Just wondering - how long did it take you . . . .

[gam]

. . . . to find your property?

I've firmed up on my ideas for the sort of property I'm looking for (see viewtopic.php?t=15384&highlight=) now just need to find it!

Of course, I know I might be lucky and find it next week or it could take a year or more but just wondered what your experiences were and what compromises, if any, did you have to make?

[kendalcottages]

We were looking for several years before we opted for what we have.

I say 'looking' loosely as we weren't actively looking, rather just continually keeping an eye on what was out there.

[e-richard]

Not that I'd recommend this to anyone:

We arrived in The Algarve on Sunday.
Has pre-arranged appointments with 5 agents.
Saw 23 properties in 4 days across a very wide geographical spread.
Found our dream home on Thursday and revisited Friday morning.
Spent Friday afternoon with the lawyers.
Flew home on Saturday.
6 weeks later, flew back to The Algarve to pick up the keys from our lawyer.
1st guests arrived two weeks later.

[greenbarn]

To do what you're planning, ie finding a property with either existing or potential rental properties within the grounds (or maybe separate, but close by) took us nine months as a full time occupation with a vicious learning curve. Of course, had the property we finally bought come on the market at the right time, it might only have taken us a week......

It then took two years to convert the stone barn in the grounds to our three rental units.

Our target area was very different from yours; we started looking in North Yorkshire, which is a mighty big place, but ended up just over the border in Cumbria.

What did we learn along the way? From the outset we knew that we wanted a nice place to live; so a nice house in a nice area, with a business. We didn't want a business with some compromised living accommodation attached. It's an important consideration to prioritise: lifestyle with business, or business with lifestyle. That's obviously down to personal factors, but is also influenced by the type of properties in your target area; for example our searches in the Yorkshire Dales illustrated that large properties aren't particularly numerous, and many of them are the classic Dales cottages banged through to make one long house, often tight on outdoor space.

We looked at numerous places which with hindsight we shouldn't have wasted our time on; that was part of the learning curve. They were lovely places, but didn't fit either of the categories. We made ourselves known to every estate agent we could find, and spent hours each day searching online. We didn't fully appreciate how long it would take to convert an existing agricultural building into decent accommodation, and therefore how long it would be before it stopped being a financial drain and started paying instead; even then we were off in our estimates of how long it would take to get the business established, and get the essential repeat and word of mouth bookings. We didn't understand the need to get an online presence at the earliest possible opportunity, rather than waiting until we could see when we'd be ready to open for business.

Bucketloads of other things, pretty much all covered somewhere on LMH by those who've got the T-shirt.

We did end up with a property that pretty much ticked everything on our wish list, but it was almost a chance find. If we were doing it again, there is one enormous difference we'd make in how we went about it; we'd hire a professional property finder. This is expensive, but with the benefit of hindsight it would've been worth it. They have one key advantage denied to us, even if we're searching online every day; they will frequently hear of a property before it comes to market, or even a suitable property that has been taken off the market. You might even end up getting the search for free, with some publicity thrown in, if you don't mind working with Phirsty and Kill.

[Mouse]

Took us 14 months to spot the place we're in now. It was a complete nightmare as we needed to have a place with onsite accommmodation we could move into in the summer when renting out the villa. Whilst there are quite a few properties on Ibiza that lend themselves to that, very few were in our budget.
It was very stressful as the market was moving upwards and our budget was fixed.
I knew every villa on the island in our range - no kidding. I was telling estate agents contacting me about the houses as I usually knew first.

Originally we wanted a villa with casita/apartment with a decent amount of land (plus pool etc) in a rural location. We lost out on 2 (long story) and were in the 'revisiting' stage trying to convince myself that ones we'd discounted might work when up popped this one.
We'd already looked at the villa at the end of the lane and discounted it, and the one next door to it (too expensive). We'd seen this one empty and with a green pool but couldn't find out who owned it. I then spotted an advert and, long story short, it was that villa which, unbeknown to us, also had an apartment attached.
Another plus - it was in the village we'd really wanted to be in but felt was out of our budget.

We were losing the will to live at this point so we put in a stupid offer and was prepared to walk away. It was accepted! Moved in with no electricity (amongst other problems) and only got it connected the morning the first guests were due to arrive

The villa is large but the grounds are not. This was the main compromise, though being village located is a huge boon to us and a big selling point to renters (our USP).
We had no idea.
Having said that we're glad we didn't end up with acres of garden as the maintenance would have been a nightmare judging by the upkeep of our smallish garden. We're also pleased we didn't end up with somewhere very rural...that wouldn't have suited our lifestyle. As GB says - that is very important.

Surprising how you think you know what you want and then something comes along that is perfect but you just don't appreciate it until much later.

Mouse (wishing she'd had e-richards experience)
x

[e-richard]

...and what compromises, if any, did you have to make?

Sorry, missed that first time round. Since our criteria were very flexible (due to a total lack of pre-planning and due diligence) the only compromise I can recollect was spending a darn sight more than we planned to

[Nightowl]

Richard, that made me laugh, cos that's about the same as what we did.

We got the bug about buying a house in spain after visiting friends in Gibraltar on summer in 2006. For months afterwards I was obsessed with House in the Sun and holiday home mags.

Decided I liked the look of costa luz. Hubby went along with it by default cos he hadn't looked at any of the areas at all. Rented a villa there the following year and had marked a few houses in a few estate agencies to go and take a look at.

Made some appointments, saw 4 or 5 houses (some only from the outside), saw THE ONE, put a deposit on it using hub's credit card, got some paperwork sorted out (such a spanish mortage in the next 10 days) flew home thinking ' my god did we just do that'.

Lots of financial juggling and sweating over spanish paperwork, NIEs and suchlike, we completed the following November.

Still happy with the house we bought, the only thing I'd change is that our house is on the outer edge our our urb and one in the middle would be nice. but nothing major that I'd change.

I absolutely love the Costa Luz.

[Hells Bells]

After a particularly enjoyable stay in the Loire valley, we started to look for a property of our own, as although we loved the place we stayed in , we knew we could do it better. I trawled the internet, received reams of property details, and still couldn't decide what to do.
One evening, we decided to book a short break ski trip to our favourite French resort. Suddenly, where we were going to buy our holiday home was easy. Trouble was our budget would now go nowhere. Finding the apartment took another 8 months.

[gam]

Wow Richard - viewing to first guests in 8 weeks - that sounds a bit hairy! Already with you about spending more. We've upped our budget by £100k as good properties at our original budget just aren't there. Few and far between at our new budget too but I'm hoping/expecting that will improve once the peak season is over and new properties come on the market.

I'm definitely in the "home first, business second" camp but the business potential needs to be good. Hadn't really considered a property finder so thanks for that idea Greenbaum. I'd have to find another £25k or so though

Great that it all worked out for you Mouse.

[e-richard]

Wow Richard - viewing to first guests in 8 weeks - that sounds a bit hairy!

FYI: Its usual when buying in Portugal that the property comes FULLY furnished as you see it when the last owner was there. That includes absolutely all furniture, artworks, pictures, kitchenware, plates, glasses, appliances, towels, linen etc etc.

Mind you, the previous owners had furnished it with "rental furniture" being a mish mash from various second hand shops and its taken us about 11 years to replace it all with furniture even we can live with, and we're still not finished

[Martha]

" the only compromise I can recollect was spending a darn sight more than we planned to "

Ain't that the truth!

We were seriously looking for 3 years and saw over 50 places. We were very lucky that due to a variety of factors, they really wanted to sell it and accepted a very low offer - originally, it was well out of our price range and we saw it by chance after viewing next door.

We figured out that we could do it if we let it out enough, and the rest could be traced though my posts here if anyone could be bothered!!!

Owning it is amazing and has changed our lives completely for the better.

[wallypott]

Much like ER we came to look, (a kind of fantasy house shopping, not really intending to buy) for one Easter weekend, saw about 6 houses, fell in love with mine, visited the house again the next day (on Easter day) put in an offer the same evening, paid the deposit, and caught the ferry home. All aged 24.

Now 16 years later, having spent one year converting one of the barns into two two bedroom gîtes I have done long term lets for 15 years and paid off the first mortgage. Partially because I was so inspired by LMG I have turned to holiday lets and nearly 10 times the initial mortgage! If I am still standing in another 15 years, once I have paid for my kids to go through Uni etc I should be able to retire before I shuffle of this mortal coil.

This time round, despite making a total meal of my budget, I have loved every step of the way.

[starcana]

Hi Gam,
Having just referred back to your original post, I thought I'd add my twopennyworth! After taking early retirement, we liked the idea of a hobby business. We loved the village we lived in in Warwickshire and had a fantastic house but knew if we didn't do it on early retirement then we'd be there till we died and we wanted an adventure.

Never wanted to live abroad so starting to look in this country and narrowed it down to Devon or Cornwall (you mention the West Country so wonder where you are thinking of exactly?).

As we were in no rush, we really took our time looking and because of the market that was even longer than we thought. We got a quick buyer for our house who couldn't sell (in Stratford upon Avon, surprisingly enough -shows how bad it was in 2007/8). Over a three year period (yes, three years!) we viewed around 70 properties and some of them we might have gone for had we sold. When our buyer sold, we looked at our shortlist of those that were still on, or new to the market.

But in the meantime, for us we had realised we wanted a house with just one holiday let, so that if we didn't like doing it we could just use the let for family, friends, etc and wouldn't feel we had to move again. Like you, a house we could love, with land as a project, was our priority. We'd seen manyfabulous holiday let businesses with houses that would have been a huge compromise after our lovely Warks house, and knew we didn't want to do that. Once sold, having kept a shortlist, it was easy to find this amongst the perhaps 8 viewings we did from our shortlist.

So here we are in wonderful Cornwall. Back to your earlier post. We've gone for 5* with our one-bed very large barn and know that is right for us. We really enjoy the guests we have. Have had just two broken glasses and no other repairs in three seasons and have achieved around 85% percent occupancy
in each of our three years so far. We get many 50+ age group (and quite a lot of retired) walkers, canoeists, bird watchers as well as some younger 30-something 'yuppies' (bit of an out of date term. We are starting to get a number of repeat guests. We are using an agency(expensive, but they do deliver brilliantly and charge much more than we ever would, and more than we see others on LMH charge for similar properties withou the commission to pay, so it all evens out we think

Sorry for the long post, but hope it's helpful. If you are thinking of Cornwall, PM me with your budget etc. as there are a few on the market here very worth looking at in the current climate.

[gam]

Thanks starcana.

We originally started looking in Devon, specifically South Hams, but of course we soon realised that there was too much "London money" there so prices were/are eye watering. Now we're focussing on North Devon/North Cornwall. Quite different but more affordable and still very beautiful.

Unable to completely retire (damn those bankers) and too early to draw a pension, we'll need a bit more than a "hobby business" to make up the shortfall in our investment income.

Very interested in the approach you've taken and very impressed with your occupancy rate!

Thanks for your offer. I've sent you a pm.

[Jimbo]

About two years, end to end. We had clear objectives. In France: because that's where we wanted to be. In a tourist hot-spot: so visitors would want to come. A property with the 'wow' factor: so visitors would want to come back. In an area where, if it rained every day for a fortnight, visitors would still have a good time: an objective that's been tested to breaking point a few times in the last seven seasons. We viewed about 15 properties and studied the details of hundreds of others. We stayed in gites and tested the water. In the end, it was a chance conversion with another gite owner that put us on the trail of a property yet to come on the market and that's the one we eventually bought. So always network when you're looking.

Compromises? We'd wanted a property with three gites and an established letting record. In the end, we bought a property with two gites and a convertible (with planning permission in place) barn and a patchy record (because the previous owner had taken one of the gites off the market for prolonged periods on a couple of occasions to house his daughters and their boyfriends). So, a calculated risk - or a gamble? Depends on how much you want a particular property, I suppose.

It was a tough call in the heady atmosphere of 2005 to find what we wanted at a price we could afford. However, in France, such has been the ferocity of the recession, that shed-loads of good-looking gite complexes are now available at knock-down prices as their owners flood back to the UK. So, the conundrum for any aspiring gite owner ought to be: should I take full advantage of a buyer's market? Or what does the fact that so many gite owners are selling-up for silly money tell me about the wisdom of investing your stash in the private rental industry in 2011?

Jim