So we fell in love with the second one we visited. Sigh.
We've watched Location Location Location - we know about ridiculous wish lists, so obviously we had one. We want:
A nice view.
Not really any neighbours.
Rural.
And that's it. Really, that's it.
On our first foray into plot-hunting we went to see three. The first one didn't even get us out of the car. Luckily we seem to agree on what we're after, so we pulled up, both said 'NO' and did a 3 point turn... The third one was through a gate 'NO DOG WALKING HERE' (good start) and down a long track, the fourth of four cottages. Cottage 1 - quite nice, Cottage 2 - hmm, not so good, Cottage 3 - bleugh, Cottage 4 - ah. Yes, we can see why it hasn't sold. Absolutely tiny, planning will not allow demolition (that'll be the same planning who seem to have allowed the addition of fake concrete beams on the outside, then?) and no land, with what little land there is undulating like the Big Dipper at Blackpool.
Plot 2, however, was different. It's about 5 acres, some woodland, nice paddock, sort of flat(ish), lovely trees, fairly grotty cottage painted in an interesting shade of cooked salmon. No view, because of all the trees but a lovely location. And expensive. Ouch - very expensive. We fairly quickly went from 'we'll knock it down' to 'we'll have to use it' to 'oh blimey can we do it at all'' After another visit a few days later to talk ourselves out of it (because of the price) we fell further in love with it and promptly made an offer. The cottage was 'offers over £x' so we offered £x + £5,000. It was rejected. We were then told 'it's very popular there will probably be a lot of bidding and we'll go to sealed bids'. So we sat tight.
After a couple more weeks trying to forget about it, I phoned the agents. I spoke to a lovely young man who said 'what bidding war' and 'there have been no more offers' and 'I don't think it'll go for that much over the asking price'. Very interesting. I was then phoned back by the more experienced (and slightly flustered) agent within about 2 minutes who said there had been a LOT of interest, there HAD been more offers, it might still go to sealed bids and it was all very exciting. Never, ever, trust an estate agent.
Coincidentally, on the same day, we went to see Plot 4... This one has been nicknamed The Ugly House, partly because it has an unpronounceable Welsh name, and partly because we've genuinely never seen an uglier house. It is being sold as 'suitable for extensive renovation or replacement'. We like the 'replacement' idea. And it's the same price as Plot 2, although not 'offers over' which should give us some wriggle room. We can't go for a nosey, but we can do a drive-by. We drive by. It's even uglier in the flesh, but the location is lovely, as far as we can see. It's up a dead end road with only 3 houses beyond it. Very quiet. Very interesting. We head up the next (also a dead end) road for a better view, and meet the neighbour who has no idea it is for sale. He is lovely, and also a mine of useful information. And he has dogs. We're liking this more and more. We head for the pub.
The pub allows dogs in (hooray) so Mopsi spends the next hour batting her eyelashes at the resident lothario, Jack The Labrador. She doesn't quite pull our table over, but it's close... The food is great (if we move here I will have to restrict my intake of chocolate torte to one a week if I don't want to end up like an elephant), they have ginger beer and the landlady and landlord are welcoming and also full of useful information - if we buy here they can recommend a builder, a joiner and a kitchen fitter. We explain we've met the neighbour but they can't work out who we met.
"He had grey hair."
"Everybody round here has grey hair."
"He had a labrador."
"Everybody round here has a labrador."
There's a strong sense of community, and we're itching to move to the village. Sounds like we're sorted, but it's another 2 days before we can view it properly and we'd still have to talk to planning...
