A New Hobbit Hole

Did you hear? I bought a house! I’m so excited! Dixie and I have been living in a small, very old terraced (townhouse) rental for a year and a half. These structures are the most common type of housing in towns and villages, and many are made of stone and date back a couple hundred years or more. 

Does this mean I'll be cooking?

Even though it is two story and has three small bedrooms, it feels cramped and claustrophobic. I’m guessing 800 square feet or so in all.  I’m ashamed to complain because I’m told it was common for families with ten or twelve children to live in these homes over the years. I suppose some still do. 

House hunting in Ireland is a little different than in America. In our town there are four realtors (If there are more, they are hiding and I haven’t seen them). I was told they are not called realtors but auctioneers. That immediately made my stomach flutter… in a bad way. Did I need to go to an auction to bid on a house?

View from my new bedroom

No, but the houses are auctioned off nonetheless. The auctioneers represent the sellers and there is no one to represent the buyer. You shop for a house as you’d shop for a car… look online, visit the auctioneer’s office, browse through brochures, drive around.

When you see something that looks promising the auctioneer will show it to you. All the listings are exclusive to a particular auctioneer. You can make an offer and it may be accepted. But until the final closing, it’s still on the auction block and you may lose it at the last minute. But the buyer can also change her mind at the last minute with no penalty. There is a verbal “sale agreed”, but it isn’t binding.

Nice pine floors under the nasty carpet

Sometimes I feel like I’ve just come out of a coma with a little amnesia. The world is familiar and yet not familiar. I ask a lot of questions and no one seems to mind that I ask the same ones more than once. Like when you’re doing a jigsaw puzzle and you keep trying the same piece over and over thinking just maybe you can force it to fit this time. But it never does. 

After my offer was accepted I called on a structural engineer to inspect the house. There were rumors of a lawsuit a few years ago against the builder but no one seemed to know any details. The seller, an elderly woman, said it had been settled out of court but she had no documentation (and little memory) of anything.

The back yard complete with clothes line... Wut?

The engineer spotted some red flags and I almost backed out. But the auctioneer volunteered to make some calls and try to get it sorted. It took weeks… no, months, of investigating on par with Sherlock Holmes to find some answers. He finally located the carpenters who did some remedial work and they met with the engineer and everyone is satisfied that the house is now sound. 

So I bought it. There was no “closing” as such. I just wired the money to an escrow account then dropped by the lawyer’s office one day to sign the contract. Then a couple weeks later I picked up the key from the auctioneer.

It’s a cute house on the edge of town, with fields in the back with horses and cows but just a five minute walk from the town square. It needs interior painting, some new flooring and a few other cosmetic fixes. In the back there’s a waist high stone wall that is covered in briars and weeds. It was built about 200 years ago. I intend to release it from its weed bondage. 

The house has lots of room for when you come to visit. And best of all, it’s just around the corner from the Monk’s Pub. See you soon!