We went away this weekend to have a look at more property. Having seen one on Wednesday we now had a firm list of requirements to tick off. Most were flexible, while some, like proximity to a train station, were must-haves. We arrived at our destination and visited the local market before heading in to town for a noon breakfast, caught up with a friend who lives round here before heading out to the first property. Not certain whether we were meeting the agent at the property itself or the place he had just had an open for inspection at, we headed to the open to make sure he didn’t hang around waiting for us. It was a 1 acre property with an established house on it, not what we were looking for, but we decided to have a look any way.
The property had established fruit trees and a vegie garden, three paddocks, a cosy, cottagey home with an out-house / workshop and plenty of water tanks. It also had recently replaced insulation, feed-in solar electricity, town water and ADSL enabled phone line.
It was too small, no gradient, had a house. Not what we were looking for. Nevertheless, it captured our imagination, Jo’s more than mine at first. We continued to look at 3 other properties ranging from 7 to 13 acres, including one which represented another’s unrealised dreams. An incomplete home and land for the bargain price of $200,000. The land on all three was barren, stony, hard clay. None of them really grabbed us. All along we kept thinking back to the first property.
So we headed to the caravan park to check in, still taking about the first property. I was still stuck in my head on the fact that it didn’t meet our requirements. There wasn’t enough land to do what we wanted. we were looking for 5 acres with a wood forest. Yes, this other place is awesome, it has an established food garden, and as it turns out we can get enough wood for an average winter from the local forest with a $30 permit. The need for the wood forest dissipated and the thought of less land to tend to became attractive, as did a property that we could live off immediately and was still enough of a blank canvas to create our lifestyle dreams of water, house cow, dogs and chooks.
So we’ve put in an offer and look forward to moving in in 45 days time :D