  We did pretty it up by doing some cosmetic renovations and it closes mid November.

I believe the couple that bought it are young so it’d potentially be their first home and if that’s the case this house does have a lot of potential, it just needs love and attention to modernize.

Went over in the afternoon to turn off the lights, turn down the AC and to secure everything, I do wish the new owners the best and hope that it’s a very happy home for them.

Expanding the empire lol

So today our new investment property in Oshawa closed so our little real estate empire is growing yet again.  The house itself is old and our contractor will start work on it very soon, it has potential but at the same time it’s in pretty rough shape so we’ll need to dump a fair amount of money into it but rents in the area are decent and we should be able to make a bit of money.

I didn’t get as good a feeling with this one as with the other properties we purchased but finding a detached house in this price range in Southern Ontario will be difficult so I’m ok with it. 🙂

Uh so this happened…

So Tuesday afternoon we bid on the cottage with a nice view and lost, Maggie saw a house in Oshawa that was taking offers in the evening so we decided to try our hand (without seeing it lol) and well we won lol.

We went to see it yesterday afternoon and it’s alright, the house is small but some neighbors are starting to knock down these older homes to build bigger ones.  The area is ok too, closer to central Oshawa which is poorer but this house is nestled in a nicer pocket.  The rents in the area are pretty good so it’ll help pay down all the debt I’ve accumulated lol.

Technically we have some conditions attached to the buy so if I wanted I could back out but finding a detached house under $600k in Durham is almost impossible now so I can’t see us backing away even though it’ll need a bit of work to bring up to snuff.

Yay for building equity but I am guessing a cottage is probably out of the question this year now. 🙁

House hunting again

Yesterday we went to London Ontario to see 14 houses, Durham region is getting expensive, we wanted to check out somewhere different and London has potential.  It was really tiring, lots of driving but worth it and I think we may see if we can get into the market there. 🙂

Today I dropped the Toyota Prius to Anthony’s shop, it’s pulling to the right and really annoying, the last time he looked at it he said it’d be an expensive job as there are parts that need to be replaced but meh it’s cheaper than buying another car so I’ll just get it fixed.  Other then that here are some random photos from last week/weekend.

I love shooting Slinky and that was a super cute pose.  For online school, Brandon needed a costume and wore my old ghillie suit, it was a bit dusty as it’s in the storage area but worked well and finally the weather was pretty nice so I took the boy for a bike ride. 🙂

Potential Tenant

So I had another busy weekend, went back and forth to Oshawa to show people the house and I think we found a potential tenant!  Our initial plan was to let the house be on the market for a week and decide on the second weekend who to choose and this couple slipped in just under the wire.  We had 4 (or was it 5?) applicants and it was a pretty hard choice but the couple (2nd last to view the house) seemed to gel with me the best so that was the deciding factor.  They agreed to our asking price and tonight we just have to do up the paperwork. 🙂

To me, I want to find the right tenant rather than get more money and a headache later.  Fingers crossed!

Other then that it was pretty low key, it was cold (relatively, it’s been a mild winter) so Maggie & Brandon stayed indoors.

Some random photos I took, the first two were yesterday and today Brandon drew a picture of Slinky.  Turned out great, or at least it’s better than anything I can do and I absolutely love the small details like the kitty being fuzzy.

All in all a good weekend, not relaxing for me as I was going back and forth but am happy that I found a tenant and that the house will be filled soon. 🙂