Home tomorrow, empty handed

We made our phone calls this morning withdrawing our offer and interest, and let us just say the Estate Agent was not too happy.
It would appear he was counting his commission, totally convinced we were going to buy it.  He had not bothered to ring us to advise that our initial offer had been declined, nor that a second party had offered more, and we only found out because the vendor did, having said they had another viewing the following morning and would let us know how it went.

I rang the vendor first thing and spoke to him directly. He was disappointed, but understood, asking if there was anything they could do for us to proceed.  I had to come clean and say that I had overstretched with our first offer too, getting carried away with the moment and the fact that Hubby and I had finally found a property we both liked on first viewing.
I wished them luck with their second viewer, whose brother actually lives opposite them.
From there, we went into other agents we had dealt with during our minibreak, and one later rang me to say she had mentioned our case to their mortgage advisor, and if we wished he would happily talk to us to see if we could raise extra funds by taking out a small mortgage even though we are on a low income.
Hubby and my proud boast is that we don’t owe a penny to a soul, and whilst this was a lovely thought (albeit to attract a sale and more commission for services provided), even if we did qualify, I doubt if we could find the extra outgoings on a regular basis for 10 years or so.
We have viewed three properties today.
One I have already commented on, and the other two were given to us this afternoon and we were lucky in that viewings could be arranged immediately.
The first was in one of the exterior roads of a holiday resort (absolutely teeming with people and today was market day so the roads were closed). A tidy detached bungalow built in the late 1930s with off road parking (just) at the front and a nice big garden and GRASS for Maggie at the back.
Inside were two bedrooms, lounge, bathroom and kitchen. It needed work, a new kitchen, bathroom, windows, boiler and central heating etc, but the decor was good and it had new carpets throughout. Hubby detected some damp, but it didn’t look to be a major issue.
Sleepily, excitement began to stir.

Cue thunder, and the skies opened.
Within minutes, the front was under three inches of water, and there was a huge puddle in the road directly outside as there is no drainage there.
SPLASH: massive screen of displaced water dumped on the front.
SPLOOSH: second wall of liquid drowned the car (we’d left a window open for Maggie!).
SPLATTER: Hubby opened the front door and we all got soaked in the lobby.
No good to us as we’re not trying to grow a rolls royce from a hyundai, and both car and house would be forever drenched in similar conditions. We couldn’t safeguard against it as the off road parking is just long/wide enough to clear the car off the pavement.
Our final property of this trip was a novelty.
Tucked away in a back lane, again in a holiday resort, it had a lovely large garden, and off road parking which was good as the lane was narrow and we had to reverse out.
Inside, it had three bedrooms, lounge, kitchen and bathroom.
The lady who showed us round was a rough diamond of the best calibre, she was all personality and her dog, a boxer cross, a right softie.
It needed work, but would make a lovely holiday retreat. We felt it was perfect for a getaway, or single person dwelling, but as a permanent residence for the two of us and her ladyship, we would’ve found it too small after a while.
So, after five days, we are returning home with no new house pending.
There are properties here, we are just not quick enough for the good stuff. One came on yesterday, we got the email, responded immediately for a viewing today, but by 9.10 this morning an offer had been accepted for the full asking price. We can’t compete with that.

Never mind.
We saw 2 properties that were worthy of offers, one of which was toothbrush perfect, ie, we would not have had to do a thing, but it was on the VERY main road (been there done that) and car parking was behind it in a back lane, so no parking for friends or visitors.

More importantly, we have learnt something this week, got our priorities sorted with some realistic figures, and next week will be checking Wales again to see if there is anything new or something has dropped in price.
Both of us are itching to start on the project which will be our new home.
Finding it is just eluding us at the moment.

PJ Proby anyone?

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