I love shows like Location, Location, Location,
House Hunters International and Property Brothers which probably means I'm
nosey and I want to see inside houses.
So when we decided to strike out on our own to buy our own house I was
100% sure my picky nature would be entirely satisfied by looking in every nook
and cranny of wherever we visited.
 |
| fancy fireplace in Exeter |
We looked into buying tentatively when we moved
from Singapore, but the new builds I’d seen and loved in Aberdeen were entirely
different to the ones they were offering here, so although great in their own
way, they just couldn’t live up to my expectations. I’d also seen a perfect house for us in the
town we were already living in, and after falling for it as soon as I walked in
the door Mark had a heart breaking talk with a broker who said because we’d
lived out of the country we’d never get a mortgage.
 |
| Our 1st Exeter home |
We had A LOT on our plate what with Dr’s visits,
getting used to a new place, seeing family and dealing with all the admin that
comes with an international move at short notice. This was not just ‘one more piece of bad
news’, this was enough. We put house
buying on the back burner and started to get settled into our little new build
cottage…
Gosh wouldn’t it be sweet if that’s where it
ended?
However, four months into our lease Mark had the
landlords drop in and quiz him about every – damn - thing. Asking why there was furniture up against the
wall, crawling around the floor and barging into rooms where relatives were
sleeping…. I sort of feel like they
weren’t very used to being landlords and felt that they were doing us a favour by
letting us live there, which isn’t exactly what anyone needs when they pay sky
high deposits and rental charges. After
a couple of emails from them explaining
in minute detail how exactly they want us to live in their cottage we decided
we needed to move (hey we’d done it 3 times in one year already, what’s one
more time?).
 |
| teeny tiny kitchen/dining room and living room at Perryman |
I went right to the bank who poo-poo’d the brokers
nonsense and after a relatively quick mortgage approval meeting we were ready
for our second viewing of the second house we’d ever looked at. We clutched our mortgage approval letter like
it was the cash itself and marched across the road to the estates agents and
asked to see the house as we’d like to buy it (no poker face here). Regrettably not quite everything was that
simple and we had to wait twenty four hours before getting our viewing. (I mean, seriously?)
As soon as we saw it we knew we wanted it and after
a bit of back and forth we got it…we got our house. That’s not even where the good news ends,
after being spoken to like naughty children and threatened with fortnightly
inspections we got to write to the landlords and let them know that we didn’t
want the cottage any longer. I seriously
can’t think of a more expensive tantrum I’ve ever had.
 |
| Our 2nd Devon home |
So that’s how we came to buy a house and move four
times in one year (that’s not even our record).
It’s also how we managed to miss out on appearing on Location, Location,
Location, although I probably would have been the easiest to please person in
the history of the show and we know that would have made for terrible viewing.
 |
| from the Estate Agent |
