Names and Numbers

Home in Port Charlotte; 70 at wake up, high of 87

We renegotiated with Guy, the seller of our original target house with the fabulous concrete docks and lift. He said he will go down to 200, without the boat or any furniture. We will think about it.

We made contact with a real estate agent, Hollie, and got several listings from her we had not previously seen. We did drive byes on 8 homes and eliminated 3. The other 5 are intriguing enough to make appointments and have Hollie show them. In no particular order:

One has a fabulous lot, with a 195' concrete seawall. It is a culdesac tip lot, with views of intersecting canals. The house is a bit of a fixer upper. You can live there while you remodel but the kitchen and baths are circa 1972. There's also not yet a dock or boat life and we are looking at about 20k to get that done. This house is owned by two licensed women realtors. (Lebanese?)

The asking price was recently reduced from 260 to 199k. There's also a pool and 2 car garage. The lot is more than a half acre. We shall call this the realtor house.

The next one on our list is on Albacore Circle. It has a huge lanai, caged pool, fenced dog run (for visitors only), lots of Mango, Avocado and Grapefruit trees. It is very clean to look at from the outside. There's an okay wood dock but no boat lift. It has 2 master suites, a 2 car garage and a nice workshop. They are asking 199. Based on curb apeal, it beats the realtor house hands down. We will call this one the pooch house.

Our next candidate home is on the same canal as Guy's house. Both are on Tarpon drive. We will refer to this one as Tarpon Two. This is the best canal we have seen in town. It is less than a mile to open water and it is sooooo wide. The house is on the smaller side, 2b2 with a 1 car garage. There is a nicely caged pool, nice lawns front and back, and a concrete seawall with dock and lift. They are asking 218.

House number 4 is the Yucatan house. It is the highest price on our list, at 225. It is also the largest square footage, with 1455 under air. It's a 2 bed, 2 and a half bath, with a 2 car garage. There's no pool but there's a concrete seawall, a dock, a lift AND a hoist. It has the biggest lanai, which is not included in the square footage. We named this one after the street it's on.

Our final contestant tonight is the Red Wood Dock house. Can you guess why???

It is featured in the photos above. It has the best landscaping, by far. It is so manicured and groomed I am almost intimidated at the thought of maintaining it to this standard. On the downside, it is the furthest from open water. We would have to travel at no wake speed for almost 4 miles before hitting Charlotte Harbor. There's 1329 square feet under A/C, not counting a nice big lanai. The dock is complimented by a lift plus hoist and concrete seawall. The asking price is just under 220.

So there you have it. Counting Guy's house and the other one we saw last night (Hyatt House) that gives us 7 possible homes to contemplate. Our priorities are, in this actual order of importance:

Seawall, Dock and Lift. LOL....just kidding. A little captain humor there.

Each of these homes should be available for at or under 200k. Each one will get us on the water. Each one SHOULD be able to increase in value over the next few years.