A Dream Home – ImPort Stanley

Dream home is white with a peaked roof over the garage and over the entrance. The lawn isn't in yet. A big blue lottery sign is posted at the road

ImPort Stanley is weekly series about life and discoveries by a recent “import” to Port Stanley, ON.

Now we know why there’ve been so many slow-moving lookie-loos driving past our house. There is a Dream Home a few doors away. Won’t you be my neighbour?

The Dream Home is a grand prize on offer in the London hospital Dream It Win It lottery. (In the GTA, the comparable lottery is for Princess Margaret Hospital.) Let’s just skate right past the insanity that lotteries are necessary to fund our health care system, okay? I acknowledge it, but that’s a rant for another day.

We have always purchased a few tickets for this lottery. Because even if you don’t win anything it still feels good to support an important cause. We promoted Dream homes in our radio days. Other times we toured them because they were so unusual, such as a luxury shipping-container cottage in Bayfield several years ago.

And now, there’s a Dream Home in our hood. Luckily for us, as residents, they’re not allowing in-person tours. Having seen what the crush of visitors does as far as noise and congestion, we are grateful for that decision. Still, there has been a lot more traffic. People, of course, want to see what they’re vying for. The two-bedroom, 1.5-bath house has a definite beach feel and is about a 10-minute walk from Little Beach.

The Prize

There’s a virtual tour and lots of photos of the home online. We already know what the house like inside because our builder made it. Domus Developments doesn’t cut corners. And they use fixtures and elements that are better than the usual builder grade. The house comes fully furnished, with appliances, window coverings and landscaping. It’s valued at $1.1-million and comes with $100k cash. The valuation is legit. Similar homes here have already sold for a million or more.

The other Dream Home is a huge Tudor-style house in Thorndale, valued at $1.4-million.

Or the winner can opt for $1-million in cash. And they have other mini-lotteries within the lottery, such as a 50/50 draw, and several secondary prizes.

The builder isn’t being evasive about property taxes in the FAQs. Even after living here for eight months, we’re not entirely sure what our taxes are yet. However, as you drive around the village you might notice signs featuring complaints about water rates. Water bills are astronomical. The average monthly bill for water in Ontario is $64. We pay about double that.

Ontario residents only are eligible to purchase tickets. It would certainly be a cheap and cheerful way to buy property here, if you won. The lottery usually sells out and yes, the chance of winning is as slim as a matchstick. But isn’t it fun to dream?

3 thoughts on “A Dream Home – ImPort Stanley”

  1. Always great to buy tickets for these lotteries even if it sucks that health care needs lotteries. We never buy with the expectation of winning. Even winning the smallest prize can make someone happy. Peter’s great nephew was ecstatic when we won a pair of headphones from the Princess Margaret lottery that we didn’t particularly care for but Carter was happy to receive after leaving his behind at school when the pandemic started. It meant that he could look cool in online school without having to wear his sister’s pink princess headphones.

  2. Love the cottage! It is a slightly smaller version of our house in another area of Central Elgin. I’m glad you posted, because it spurred me to buy a ticket (or two).

    The average water bill in Ontario is $64? Darn! We pay MORE than that before a drop of water comes out of the lines~$70 for delivery and sewage charges. This month, our water is over $180! That isn’t typical, and we are 3 adults (+visiting long shower-takers a couple times a month). Fingers crossed it goes back to normal (~$140 next month!)

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