Wow, what a scorcher..... we had a bit of a lie in today and then left fairly early to meet Mandy our new estate agent who has moved to Portugal from Birmingham!
Apparently we had got our timings confused, the journey was longer than we thought..... we managed to get there by the skin of our teeth although at a much faster speed than I felt comfortable with.....
In the villages, Portugal has traffic lights controlled by speed, so they can turn to red if you are going too fast and slow you down.... an instant penalty for driving too fast, what a great idea......
We eventually met Mandy, another estate agent (Vitor)and the owner outside the first property, the house was ok but the land was too small because it included the house footprint in the measurements. The owner had extra land for sale but wanted 20,000€ extra for it - we must have looked shocked as he quickly indicated it was negotiable..... we declined politely!
We drove to a café, left our car outside and Mandy took us to see the rest of the properties in her car.
The next house looked promising, a terrace outside the house covered in grape vines to keep it cool, outbuildings, a place for the chickens, good land then we saw the bathroom which hadn't been cleaned at all........and it was in the middle of nowhere so again we declined.
The next house was not right at all, the house was awful, broken windows, difficult to get to (windy mountain roads) but great garden (lots of fruit trees) Mandy's first impression was the same as mine, she whispered 'Oh no' under her breath as we walked into the property..... we declined again.
The last two we visited were Mandy's properties, she said that she believed we would like the first one and she was right. The location was right, walking distance from a large village and park, the land was good, olive trees, a terrace, flower beds and lots of space to create what we wanted to create. The house looked good from the outside, a nice terrace to sit on and it looked like a cottage. Inside it needed some work - a new boiler, new windows and doors and a floor in a bedroom needed replacing. The owner had already agreed to replace all of the downstairs floor within the price but we suggested that other jobs needed completing too.
We asked Mandy to suggest a new floor in the bedroom, a new boiler and new windows and doors and ask what price the vendor thought would be appropriate.
We went to visit the village which was also fabulous, it has several cafes, a weekly market, a monthly vegan market, a bank, chemist and several other small shops all within walking distance. We visited a café for cake and coffee which was lovely but was the most expensive we had seen in Portugal, unfortunately this was because it was owned by an English man.
We hit the road again in 45/50+ temperatures and watched the bombardiers in convoy on the roads driving to the various forest fires which are appearing all over Portugal at the moment
We stopped at another café for refreshments, this time it was owned by a Portuguese man and coffee was back to the regular Portuguese price of under 1€ for a latte.
The last property was at the base of a mountain, hard to get to, near to a café and a river beach but that was it. There were numerous steps to the property and Mandy thought it needed at least 70,000€ spending on it as there were a number of problems apparent including extensive water damage. A definite and emphatic NO.
Mandy asked whether we wanted to come back to her house for a coffee and to see what they had done to their property, they have been in Portugal for 18 months and have a house with a small amount of land in a village. The house is an ongoing project but already looks amazing with large open plan area downstairs, a small swimming pool and fabulous terrace and two beautiful dogs.
We decided to carry on searching for properties whilst we wait for answers on our favourite property
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