I must firstly start this this post with an apology after what can only be described as a rather lengthy absence from my blog.
I do however have a reason behind this and it is one that I have excitedly kept under wraps for weeks. Richard and I were house hunting and fortunately found a great little property to continue our future together in. We have officially been at our new home for just over week now and have certainly had a rollercoaster of a time. At last we are finally settled and everything is coming together after much moving of boxes from room, to room, to room!
The search for our new home wasn't too long in comparison to many other friends of mine. In fact we made the decision to start seriously looking and no less than two days later we had our first viewing and very nearly got the house, only losing out on it to another tenant by an hour. At the time I was devastated because it seemed perfect but looking back and comparing it to what we have now it was certainly far from it. It was only a one bedroom home with a small front room, tiny galley kitchen, one small dated bathroom and an average sized bedroom with no storage, no garden and only one parking space to fight over. It's funny how all those weeks ago it seemed to be 'the one' but I guess that's what desperation does to you.
Although in total we viewed six properties we did actually find it a struggle to get appointments simply because we have a dog. It seems a shame really that so many people turned us away and although I understand that many landlords want to protect their investment from damage, it does seem as though they are missing a trick, particularly as many who do accept dogs charge as much as two and half months deposit. I spent most of my six weeks off work for the summer calling and chasing agents about properties and found it thoroughly frustrating when I was turned away or told that the property was no longer available even though they continued to advertise it.
It is safe to say we saw quite a selection of properties, some good, some bad. It must be said however I thoroughly enjoyed having a nose around different houses, but I am fascinated by home design and the property ladder anyway. So here is a run down of the houses we saw, summarised by what we took from each place and ultimately why it wasn't 'the one'...
House #1
As I mentioned earlier it was a one bedroom house with no garden and limited parking but it did feel fairly homely and I could certainly imagine making it our own. It was also super close to my work, only a three minute drive or about a fifteen minute walk. It would however have been fairly out of the way for Richard in terms of his rugby commitments, seeing friends and his gym. Although we started negotiations we missed out on it to another person which I genuinely do believe was for the best. There is no way we would have been able to house all of our belongings there and we would certainly have had to put it in storage. I also think we would have missed having a garden although there were great walks in the local woods nearby.
House #2
This house was an example of how not having pictures on agent particulars works against you. I gave it the benefit of the doubt because the first property didn't have them but in that case I knew what to expect because I drove past it everyday to work. This place however was a no go from the moment we pulled up outside it. There was no parking and I ended up having to leave my car in a pay and display car park, which would mean visitors would effectively have to pay just to see us. I was also worried about the security of not only my car but our house because they were so close to two local pubs and on a road. As we waited outside we were greeted by the neighbour and his son (who was walking around the street in his pants no less). They were lovely and did hope we would take the place but this certainly wasn't a feeling we could share after seeing the property.
Now I could certainly see it's potential. If you had bought the place, made parking out the front and pumped money into refurbishment then you would definitely be onto a winner but for rental it was a dead end. As soon as we stepped in we were hit by the smell of curry. It was filthy, absolutely filthy and all I could think of was how much cleaning I would have to do and how on earth to get rid of that pong. It turned out that the place had been rented to students and it had fallen into disrepair. No matter how much the agent told us of his plans to paint everything, rip up and replace the carpets, deep clean and replace the toilet seat (something he kept going back to so much I was worried as to what was wrong with it in the first place) I just couldn't warm to it. As we walked round the state of each room became worse- there was a make shift bed on one of the dining tables forgoodnesssake. Although the agent assured me that there were lots of other people interested I couldn't quite believe him because he was trying to push down the rent and fees for us as we were discussing the options with him. It's safe to say it was a no and we dropped him a polite text later and carried on our search.
House #3
This was a property that from the pictures looked brand new but upon looking around was clearly not. It was a maisonette very close to the local (rather shabby) town. Again there was no guaranteed parking and the overall security of the area was concerning. The place itself was liveable but it didn't really have the 'wow' factor. There were lots of jiggly points that left us feeling fairly underwhelmed and the fact it had no garden put the nail in the coffin of this place.
House #4
This house. Oh lord this house. This had the picture postcard look from the outside. This is the sort of house you would be proud to show your friends and family you had invested in. It was stunning but even from the moment I booked the viewing I just knew it was out of our reach. There was a whole day just booked for viewings and we were the fifth appointment of the morning so you can imagine our odds. We looked round and although the interior was nice enough it was slightly on the small side. We both left in love, we even picked up the application forms but upon looking at the details I realised it I was priced beyond our reach and we stopped perusing it, even after an agent later called and said they would look at reducing the fees (suggesting maybe it wasn't the dream home for everyone after all).
House #5
This takes us to what is now our home. Now don't take it's place to mean we settled for second best. We left this house feeling very excited by it all but we had actually been booked in for another viewing at the same time I booked this one so we didn't want to jump the gun and miss out on another potentially good house. Everything seemed right about this house. The area, the street, the front. Everything. The viewing went really well and even after we left we both talked about it in excitable tones. This really was in the running...
House #6
This was the last house we viewed, although we didn't know it at the time. This place was actually bigger than the one we have now and it was a close call. The house however did turn out to have more negatives than positives (something I discovered after creating an excellent pros and cons chart between this house and House #5). The main issue for me was the complete inability to park. In fact the current tentant had to park where we did on the viewing day which was a couple of streets away across a very busy road, up a hill, which I'm sure you can appreciate for moving day and tasks such as food shopping is just not practical. That was the ultimate reason why we turned it down and House #5 won!
So there you have it. Our house hunting journey summed up without all those boring bits and days where I would do nothing but scour Rightmove and call estate agents. I will of course post more about our new home as we settle and everything has it's place but for now I will leave you in a state of wonder...
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