Adele Doucet always thought she would build the house of her dreams. Her until she found the perfect list, in her hometown.
The buyer: Adele Doucet, a 29-year-old veterinarian.
Budget: $200,000
The backstory: Doucet grew up in Memramcook, New Brunswick, a small but quaint Acadian town southeast of Moncton. In 2015, she moved out of the province to attend Atlantic Veterinary College in Charlottetown. Doucet’s father, Daniel, a real estate appraiser, offered to put money toward a down payment to buy a property for Adele’s four-year term in Prince Edward Island. He “told me, ‘In the end you’ll make money. You better build your credit,’” she says. the process was daunting for young Doucet, then a first-time buyer, but the father-daughter duo eventually snapped up a four-bedroom home. single family home near campus for $160,000. They rented out two of their spare rooms to other vet students for $500 a month, which covered a good chunk of Adele’s mortgage payments.
After graduating, Doucet was eager to return to her home province. “There was a small Acadian community on PEI, but it wasn’t the same,” she says. “Also, in Charlottetown, everything closes in the winter.” She got a job at a veterinary clinic in Moncton months before finishing her degree and sold her temporary PEI home in a private sale to a family friend for $215,000. Doucet’s dream was to use her share of her sale to build a new property on the four-acre lot next to her childhood home along the Petitcodiac River. (Her ever-generous parents had already moved out, but kept the adjoining land for her.) Doucet envisioned a small, well-lit A-frame with more than enough room for her growing herd of animals; At that time, she had a cat, a gecko and four sugar gliders. In all, she planned to spend about $200,000 on the build. “I wouldn’t have been able to build or buy a house in Memramcook without the profits from PEI,” says Ella Doucet. “Or I would have needed even more financial support from my parents.”
Doucet’s Memramcook House on the Petitcodiac River
The hunt: Before plans could be drawn up, Doucet’s aunt found a two-bedroom, one-bath property on the Petitcodiac River, priced at $179,900. “It was exactly what she wanted to build, but closer to the city,” she said. “I tried not to get too excited, because I didn’t want to be disappointed.” Two days later, she booked a visit, with her father in tow.
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The space needed a fresh coat of paint, but was otherwise more or less move-in ready. It had lots of natural light and partial views of the river. The main floor entryway opened to a spacious kitchen and wrap-around living room, with a full bath and bedroom nearby. (“I saw the bedroom and thought, That’s for my sugar gliderssays Doucet.) The upper level featured a loft-style bedroom with vaulted ceilings and closets on both sides, plus an exit to a picturesque patio. And with no immediate neighbors and sheltered wetlands on either side, the property was incredibly private. Should Doucet crave human company, she could visit her sister, Dominique, who lives a minute’s drive away.
At the time of Doucet’s viewing, one offering had expired and another was pending funding. To outbid the other potential buyer, Daniel co-signed the $162,000 offer. The owner, who had lived in the house for more than 30 years, agreed, and Doucet and her numerous animal companions moved in right after her graduation in May 2019.
Doucet’s first year as a homeowner presented a learning curve: For one thing, she had to hire landscapers to clear fallen leaves from the property’s many mature trees. Oak trees. For the most part, however, nesting it was easy: Doucet enjoys crafts in his corner, trips to nearby breweries and daily walks down the river with Mumford and Elton, the Labradors he adopted after the move. “I will never move, ever,” says Doucet, whose big summer project was building a chicken coop for his resident flock of roosters. “I don’t think I can get a better place than the one I have.”