Justin Maguire focused his search for a farmhouse on Prince Edward County, Ont., which has fertile growing conditions and ample waterfront.James Paddle-Grant
In 2014, Justin Maguire moved from his hometown of Perth, Australia, to Toronto. He’d always imagined owning a house in the city one day but the real estate boom that started in 2016 made that milestone seem unattainable to him.
“It felt like the ladder into the housing market had been pulled up,” he explains. He might have been able to eventually afford a condo downtown or a house in the suburbs, but neither option appealed to him.
He continued to rent in the city, but, in 2018, Mr. Maguire, who is now 39, began to consider buying a cottage instead – as a retreat and to feel more rooted in Canada.
In late 2019, he purchased a three-bedroom cottage on Head Lake, in the Kawartha Lakes region, for $330,000. He spent years renovating the property: gutting the interior, replacing flooring and walls, installing a fireplace, building a sauna and landscaping.
In 2023, Mr. Maguire completed a course in permaculture – a small-scale farming concept that minimizes waste and environmental impact. “I want to be closer to where my food is sourced from,” he says. “I want to have the space and area to experiment with having a natural garden and fruit trees and learning things like canning and food preservation methods.”
Mr. Maguire was inspired to look for a farm property with more land, where he could practise permaculture. He listed his cottage for sale in 2024. It didn’t sell until June, 2025, for $565,000. He envisioned using a farm property as a weekend retreat alternative to a cottage for a while, and eventually moving into it full time.
That fall, Mr. Maguire began hunting for a farm property with a top budget of $800,000. He was looking for at least 10 acres of land within three hours of Toronto. He also wanted open space where his four-year-old silver Labrador retriever, Jake, could play, and at least three bedrooms, to be able to host guests.
Given his experience renovating the cottage, Mr. Maguire was open to a fixer upper. And having grown up next to the ocean in Australia, he wanted a property close to water. So, he focused his search on Prince Edward County, Ont., which has fertile growing conditions and ample waterfront. Having restaurants, wineries and breweries nearby was also appealing, since Mr. Maguire planned to Airbnb the home for additional income when he wasn’t using it.
Mr. Maguire worked with Century 21 real estate agent Elyse Gallagher to find his farmhouse. Ms. Gallagher says that her clients purchasing property in and around Prince Edward County are a 50-50 split between people buying vacation homes and full-time residences.
“There are a fair amount of vacation rentals,” she says of the area, often referred to simply as the County. “It is a very popular spot, and there’s definitely some good money to be made with a cottage property.”
Here were Mr. Maguire’s top three options:
Updated three-bedroom farmhouse on 10 acres in southeast Prince Edward County
James Paddle-Grant
This modern three-bedroom, two-bathroom bungalow was a spacious 1,800 square feet inside. It had an open-concept kitchen and living room and a finished basement with a bar and a bonus room. The property sat on more than 10 acres of land – plenty of space for growing fruit and vegetables – along with a dirt bike track, a beach volleyball court, an attached two-car garage and an additional separate garage or workspace.
While it lacked a proper waterfront, the property did have a stream and a pond. It was just over a three-hour drive to Toronto and 12 minutes to the closest town of Picton. While the house was recently updated, it didn’t leave much room for renovating, which Mr. Maguire was keen on. This home was listed for $749,900.
Older four-bedroom farmhouse on 67 acres in southwest Prince Edward County
This property, priced at $774,900, lacked a waterfront. But it came with a sprawling 67 acres of land, which included 38 acres for farming crops like soy, corn and hay; a nine-acre sugar maple grove; and 13 acres of woodlands. There were also multiple sheds and outbuildings on the property for storage and hobby work. Mr. Maguire figured he could rent some of the fields out to other farmers.
But the house itself was in bad condition. The walls were poorly insulated and had peeling wallpaper and mismatched paint. “It had not been well-maintained,” Mr. Maguire says. “It would have been a complete gut job.” The property was, however, a 15-minute drive to Picton and just over three hours to Toronto.
Three-bedroom farmhouse with waterfront and fruit trees on seven acres in Napanee
James Paddle-Grant
Feeling limited by options in Prince Edward County proper, Mr. Maguire expanded his search to regions north of the county. This property in Napanee, a 30-minute drive northeast of Picton, only had seven acres of land. But it included 300 feet of waterfrontage onto Hay Bay and an established orchard of 60 fruit and nut trees and berry bushes.
The house itself had outdated decor but was in decent condition. However, the basement was damp and some joists had rotted, causing a significant slope in some areas of the home. “The floors in certain rooms had a three-inch drop from one side to the other wall,” Mr. Maguire explains. It was listed for sale at $599,000.
His house: Three-bedroom farmhouse with waterfront and fruit trees in Napanee
Mr. Maguire at his newly purchased home in Greater Napanee, Ont.James Paddle-Grant
Mr. Maguire felt that the updated farmhouse in Prince Edward County was overpriced and left limited opportunity for renovations. On the other hand, the older farmhouse was too daunting a renovation project for him to tackle, and he didn’t require such a large acreage. That left the Napanee farmhouse as his top choice.
While it was less than the 10 acres he hoped for, Mr. Maguire loved that there were already fruit trees and berries growing on the property and that the home had a proper waterfront. It was technically outside of Prince Edward County, but Mr. Maguire felt that being within a half-hour of Picton was still close enough.
With some back-and-forth negotiations, Mr. Maguire and the seller settled on a final price of $585,000. After taking possession, Mr. Maguire remedied the home’s structural issues by installing new concrete support pads and posts, along with cosmetic finishes like sanding and refinishing the floors, redoing bathrooms and restoring the exterior decks.
Mr. Maguire plans to spend weekends and weeks off at the farmhouse while renting the property on Airbnb in between to help with carrying costs. His main residence is a room in a shared apartment in the Annex, for which he pays $1,300 a month. But he hopes to move out to his Napanee farmhouse full-time in a couple of years, when he’s ready to start a family. Meanwhile, he can easily picture an idyllic future life revolving around his new property.
“It’s such an enjoyable experience to gather in a place where you actually have some privacy, where you can go down into the cellar and pull up some things that you grew the year before or grab some meat or veg that’s grown locally,” he explains. “That sort of lifestyle is very attractive to me at this point in my life.”
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