Sold: a 12-acre waterfront retreat north of Parry Sound for just under asking

With all the talk of condo bubbles, over-the-top bidding wars and failed flips, wading into Toronto’s housing market requires equal parts bravery and real estate savvy. To help with the latter, we decided to dish when the properties we profile in our House of the Week, Condomonium and Cottage of the Week features are sold. Here, all the details from the latest sale.

• Cottage of the Week: $2.6 million for a 12-acre retreat just north of Parry Sound [May 22, 2012]

• The place: A 12-acre property with a main cottage, a separate secondary guest cottage, a private sandy beach, a boathouse, outdoor showers and 360-degree views.

• The agent: George Webster, Moffat Dunlap Real Estate Ltd. and Erica Reddy, Royal LePage Signature Realty Brokerage

• Listed price: $2,580,000

• Sale price: The buyer and seller asked that the price not be disclosed (cottage communities are small and they didn’t want to be the subject of chit-chat), but the agent confirmed that it went for slightly below the asking price.

• Time on the market: two months

• The buyers: The seller’s children are now grown, so although it was wrenching to let go of the cottage, it wasn’t being used the way it used to be. The buyers, a family with two young boys, were already cottagers and were looking to move up in the market to a more centrally located property. (They were attracted by the easy access to the Ojibway Club and the fact that the cottage is situated on the main channel, since boating in the area can be tricky.) The cottage was sold furnished, saving the buyers from bringing new furniture in by barge and the sellers from taking theirs out by the same method.