Back to the old house with naked tenants

After seeing the Crest bungalow a 2nd time, I realized there would be a lot more work involved. Also, the number of listings was a trickle so I started thinking about the old house we saw with naked tenants. The house had potential but we were unable to view it after being scared away from the place. Getting a notification that the price was recently reduced on the place also reignited some interest in the place.

1907 main house with 1800s cottage in back.

I did some Googling and found that the house had a website to book summer rentals and also found that the property was referred to as "Bullcrab's". I emailed the owner and asked for pictures of the house and explained we were interested, but couldn't view the place due to the tenants. Luckily the owner got back to me with information about the house and also offered to show us the house. The age of the house on the listing was 1920, but I know a lot of times those dates are inaccurate. The owner said the main house was 1907 and the rear cottage was 1860. The date on the cottage seemed suspect, but I could see late 1800s. We arranged to view the house a 2nd time and the owners gave us a full tour of the place. 

As with all the old houses, there's plusses and minuses to things and you'll rarely find something meets all your criteria, so this house had some updates like vinyl siding and windows, which I wasn't interested in, but the owners said the original clapboards were under the vinyl. Also, all the doors, hinges, and knobs looked original. There were some built-ins and 2 cast iron clawfoot tubs. The attic also had very nice tongue and groove wood paneling all throughout the rooms. The 1800s cottage was also a nice touch. It was a pretty straight-forward layout, but had some quirks with small stairs and interesting window placements - stuff that made you think it wasn't done by a modern builder.

When we viewed the house, it was just us and the sellers and we got to spend over an hour going through the house and them showing us all the parts of the house. It was such a valuable experience to chat with the owners about the house rather than a standard showing where you run through the place in 15 minutes and then have to make a major decision based on a few minutes of viewing things. We even got to see a picture of the house from the 1960s where I got to see the original siding and window molding.

Meeting with the owners definitely sold me on the place and we went back to put in an offer.