Yes, that's right - we have a house! And a very yellow one it is too...
It's been a long and sometimes frustrating wait, but it has definitely been worth it. Everything is moving very quickly now though!
We first went to view it a few weeks ago. I was already very taken with the pictures on the web, but was worried about the lack of bedroom space - lots of sitting rooms, but not enough bedrooms. However, we decided that we'd go and have a look anyway, in case we could see an easy solution to create another bedroom. There was a lovely warm and homely feeling to the place as soon as you walked in and by the time we'd got to the lounge on the middle floor I knew that it was the house I wanted. Unfortunately, once we'd seen all the rooms that were there, I also knew that it just wasn't going to happen - with only two bedrooms on the top floor, and a third possible one on the bottom floor there was no way we could manage to live there with the 5 of us and I eventually found myself stood back in the lounge fighting tears of disappointment.
When the estate agent telephoned the next day we explained the situation, and it was apparent that we weren't the only people who had been put off by the lack of bedroom space. As a result, the vendors had decided to create another bedroom and then put it back on the market. It seemed most likely that they were going to convert the (open-plan) dining room which for me would ruin the whole feel of the middle floor, so we put it out of our minds and carried on with the search.
Then 2 weeks ago, up popped the house with a 3rd bedroom on the top floor and still at the same price. The new viewing time clashed with some visitors we were expecting, so we crossed our fingers and asked for an early preview which he arranged for Sunday April 18th. Walking into the house gave us all the same feelings as the first time round, the middle floor had been left untouched, so it was with hope and trepidation that we went up to the very top to see how the new room looked. To our delighted surprise, they'd done a great job and managed to create a decent sized room where we had thought there wasn't the space for one.
Now came the hard part. The bidding system over here is much different to back in the UK, so we asked Per (the agent) about the expectations on price so that we could make our bid accordingly. We were rather downhearted to learn that the absolute lowest price they were willing to accept was also the highest price we would be able to bid. After sleeping on it, we came to the decision to bid what we could regardless - nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that. So when Per telephoned on the Monday morning, we put our bid in, assuming that they would want to carry on with the open viewing the following weekend to see who else was interested and would offer them more money.
Incredibly, just a couple of hours later we received a phone call to say that they had accepted our offer! The next day Per emailed over the contracts and arranged a meeting for late afternoon between us and the vendors so that we could sign them and agree on a moving date. So by Tuesday night the contracts were signed and the house was officially to be ours! There was a minor hold-up as our bank contact had gone on holiday and got stuck out there with the volcano, but it didn't cause too much trouble and Friday was a trip to the bank to sign the papers there and pay the deposit and that was it, all done. Compare those 5 days with the 2+ months of back and forwards between solicitors and banks that it took when we sold our house in England.
Now we're just waiting impatiently for June 1st to come round! Minor other detail of getting all our possessions over from storage in MK, but right now that's a secondary consideration to the fact that we FINALLY HAVE A HOME!
