B's Terrace

B's happy place.  B & S are a couple who play bridge.  I've mentioned them before.  B is the bridge partner of H, who is one of hubby's closest friends.  Her husband S renovates and repairs for a living.

We visited the new house this afternoon and hubby warned me not to be overly enthusiastic about the place, although I didn't have to be negative either.  Just play it cool, which wasn't hard to do.  Actually, while the house looked all right, I wondered why it had been in the market for so long.  Surely, with the relatively low price, it should have gone in no time.  Instead, it has been on and off the market for about 1.5 years, at the very least.  The original owner is the local real estate rental company who is now in the process of selling some of its older property to earn enough to build newer houses, which it intends to rent out at much higher prices.  The real estate agent took us around and upstairs -- 5 upstairs rooms to do with as we wish, the backyard as large as our present one, and no front yard, which would spare hubby some work.  There are a number of things that need fixing, though, which is why we stopped by B & S on our way home.  S advised us to sell our house first so that we would be in a more luxurious position if we had to haggle, as we have no pending mortgage and sellers are more willing to accommodate buyers who can offer ready cash.  S also suggested we talk to the neighbours there and do some discreet inquiries -- what's it like in the area, anything we should know about the house that the agent isn't telling, and so on.  In the meantime, hubby would like S to look at the new house with him so that S could assess what kind of repairs need to be done and what these will probably cost.  Hubby has already gone to the bank and they are willing to back him up 150%, so that will not be a problem.

In the meantime, our good neighbour B, the one who owns the cats, is also selling his house and has a big sign on his front yard advertising the fact.  S thought we might contact B's real estate agent and tell him that we want to move out, too, and could we put our house on the market but without the large sign so that anyone who might not be happy with B's place be given the option of looking at ours on the sly.

I don't know what it is, but suddenly I'm all for it.  Hubby has been feeling uncomfortable here for the past couple of years and the court case with the brothers hasn't exactly helped as all of them live nearby.  His parents used to live here and the circumstances surrounding our purchase of this place were anything but positive.  Now that nothing is really keeping us here, I have no reason to hang around either.  As we are under no pressure this time to either stay or leave, we can afford to make wiser decisions.

I like B's terrace a lot.  S fixed it up for her.  She has her house plants in it and her desk, and she has done a couple of paintings and mosaics and they're hanging on the walls.  It's a very cozy area.  It would be fab if we can find a house where I can have something similar.  I don't mind taking the time to look.  It would be really lovely.

Worked at home today.  Finished the Hadrian's Wall MOOC (6 weeks in 11 days!), so I've nothing pending now except Creative Writing, which I'll attend to this weekend.  Nothing much pending at work, either ... for a change.