The House Hunt Continues Part 2

                                     Tuesday 6/10/2014

In the previous blog, I showed 10 houses we saw, now I will finish that day with 6 more.  This house has 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, and is 1,900 sq ft..

The driveway is share by 3 or 4 houses to the right of it. There is an alley that continues behind the house to the other houses. The owners of this home have it neat as a pin inside and out.

There is a busy road between the house and the lake.

The lake shore bottom is sand and rocks.

This house has a nice grass area on the other side of the street, making it great for family to hang out under the trees while kids are playing in the water. This house is priced at $374,900 and is a contender.

Next we drove to the west side of the south arm of Lake Charlevoix. As we drove in, I thought, " Oh this is going to be good" ( in the negative way). This is one Joe picked out to see.

Parking sits up higher then the house. There is no garage with this house, just a large shed. This is the back of the house and does not inspire.

View of the house from the lakeside. (much better). The house has 5 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms and 2,300 sq ft of living space. It was built in 1970 and the decor reflects that era.

The south arm of Lake Charlevoix is narrow, but you can get to the main body of Lake Charlevoix from this arm of the lake. The property has a permanent dock which Joe likes a lot.

The lake bottom is a mix of sand and muck.There are some weeds along the shoreline, but we were told you just need to pull them out and eventually they don't grow back. This would make a great family and guest home, but the asking price is $498,000. We figure you would need to put at least $50,000 if not more to get it looking good inside. We would consider this house if the price fell considerably so we could do the updates. Negatives on this; that the deep water is just beyond the dock. Not good for little ones.

This house was south of the previous one. We had to travel about a mile on gravel to get to it. Joe didn't like it for that reason.

This house has 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and is 1,236 sq ft of living. No garage, and on a wider section of the south arm of Lake Charlevoix. The lot was very uneven, so you would need to have it grated out.

It had a very large and nice 3 season porch facing the lake. I loved this porch.

The house has an old log cabin feel which I didn't think I would like, but I am starting to warm to.

The lake shore was sand with some rocks,

but the deep water dropped off quickly.

It didn't have a tub and would need to be remodeled to enlarge the small kitchen, and perhaps get a tub too. It did not have any heating system as it was strictly a summer cabin house. It is priced at $449,900. I liked it if the price dropped, but Joe didn't.

Further down the south arm of Lake Charlevoix was our next house. It had very little yard that had sun or grass. Mallery and I want sun and grass. It is a 3 bedroom, 1 bath, 2 car garage, 1,241 sq ft house.

To get to the water, you need to walk a distance through a wet land area. In the wet land areas you can cut trees down, but you must leave stumps and any ground cover that is there presently.

Next we drove north of the south arm just to were the main body of Lake Charelvoix starts on the west side. This property had a large sunny lot with a very large 2 car garage.

It has 2 very large bedrooms, 2 baths, and has 1,559 sq ft. It is priced at $269,500. This is also a possibility.

It sits across a dead end road to the lake.

You get a boat dock that you share with others in the neighborhood.

It has a nice 3 season porch which you know I like.

Not as big as the one in previous house, but adequate.

The lake shore bottom is rocky.

The last house was further north of the last house. Our realtor informed us that there had been a problem recently with the front porch, but he could still show it.

The front porch cement had  collapsed in. Our realtor was trying to climb to the lock box to get the key. Joe jumped up to keep the cement from rocking. I told them both it was not worth getting hurt to get in.

Mark our realtor got the key, but then didn't know how to get to the door to put the key in the door lock. Again I told him to forget it, it was not worth anyone getting hurt.

We walked out to the back and saw that the back yard was another wet land area.

Looking back toward the house.

Then we noticed that the neighboring docks had to be out like a 1/4 of a  mile for their boats. Who knows what the lake shore bottom was like. We could not get close enough to see if it was sandy or what! I told Mark, they should not show this house until the porch is fixed, as it doesn't give a good first impression. Between the porch, wetlands, and dock length, this property was not a contender! 
          This day resulted in 4 house that we liked. We went home and listed the pluses and minuses of each one. There was not one that stood above another, so we decided to see if any dropped in price, making one stand out more than the other.

The House Hunt Continues

Tuesday 6/10/2014

Our next search was in the Boyne City area. Our realtor found this one for us and thought it was a good possibility.

It sat back from the lakeshore, but had a boat dock accessibility. It was in an association that shared the dock.

The private beach and dock is visible from the windows of the house. The house was priced at $449,000, and had 4 bedrooms and 4 baths with 2,800 sq ft. The house sat right next to the state park and the dock had goose poop all over it. The house needed a lot of work, but at least it had space and the price was getting lower.

The next house was a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1 1/2 car garage house with 1,064 sq ft. We liked the neighborhood, but the house was very small.

It had great views and a nice sand bottom lakeshore. The light and dark colors of the water shows where the water drops off and gets deep.

The kitchen is very narrow.

We thought we could add on a 3 season porch to add more space to the house, but found out that because the house sits so close to the lake that it can't legally be done, even if you wanted to add it on top of the current deck. In fact, the minute you apply for any building permits, to do anything, you have to do some landscaping that involves 30 feet from shore back to prevent erosion which is very costly. So, one needs to either live with the house as is or plan on spending mega bucks. The house is priced at $479,000.

This is a home our realtor thought we should see.

It was a mess on the outside and had a flat roof. The drive down to it was very steep.

I don't remember the price on this home, and can't even find it on the internet, but I think it was in the low 5's. I think maybe the people are still getting the house ready to be put on the market.It had 4 bedrooms and 1 bath. The property did nothing inside or out for Joe or I.

Next we saw this 2 bedroom , 1 bath 1,020 sq ft house for $449,000 in East Jordon on Lake Charlevoix. The bedrooms were large, but the kitchen was small and the house was in the woods. Up by the road it was cleared and sunny so I could have a garden there. It also had a detached garage.

It looked like a sandy lake bottom but with no dock it was hard to tell for sure.

This one was also in East Jordon on Lake Charlevoix for $494,000. It had 5 bedrooms, 2 baths and had 2,731 sq ft.

It needed a ton of work and just was not our style at all. A fawn was under the deck, and it jumped out in front of Joe as he took this shot. Joe didn't realize he had got a picture of it until I told him it was in the picture. He said once he saw it he tried to get a picture, but it ran by him so fast.

This house was in the East Jordon area too. It was at the best price of $329,900 4 bedrooms, 2 bath and 1,625 sq ft. It was made into two apartments. The lower and upper apartments. There was no way to get upstairs from the downstairs except to go outside and up the outside stairs. The front yard was small and the back yard was wooded.

It had a small beach area,

and the lake shore looked sandy or mucky, just couldn't tell because the dock was so short. If you don't mind a wooded lot, this would be the best fixer upper for the money. It did need a lot of updates inside.

This house is on the east side of the South arm of Lake Charlevoix in East Jordon. It was completely wooded in, which Joe and I are not keen on . It had 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1,424 sq ft and was priced at $479,000. The inside was nicely updated in most of the house but it didn't have a bath tub. After 5 1/2 years of no bath tub, that is a must.

It has a nice sandy bottom lakeshore.

Back in Boyne City we saw this house that sat on a hill. It had a great spot for a garden up from the driveway.

It had a deck off the side of the house with views of Lake Charlevoix. It has a deed access dock down the hill on the lake. Unfortunately the dock is right next to a very busy road (not good for my little grand kids), and the road down to it, is very steep and our car hit bottom going in and out to the road at the bottom. Joe said he can imagine a boat propeller dragging at that steep bottom intersection.

It was the nicest of all the homes. It had 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2 car garage, and a very, very, very, small bunk attic room (just enough room for two bunk beds). The master bedroom had a walk in closet, and double bathroom sinks.

It had a cute front porch and had 1,570 sq ft. Joe did not like that the driveway sloped down to the garage. There were two cement corners broken at the entrance to the garage. It concerned him that there might be some erosion going on under the house since no drain had been installed to prevent the run off. This house was priced at $449,000.

This house is located in Boyne City across the street from the lake. As soon as we got out of our cars, we all knew something really bad was going on at this property. There was standing water all around on the front cement patio. We didn't even go inside. That was enough of a negative for us.

It would have great lake views if you cut down the trees by the road. It had 1,300 sq ft and would need to be gutted inside from the looks of the pictures on the internet, to rearrange the spaces. The price was $249,000 which seemed high after seeing the water problem out front. I wondered if there was a septic tank problem going on. We saw a lot of houses this day so, "To Be Continued":