We Sold Our House - another step forward

Six months on the market, 3 offers, 3 disappointments, 3 price drops and we finally sold our house. Thank you Mrs Toucan.

It's funny as thrilled as we are to have sold the house, we do feel rather flat about it. We ended up giving it away, well we feel like that, as we had to take a 15 % price drop. Basically we needed to sell and our buyer knew . But what really swung it was that she is a cash buyer and in rented accommodation. Our estate agents reckons 2 months and it will all be signed, sealed and delivered.

However it does mean we can get on. Get on with planning, looking, researching, reading and just generally getting excited about our family move to France. We now know what our budget is and although less than we had originally planned, at least we know.

In 2 weeks (exactly) Bill and I are off to France for our weeks reckie in Limoux. We can hardly contain our excitement. People always say you should visit your prospective new home in all seasons, well you can't get more grim than February can you? Even Vietnam is grim. The cold front is sweeping across from China and we are having the coldest winter in Hanoi for the past 20 years.

Nest week is the Chinese New Year of the rat. I am a rat!! Does that mean luck? I hope so and I promise to share some of it with you who are reading this.

Nicole

Next time: Is Limoux as beautiful in the cold and grey?

Our Move To France Starts Here - Right Now!

After years of talking about it, procrastinating about it and dreaming about it, we have finally made the decision - "Let's just do it - Let's move to France"!!

Yes like thousands of others before us we have decided to move to France. It's the good life there, you can get a mansion for your pocket money, renovate a barn and own acres of land, stress is a mere whisper in your ear, and life will be so much better not forgetting all that wine. Well I have to admit, lovely as that all sounds that doesn't really describe us although I do like the wine part.

Let me just give you a small taster of who we are and why oh why are we walking the well trodden path to France in the shadows of many before us. Some fallen shadows but many basking in the sunshine and glory of their successes.

My name is Nicole and I belong to a family of 2 adults, 3 kids and a dog, not forgetting the fish. I won't tell you about all my other family members (yet) as that could be a long story.

Since our 15 year old and eldest son was in nappies, we have talked about having a holiday home in France. We holidayed there every year, scoured estate agents windows (even visited a few properties), bored the kids to death with yet "more estate agents" and generally became a nuisance with our promises to buy that special something but then never doing it. It wasn't that we couldn't but between us we could never make up our mind on whether we were doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right place and for the right reasons.

So what changed our minds?........

Well I have skipped a large chunk of our lives. The bit about us living abroad in developing countries for the past 15 years and the fact that our children speak fluent French and are all in the French school system and the fact that we are desperate to have our own place, where we can paint our own walls and plant our own garden and not have to ask the landlord to change the light bulb or to mend the lock on the gate (for the umpteenth time).

The kids too need to settle, to make more physically permanent friends and to learn what a normal life is and to enjoy staying put for a while. Bill (my wonderful partner in crime) dreams of growing orchids and laying a tiled floor and chopping firewood in his new bovver boots (bought last weekend in anticipation of his new life) and Lily the dog dreams of racing around lush green fields and making friends with anything furry - well she would say that if she could talk. The fish though might have to stay behind - sorry fishies.

......So that is why we are doing it now.

Bill has handed in his notice, the kids have told their friends and I am panicking about how it will all work and how we will manage and I am writing lots and lots of lists and then more lists about lists and then lists about......

So today we are 03 January 2008 and it will soon be the Chinese New year of the rat. I'm a rat and so this is going to be my year or so I am told and so I really like to believe.

Our plan so far (in list form naturally):

* Feb 2008 - Bill and I are going to do a 10 day trip to Limoux to sort out schools, open a bank account, find a house to rent, buy some land, sort out builders etc.
* July 2008 - Leave Hanoi and head for England to sort out final bits and bobs and to see the family.
* August 2008 - Hey ho, hey ho, it's off to France we go.....

Now plans never go to plan and already ours are scuppered.

Firstly we need to sell our house in the UK in order to buy in France. We plan to buy some land in Limoux (Aude) and build 2 houses. One for us and one to let out as a gite - yes another gite but...ours will be different so watch this space.


Well our house has been on the market in the UK since July 2007 and as the housing market decide to go pear shaped at exactly that time (probably the exact same date and exact same time that we put our house on the market), we have yet to sell. We have not been short of offers but they have.

I am off now to check the status of our Estate Agents who I think are probably still enjoying their New Years celebrations so maybe I need to wait a week.

Next Installment : Why did we choose Limoux?