house buying – Pete's Blog

I am naturally positive. My instinct is always to see the best out of everything and to look for opportunities in adversity. Indeed, when I was working I would sometimes be criticised because I would not spend enough time on “what went wrong?” because I was always looking for “what can we do now?”.

But even positive people occasionally have bad days, and Wednesday was one of them for me.

Two things went badly wrong. The first was the dentist. I had an appointment for a crown replacement, but my new dentist took one look and told me I have bigger problems. Apparently I grind my teeth at night and they have worn down to a level where the back teeth are rubbing against each other and putting pressure on the side of the crown which was why it had split off. Fixing could cost thousands of pounds which I don’t have. In the meantime he put in a temporary crown and left me in a lot of pain as the anaesthetic wore off.

Then just as I was feeling down, my phone rang. It was the couple who are buying our house. At least they were. Their buyer had just fallen through so while they still want our house, our planned date of March 22nd is now impossible, which means the house we were buying in Lancashire is also off.

So no house and in pain. Not my best day. Mandy also understandably angry and upset. So what to do?

Normally my response would be to switch on my positive energy and find five great reasons to be happy about the day. It would probably have irritated all those around me but it would have made me feel good. But for once it was not what I wanted to do. I just wanted to wallow in my miserableness. I found a quite corner and read a book.

So now it is two days later and and I am very much back to myself. There are lots of good things that will come out of this. My teeth are fine – for now at least. We get to stay in Scotland longer. I will even get my 60th birthday Scottish bus pass. And if the Lancashire house falls through, there will be another one, Fate is our friend.

I have also decided – sometimes even the most positive of people is allowed a bad day.

We have been staying in West Lancashire this week, looking for a house to buy. Over the past 40 years, we have lived in twelve different houses, usually moving for my job. Now we are retired it is time for my wife Mandy to come first and she has always wanted to live near her friends and family in Lancashire. She was born in Burnley and has a red rose in her heart.

The key criteria for choosing has been within an hour of Burnley. But that still gives a great deal of choice, especially since we are looking at a range of prices because we can choose to swap some pension assets for property if that makes sense. At the start of the week we had a long list of 54 houses on Rightmove.

We narrowed that list down eventually to about 16, and then by “drive by” to about 8. We have spent most of the past few days, visiting those 8. And boy have we seen some fascinating things. There was a beautiful farmhouse near Barnoldswick, dating back to about 1500. There was a house in the middle of Lytham St Annes that had a room full of snakes – yes really! And most interesting of all, we went to see an old cottage, near Blackpool airport, which turned out to be a witch’s house. Everything was painted black, and the cottage was filled with spiders, skulls and black cats. It even had a coffin shaped mirror in the bedroom.

We feel a little guilty about delving into other people’s lives, but we were genuinely looking for our new home, and by Wednesday night we had narrowed our search down to two properties. The first is a stunning stone built house in a village to the east of Preston. It has three stories, with a beautiful lounge on the first floor, overlooking woodland and a brook, and a wonderful kitchen diner on the ground floor, with stone flagstones and underfloor heating,

The second house is a new build on a small estate near Freckleton. The builder has gone bust, which meant the price front the administrator was excellent, and it has really spacious bedrooms, overlooking fields across the Fylde peninsular.

After two days of deliberating we have put in an offer on the second house and are waiting to see if it accepted. As a new house it provides a blank canvas for us. I wonder if Mandy will be looking for a pointed hat and a broomstick?

Tag: house buying

How to deal with a bad day?

Choosing a house is stressful but oh so interesting