The One That Got Away
Thursday, August 28th, 2008
This is the cape we made an offer on, sight unseen. It’s a quaint little home, built in the 50s, out in the Sunshine area of Deer Isle Maine. The owners thought our offer of $90k was way too low (starting at $139k and lowered to $125k when we got interested). They countered high, so we waited to see it.
The property is beautiful, near some nice ledge and it is a short distance from the Eggemoggin Reach and swimming, as well as the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. We had hoped to make it a vacation home and rental for students / faculty / boaters.
When we finally saw it, we realized that it would need about $50k of work to repair the failed septic, update it some (not much for our mid-century tastes) and deal with the moisture problems. I have allergies, so that’s an issue. We decided against going any higher than $80k. A comparable newer cape, the same size, would only fetch $120-135k in the current market, so it wouldn’t be a great investment and would require a lot of labor and headaches. We’re opting toward new construction or very recent, perhaps even a manufactured home.
