House Hunt

22 Felicity, Osterville

51 Holly Ridge, Sandwich1 Littlefield Pond, Harwich

We've decided condo living is not for us. Or we're not right for condo living. One way or another, we miss having our own space, our own house with no one telling us what we can and can't do. The final straw was the condo HOA sending out a memo telling us we could only have ONE pot of flowers and no other decorating items outside. No benches, wreaths, bird baths, feeders, etc. 

So we've put the condo on the market and started looking for homes on Cape Cod. This process started in early May. We found a house we loved the first weekend out. It went up with multiple offers on the first open house. That kind of threw us. We weren't ready or able to move that fast. So we passed (or missed out) on that house and continued researching different towns. We fell in love with Osterville. It has a nice downtown, it's south of 28, and it's centrally located. We kept our eye out for a home in our price range. We found 22 Felicity, toured it and made an offer. It's been on the market a couple of months. The lady who owns it is in her 90's and very picky about who she sells to. Anyway, we couldn't come to an agreement on the price, so we passed on that house. 

Next our research brought us to 51 Holly Ridge in Sandwich. Sandwich wasn't an area we even considered. It's north of 28 and south of 6. Kind of a nothing area. This house is in a golf community. Not being golfers, it didn't have much appeal to us. Jeff liked the house more than I did. The yard had extensive gardens and would require a lot of upkeep. We toured the house several times and eventually we made an offer. The house was in an estate and had some wacky contingencies. One being that they were going to accept all offers until a certain deadline and then pick the highest offer. So there was no guarantee you'd get the house until well down the road. We ended up backing out of this deal. I didn't love the house. We also found out that the lady had died in the house just 3 months prior. No wonder I had such a depressing feeling when I was there! So we moved on. We found 1 Littlefield Pond in Harwich. It's new construction. The house is on an acre of semi wooded land backing to a small pond.  We loved the new construction aspect. It has a nice floor plan and enough room to accommodate our family. When we toured the house on a Saturday we could hear the gun club doing their Saturday morning target practice. The Cape Cod Fish and Game Club is just a mile west of the house. The noise was loud but only lasted a couple of hours. We didn't think much of it. We couldn't hear it inside the house. We gave some thought to how the noise would effect the dogs. Trigger wouldn't like it at all. He's afraid of thunder. Not sure how Bandit would handle it. Anyway, we ended up making an offer on the house only to find out that another party was also bidding for the house. We ended up offering full price and got the house. Our next visit was the following Thursday to do a walk through and this would be Nick's first visit to the house. We were very interested in what his opinion was. When we showed up at 6:00 pm on Thursday, the gun club was shooting again! This was very upsetting. After checking their website calendar of events we found out that 22 out of 30 days in June they had outdoor events scheduled. We backed out of the deal. The noise would be a negative for any chances of resale in the future. And you know us, we never stay in one place so we're always thinking about resale! 

We decided to take a break from house hunting and concentrate on selling the condo. Four days later, our realtor calls to schedule a tour of the condo then 30 minutes later our Cape realtor calls and says that the lady from Felicity wants to reopen negotiations. She's willing to split the difference. Well, that's interesting. Felicity is our number one choice. I think maybe that's why the other houses didn't work out. So we're back to making an offer on Felicity. Now we just need to get this condo sold!