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.  

Buying Trip

Base Camp

Well here we are back in Brittany for perhaps the most important visit of them all, for it is on this trip we hope to decide on the property that our future will depend. No pressure then.
We based ourselves about 2k north of the town of Huelgoat, where we stayed on our first trip way back in March. In fact, it really was too far west for our purpose but it was cheap and available, so beggars can't be choosers.
As it turned out it was very pretty and comfortable, so we unpacked and made ready for the weeks adventure.

Mael Carhaix

The very first place we saw set the bar pretty high. Just outside the village of Mael Carhaix was this splendid pile. Five bedrooms, the top two already boasting en suites, the rest of the house in good nick, this place had "P" big time. and the view from the gardens wasn't too shabby either.
Also there was a stone cottage to "renovate" (spend lots of money on) and a very large barn for storage, presumably my combine harvester it was so big.

Well if this was the kind of stuff we were going to be viewing the next few day would be very interesting indeed.

La Feuillee

 We saw four properties in all on Monday, and they were all pretty good but we had to discount them for one reason or another, either too remote, too much work or queries on land boundaries we didn't want to get mixed up in.
The house at La Feuillee was one we were really looking forward to before we left England, and was our last appointment of the day, but on inspection I was a little disappointed. Don't get me wrong the house was fine, nothing particularly wrong with it, it just didn't grab me. Karen on the other hand was much more impressed, and I must admit, for the price it was a lot of house. Situated on the outskirts of a pretty village it was very well placed as well, so it ticked all the boxes except the "you have to buy me" box......Oh well.
We did get convinced to have a look at one more place which, as it happened , was back in Huelgoat near where we were staying, so in for a penny.....
The house turned out to be a huge money pit and far to bigger task for us or our budget.

So with day one done and one contender in the bag, we set off back to our gite, for a cold mistakenly purchased non alcoholic beer, food and wine (alcoholic).
Roll on tomorrow, when we would get to meet our new Brittany best friend, the venerable Howard, top man.
  

Done Deal

Well, yesterday evening at 6-30 pm it actually happened, we exchanged contracts on our house sale, that's it done and dusted, farewell to "Melrose".
I'm  not saying those words don't come with a certain amount of sadness on my part, but our future doesn't lie here anymore. Our time in Victoria Crescent has been, on the whole, very happy, it's the house that Sophie and Tom grew up in and I'm sure they will always remember  it  as their home. 

When  we first moved here it was never our intention to move again, but after the children moved on it seemed to lose a little bit of soul and the lure of a fresh start, when we are still fit enough to make a go of it, seemed too good a chance to give up. 

The last couple of weeks has been pretty stressful. The information going backwards and forwards between the various solicitors and estate agents was really beginning to make my head hurt. And having to cough up £300 for an insurance policy that I know no-one will ever need, just to make our buyers solicitors happy, was annoying to say the least. But we paid up just to try and keep the cogs turning. The thought of anything going wrong, and having to go back to square one was not on the agenda.
Well, as I said, it's all signed off now and we can go to France tomorrow as cash buyers, and as so have a little more clout in the bargaining arena.
And lastly a massive thanks to Richard Ottaway and his pals at Martins Estates and all the hard work they've  done on our behalf, money well spent.
So it's on to Le Shuttle tomorrow with 17 houses to view next week....Wish us luck.  

The next post should have lots of news and pic from our week in Brittany and maybe even a new address!!! 

Progress!!!!

Ashford Parish Church

Well, the last month and a half have been pretty tough going. We still had a steady flow of viewers but no-one seemed to want to put in an offer. With my "job seekers allowance" rapidly coming to an end things were starting to look slightly desperate with financial limitations being added to the stress of not seeing an end to our situation. Leaving Ashford looked along way off.
Just making sure the house ad garden was spick-and-span was becoming a real chore and I was becoming increasingly restless around the house and finding it difficult to concentrate on anything apart from willing the phone to ring. Even my beloved guitars were being neglected.
Then, out of the blue the middle of last week, the tide began to turn.
We had a viewer last Tuesday who obviously wanted the place badly. He had grand plans to keep birds of prey and the house and garden suited his purpose perfectly. They were young, but you got the impression that the price wasn't a problem. So you can imagine our disappointment when they put in an offer a full 30 grand bellow the asking price. But we thought we'd end up agreeing a price somewhere in the middle and all parties would be happy..........Wrong.
They did up the anti but only by 5 grand and said that was as high as they would go. So we had a weekend agonising over weather we could take the hit and so put an end to the saga. In the end we decided to give it a week, and if there was still no interest we would, (working on the premise  happiness is more important than money) begrudgingly, concede and get on with life.............This turned out to be one of our better ideas.
Along came a wonderful lady that quite obviously felt exactly the same about the house as we did fifteen years ago. When she asked if we'd had any interest I told her of the low bid on the table and that we were going to run with it unless another one came along by the weekend. She told me not to agree to anything and she would bring hubby round that evening. Next day we had a very nice offer on the table to which we said YES PLEASE!
Now I know that nothing is over 'till the fat lady sings, (this particular fat lady being "exchange of contracts") but at least we can see a light at the end of the tunnel, and we can begin to look at French properties and plan another viewing trip in August.
Our lovely buyer is off to Marmaras for a holiday and we told her all about Turunc, so if any of my Turkish friends read this look out for an English couple who are excited about a new home, be extra nice to them they might  be our newest friends.  

Killing Time

Backgammon 

As I said in the previous post, waiting for an offer on your house is a pains taking exercise, and I'm afraid I'm not very good at it. So as a way of re-leaving at least some of the boredom I've taken to learning the art of Backgammon.
This is a game that rather past me by when I was younger, and apart from a couple of games with my friend Matt, whilst cruising down The Nile,  (how posh is that), I've never really played.  But I know it's very popular on the continent, including France, see where I'm going with this? And it's  my thinking, it would be a good thing to be able to take on the locals and not look a twit. Thus helping the integration process, and making new French friends.

We purchased this board whilst on our Turkish holiday, and it's very beautiful, and by English standards well priced (read cheap). It's hand made and was ours for a little under thirty English pounds. It will also be good to have around the B&B for our guests to use along with Scrabble, Cluedo and whatever else we can gather together.

Last week we had three more viewings, but nothing more this week. But to keep us interested we've decided to have a bit of a move round with the bedrooms. At present we sleep in the loft room which, to be honest was always going to be best with either one or two single beds. And when we (finally) get to France we are going to need a twin room. So we've ordered a bed to match the one we already have in the box room, and we are going to move down to the second floor into the room vacated by our lovely lodger Betsy. The thinking is it will make the house look more balanced.

That does however mean putting away my beloved Scalextric that has had pride of place in that room  for the past month. Oh well, you can't have it all.

Scalextric

  I hope the next time I write on this blog I will be talking about an offer and that things going forward...........Fingers crossed.

Still Waiting.

This house selling, or not yet selling, is much more stressful than I thought it was going to be. We came back from France full of what we want to do, and how we are going to do it, and it's difficult keeping the levels of excitement up whilst waiting for the call from the estate agent.
We haven't been short of viewings, I think, after tomorrows appointment we must be up to eleven or twelve, which we are told is very good for the current climate. But it's still hard when it's not just another house we are looking forward to, but another way of life, and a dream of a new start, that seems to be on hold.
Karen finds motivating herself for work more difficult, and filling my day is not easy, (you can only hoover and cut the grass so many times). And every time the phone rings I can't help but think,"this might be it" only to find it's a dental check up reminder or some-one trying to tell me that I'd had a car crash in the last two years and would I like to claim, which I haven't and I don't.
I know there are many things to get sorted before the big day, furniture storage, transport etc, but until we at least get an offer, I feel we can't get too deep into the move planning, if only not to jinx things.

So as a de-stress exercise we took ourselves away for a short holiday........to Turkey??
Yes I know it should have been France, but we have been visiting the pretty seaside village of Turunc for the past seven years and have many Turkish friends out there. And our plans being what they are we will not be getting a holiday for a good few years, so it was a case of "now or never", and we chose now. So we went back for eleven days to drink Efes and say goodbye to some fab friends and make a couple of new ones. And thanks to the wonders of face book we can keep in touch and maybe one day one or two of them may decide to come and visit us in France and we could show them some of the hospitality they've shown us over the years.

Turunc Turkey

 

Waiting for the sale



For Sale

 It has now been just over a month since we returned from France. And after a few frantic days finishing off the decorating we finally got our house on the market.

As the thing that will hopefully make our property stand out is the garden, we decided to place an extra "for sale" board  against the willow tree hoping to garner interest from the people using the path on the other side of the river.





View North

 Over the past three and a half weeks we've had seven or eight viewings which, everyone tells me is pretty good. However, as always with these things, you seem to get an inital surge of interest, which tapers off  after a while. Which, unfortuneatly, is where we find ourselves at present.

View to river

Having been unemployed since the new year, and having completed all the cosmetic work on the house, I now find myself constantly awaiting the phone to ring. I'm not coping very well with all the sitting around waiting for our new life to begin. ( You can only hoover,polish and mow the lawn so many times).

Let's just hope our buyer will find us soon and we can get this thing moving again....Fingers crossed.

View from Pond

P.S If anyone wants a look inside they can find the deails at the right move web site.