Buying Trip Deuxième partie

Long house featuring Howard

Day two of our viewing trip saw us head off to the village of St Nicolas du Pelem where we were to meet Doug, our agent for the morning. We arrived, parked up, and made our way to the village centre to find the rendezvous.
Whilst waiting this chap came along and remarked, "you look busy", to Karen who was stood there with her clipboard and pen. Well, we got chatting, as you do, and it transpired he knew Doug well, and gave us lots of good tips and advice to help us in our quest. Doug duly arrived, we said our goodbyes to our new friend Howard and set off to the first property.
This was a huge townhouse in the village of St. Nicolas du Pelam which was at one time a wine merchant. Hence the presence of a number of massive oak barrels in the store at the side of the house. We looked round with interest, and I must say I liked it alot. But it would have needed more Euro than we had to restore it to former glories.
The next house Doug took us to was far too small for what we needed, and to be fair Doug told us as such before we went, but the owner was expecting us so off we went. On the plus side we got to drive through some beautiful countryside.

Inside the longhouse

For the afternoon appointments we travelled to Gouarec a particularly nice little town with some beautiful buildings. Here we met Eric, who took us to see the longhouse pictured above.
The biggest surprise of the day was that having arrived at the property the key holder was none other than our new friend Howard who we had met previously that morning. He was good friends with the owner and again was very helpful.
The house itself just blew us away, it was achingly beautiful  was almost perfect for our needs. In reality it was two cottages made into one, with four bedrooms and two bathrooms  upstairs, two in each cottage reached by two staircases, and a large double downstairs with it's own bathroom. It would photograph well and was on the edge of a village, we were  very tempted.

The field

There was one slight problem, the field. The property came with the field included in the price. And what a view it provided, you looked straight over it from the garden, but what could we do with it. At present the owner lets it to local people to graze their horses on, but how much income that would generate I'm not sure? Also I believe in France you are taxed by the amount you own and this is a lot of land. The lack of any outhouses was also a concern, but that didn't stop us mulling over the various options as we made our way to the last property of the day.

Plounevez Quintin

  

Plounevez Quintin surprised me big time. Looking at the details before we left I wasn't too hopeful. however I was quite wrong. The house was, and still is deceptively big, in good order and overlooks the village church. It was one of the cheaper places we would look at, and as such was terrific value. If our budget was more limited this could well have been the place. Karen even found a rifle in a cupboard, how weird is that. 

So that was day two over and we had the longhouse on our radar along with the first house from the day before, we had also met Howard, which was a major plus. Things were going pretty well....Roll on tomorrow.