[Newbiesaukee]

Our house buying experience on Winni is a little unusual but perhaps helpful. My wife and I, for both good and bad life situations, had purchased several homes in FL over a short period of time. Although we are both cautious by nature, major life decisions we seem to make quickly. We had always wanted to retire on a lake. As our adult children were up north, when we were able to retire we looked at the map and Winni looked like a good place geographically so we did a little research online. Most of what I could find discussed the Weirs and that seemed too busy for us. As luck would have it, we discussed our search with casual acquaintences who had a home on Winni and they told us we had the wrong idea and Winni was wonderful and had many lifestyles depending on location. They even recommended a realtor. We called her the next day, arranged to fly up and told her we made decisions quickly. We also gave her a price range. We had never been to Winni before and met the realtor on a cold day in November. We spent the entire day with her as she drove us around the Lake and explained the different areas and what was important. Location is all and she emphasized water quality in a lakefront home is paramount and other issues such as taxes, differences in the towns and numerous other factors that we now realize were essential to understand. That evening my wife found a home on the internet which looked great to us. It was on Long Island...we had no real idea where that was. The realtor took us to see the house the next day; she had not seen the house before. We loved it. She pointed out pros and cons. The design was excellent but the builder was not experienced and the amenities, except for kitchen, were pretty low end. The waterfront water quality was excellent but even though Long Island has a bridge it was an 8 mile drive to stores, etc. and we might get tired of it. Even though, it was empty in November when we were there, in summer, as we were near Harillas boat ramp, cars would be lined up on the road and the area would be very busy. She explained that M’Boro had lower taxes than many areas. The point is, that in 2 days with a good honest realtor, you can learn a lot. We bought the house that day. That was 17 years ago and everything she said was true...including the negative observations about the builder. She also told us to buy a used boat no less than 23 feet. We were fortunate but sometimes you just have to do it. Her name is Susan Bradley and I believe she is still working.