First House We Made An offer On And Harbor Springs

                                     Thursday 7/3/2014

This house was the first house that Joe and I both liked. We decided when this, plus 3 other houses we liked, dropped in price we would make an offer.

This one had the best neighborhood, and complete sand beach. There were mansions going up on this street. People were buying little houses like this and tearing them down or adding on to them.

The kitchen was really narrow, but it did have great views out the sink window.

The living room was very small. There was a master bedroom and a small bathroom on the main floor. Upstairs there were two dormer bedrooms and a small 3/4 bathroom. Joe loved the views from the house out to Lake Charlevoix. He didn't care about the size of the house. He thought it was fine after living in a motor home. I on the other hand, after being in a motor home for 5 1/2 years, felt the need for some space. Even though the house sits just out of the Boyne City city limits, it had city water and sewer which is a plus.

Because the house sat so close to the water, it was grandfathered in that it could stay that way. But if any changes were to be made, that changed everything. We had wanted to put a 3 season porch on the deck, but we found out that would open a whole can of worms. No three season porch would be allowed, so we thought about adding out front of the house to make the kitchen, and bathroom larger. If we did that, the large deck would have to be removed and made smaller and a landscape of native plants would have to be added to prevent erosion. The closet in the master that was added on, had to be removed because it was encroaching to the off set lines, and a corner of the garage had to be removed because it also was too close to the off set line. We decided if we were going to make an offer, it was going to be such that we would live in it, as is. The price had dropped from $479,000 to $449,000. After inspecting it again, we could see more issues that would have to be addressed. Joe wanted to offer $400,000, but I said I only left comfortable offering $375,000. The realtor at first didn't want to put the offer in because he didn't think it would fly. Joe said after we left said, "They will never take that offer". After we left, I started to get offers remorse. I started imagining being claustrophobic in the 1064 sq ft house. I started to think we offered too much. I had a hard time sleeping that night because I was afraid they would accept the offer. The next day, our realtor called and said another offer had come in that was much closer to the asking price and the owners accepted that offer. I was relieved!

With that house gone we crossed it off the list and told our realtor after the 4th of July holiday, we wanted to revisit another of our favorite ones. In the mean time we enjoyed the 4th and on that weekend we drove over to Harbor Springs to do some sight seeing. In Harbor Springs we happened upon Zoll Street Park.

We had heard there was a Dog Beach in Harbor Springs, and just stumbled upon it.

With two big dogs already there, Mallery would not enjoy herself, so we moved on.

We continued our exploration and happened upon a neighborhood of really neat old homes along the Little Traverse Bay.

Petoskey (where our campground is), is located on the other side of the Little Traverse Bay of Lake Michigan. Harbor Springs is located in a Harbor Springs Bay within Little Traverse Bay in Lake Michigan. This is why this neighborhood can have docks on Lake Michigan.

We found out later that this neighborhood is called Wequetonsing, This is a very elite unincorporated community east of Harbor Springs.

There is a lot of old time money in these summer homes. People from Detroit and Chicago use to bring all their maids and servants with them to their summer home here. Some of the homes had homes behind them just for the servants and maids.

Further down the street the road ended and the rest of the homes sat on the bay with the road behind them. This sign said this sidewalk was private.

Behind this neighborhood we found this rock wall, and wondered what it was. I got out of the car, and found it was a holding area where water flows in from a creek and went under the road. There was another rock wall like this one on the other side of the road. We decided it was needed when the snow melts so the road is not flooded in the spring.

Along the creek there were trails in this Nature Preserve.

We left that area and went to the harbor of the downtown area of Harbor Springs. Harbor Springs Bay is the "deepest fresh water bay in the world" per some campers we know who have been coming here for 30 years.

Joe had forgot what Harbors Springs looked like from last year, but I had a very vivid memory of it. After walking around the harbor we drove to see if we could find the entrance to the point of the peninsula of the bay that forms the Harbor Springs Bay. We were told that no one can get onto the peninsula unless you live there. Starting June 1st there are no cars allowed on the peninsula. All transportation is by horse drawn buggy's like Mackinaw Island. We were also told that you can not buy on this peninsula unless you are from 3rd generation money. This is all what we were told, so if anyone knows anything else, please fill us in on the comment section. We couldn't find the entrance, but found a section of lakefront homes north of the peninsula. Once home I google mapped the area and we realized we drove right by the gate entrance of the peninsula. Some day when we have a boat we can boat by and around the peninsula to gawk at the mansion homes we have been told about from other boat gawkers!.

Joe was told by the same people who have been visiting this area for 30 years, that many yachts come from Florida for the summer. We think this might be one of those yachts.

We were originally going to have to move to site #14 (no sewer site) on July 1 for 20 days, and then move to site #2. We were told by the camp host that there were several cancellations, so we were moved to site #4 on July 1. We are in this site until September 1. This allowed us to move only once, thought site #4 is only 30 amp. Site #2, that we were originally going to move to is 50 amp, so that is the only bummer. I guess not having to move twice and live 20 days without sewer is a good trade off for only 30 amps. We just run the air in the front or the back, and I have to remember to not run the dryer, or hair dryer when the air is on.

Today we had an inspection on the house we made the second offer on, that was accepted. All went well so Joe and I have a summer home now. We don't close for another 2 weeks and we gave the current owners 1 1/2 months to move out. They have lived there for 46 years, so I am sure they have a lot to sell, get rid of, or move. We take possession on Sept 7. I will tell you more about our new home in the next few blogs.