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| Feeling good about this latest house in Elsthorpe, we decided to give ourselves the weekend off and travel to the nearest beach to see what that would be like. We enjoyed the 20 minute journey through the lovely rolling and undulating countryside with its lovely European trees about to change colour for the autumn. We arrived at a very small village, called Kairakau. It had some very nice large beach houses, which obviously cost a fortune. There is also a river, which enters the sea, and a campsite of sorts. It was cheap to park and we found a spot where we could look out to sea again. | |
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I always feel elated when we get back to the sea and my eyes drink up the colour of the sea and the sky. We settled in and after a nice salady lunch went for a walk along the beach. This beach is very different again from any other we have seen and I am constantly amazed at the striking difference between beaches. The sun was nice and hot and we enjoyed walking along the water’s edge. We also walked up the side of the river but had to turn around as the tide was coming in and that would have made it difficult to cross back over the river again later. |
| Unfortunately there was a constant coming and going of tractors towing boats in and out to the sea and so we decided to move back into town and have a look at Waipukurau. It is quite a bit bigger than Waipawa and apparently it has a much better shopping area than Waipawa and is only 6 km away. But just before we were packing up to leave, we met Mark and Sharon and their children Ben and Kate. What a lovely family! Ben made us all a fine cup of coffee and we shared with them our excitement over the house we would like to buy at Elsthorpe. Mark is a butcher by trade and Sharon breeds Alpacas, (looking almost like a lama and related to them). Mark and Sharon have a lifestyle block, near Hastings and they have invited us to come and see their home and meet their animals. Alpacas have wonderfully soft wool and if we get this house in Elsthorpe, we could run two or three Alpacas. |  |
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Sharon gave us
lots of information about these animals and I have fallen in love with
them. I could learn how to spin their wool, then dye the wool and knit it
up into wonderful garments. The fibre is very light and hollow and warmer
than wool also it has no itch factor which is wonderful. I think it would
be hard to make a living at it but it would be a wonderful hobby and the
Alpacas are so very pretty to look at and they would also be fantastically
elegant lawn mowers.
All inspired we headed back to town and had a look at Waipukurau. Being a Sunday meant that everything was closed and we did not quite understand why everyone thinks it is such a fantastic town. We stayed the night in the local Holiday Park and then moved back to Waipawa on Monday morning. |
| We went to the
Council offices first, to look at the property file for the house in
Elsthorpe. We had done this before for two other houses and basically you
can have a look at the file and find out what is known about the given
property. This time the receptionist frowned, asked us to wait and when
she came back she told us that one of the building officers would see us
as there was some problem with the property. A very nice man greeted us
who ushered us into an office and sat us down to have a serious talk. He
explained that there were various problems with this property and gave us
all the information and photocopied it to take away with us. He was keen
for us to buy the place as they would be very pleased to deal with us and
for us to sort out the problems.
CENTRAL HAWKE'S BAY DISTRICT COUNCIL ------> |
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Armed with
this information we went back to the agent Kay and told her that we were
now prepared to make an offer on the property. The original price was
$279,000.00 and we made an offer for $180,000.00. Kay got quite upset and
told us that the owner of the property would never go for this price. We
then gave her all the council information about the property and said that
we could always negotiate a little later on. Kay made a contract for us
and to justify the low offer, we gave a listing of all the problems with
the property.
Kay put us in touch with the local solicitor, and we made an appointment to go and see him on Tuesday morning at 10 am. Meanwhile we had made friends with Bev, who runs the second hand shop in Waipawa and Murray the butcher. We got into the habit of buying our meat fresh every day from him and as he was extremely friendly we told him of our dream. Bev too had plans for us and has been trying to persuade us to open a café in Waipawa. A great idea but we really need to find a home first and then we can see what we will do next. |
| Everyone
in this town is very friendly, and they are keen to have new blood coming
into their village. Everyone we spoke to was trying to sell us this lovely
town and told us how lovely it was to live here. Naturally this makes it
another strong point to want to live in this area. We settled back into
the Waipawa Holiday Park and they had Alpacas grazing just behind our
motorhome. They are so lovely and as the week went on we got friendly with
Paddy who runs the park. He confirmed that these animals are easy to look
after, make good lawnmowers and produce wonderful wool. He also told us
that sometime this week the two Alpacas would be shorn and that the
breeder would be here for the occasion.
Tuesday came and no word from the owner of the Elsthorpe property. So went to meet our new Solicitor Michael Wiates and he was a charming man. He advised us to work together with the council and this would make sure everything would be ok. Paddy in the meantime recommended a builder that could have a look at the property so that we would be in a better position to argue over the final price. We went to see the builder, called Peter and his young family on Tuesday night. His advise, made a lot of sense. Peter suggested a sight meeting at the house, with Tony and us. Tony is the council’s building inspector dealing with this property. |
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The meeting was set for Thursday and we still had not heard from the owner. We got so excited as no news was obviously good news. At the appointed time we all gathered at the house and Tony arrived first. He gave us a rundown on the property and then he started to look around. There was work Tony had approved in the past but there was a great deal that was done without his consent and the work had been done badly. Peter arrived a little later and for the next hour we walked around the property in total amazement at what had been done to this poor house. In the end Peter said he was unable to quote for this job, as he would have to get into the walls and open up floors to check what was missing and needed to be done. In the end he said it would be cheaper to sell the house for scrap and then build a new one. The other option was to buy a kit house, which would be cheaper, but not as nice as a house especially designed for us. Toni said he would be happy to help as much as possible but he too felt that starting from scratch was most likely the cheaper option. |
| We headed back to Waipawa discussing what we will do next. One thing was now certain, we would not want to pay more money than we had already offered as we would only really be buying the land. When we got back to Kay, she told us that she had been trying to contact us and that the news was bad. The owner was not prepared to go lower than $250,000.00 and had said that there was nothing wrong with the house. Well that was it, what else can we possibly do other than go and lick our wounds. We decided to go and pay Tony tomorrow and sort out what we owed Pete the builder and then head back to Napier for a quiet weekend of just being tourists. |  |
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When we
got back to Turbo Snail there was great excitement going on in the field
behind us. The alpacas were being shorn by one of the local sheep sharers.
A wonderful distraction from our disappointment and I watched with great
interest. Paddy asked me how we got on today and I told him of our
disappointment. He was very sweet and said: "Oh well it was not to
be, there is obviously something better round the corner".
In the meantime the smaller of the two alpacas had been shorn, and was looking forlorn and confused. His body was now less than half of yesterday’s size and he looked fragile and vulnerable. His bigger brother was being relieved of his coat while we watched and he defiantly did not enjoy this experience. The man doing the sheering obviously knew what we was doing but for him too it was the first experience of giving a haircut to an alpaca. When the man had completed the job there was a warm round of applause and the lady who breeds the alpacas checked the animal’s teeth and clipped his toenails. Then the alpaca was released and it jumped elegantly and without any trouble back on its feet. They look like they walk on pointe and are extremely elegant creatures to watch. I would love to have two of these lovely creatures! Dream on why don’t you!!!! |
| On Friday we
went and paid our debt’s and told Murray the butcher what happened. He
said: "Go and look at my house!" Before we realized what was
happening he had phoned his wife Helen that Fergus and Esther were coming
up to have a look at their house. We got back to Turbo Snail and drove the
three km out of town to their house. The discussion went on the line of:
"Why are we doing this we cannot afford this house anyway". We
parked at the bottom of the field and walked up the lovely drive. Oh what
a dream! Helen greeted us as we came up to the house and Fergus and I
started to get very excited and we forgot about the money. It is simply
charming. Wonderful gardens with fruit trees, a fabulous house with a fire
in just about every the living room and kitchen, a separate granny flat
which one could easily use as a B&B plus 4 acres of land with lots of
different sheds.
About 1/4 of the drive at Murray & Helen's ------> |
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Helen
explained that they wanted to build a new house on the other side of the
hill and for that they needed to sell this little lot first. Then it
occurred to me that they might like to stay living there while they are
building their new house. We could buy half of it now and carry on travelling
and when they have finished building their house, we buy the other half.
We could make our base in the granny flat and use one of the solid sheds
for storage. In the meantime Murray and Helen could stay living there and
the deal would complete in about 6 months to a year. By then we will
probably be ready to settle down again and I could have my alpacas!!!!!
We all got very excited as Helen and Marry had never thought of solving their problem in this way. We arranged to meet on Monday evening at 6pm to see if we could hammer out a deal that is good for all of us. In the meantime we would go back to Napier to be tourists and to think about what we would like to do. We went back to Kay and did not tell her about Murray’s house, just that we would go and have lunch and than come back to her to look at two pieces of land with the view of building a house. |
| When we
returned after lunch, we got told that there was no point in looking at
anything else since we were obviously going to buy Murray’s house. We
stood there like a couple of naughty school kids not knowing what to say
next. After all we had not agreed a sale with Murray yet. It turned out
that we were, or rather Turbo had been spotted parked at Murray’s land
and then Murray had just been into the office to tell them that his house
was now no longer for sale and told them all about it. We did know that
his house was with this agent. Kay had tried for us to go and see it but
it was simply more money than we wanted to spend right now. Craig the boss
of the office had said at that time that Murray wanted a break from people
looking over his house.
How bad was that? Now we had upset Kay and she has been such a star helping us find something. We went off feeling very guilty and Fergus said that he would have another word with her when we came back from looking at this plot of land. The land was lovely but it now seemed a lot of trouble, not only building a house, but also organizing water tanks and septic tanks. We just wanted a break and try and catch up with ourselves. Kay was waiting for us, ready to take us to the last plot of land and she had calmed down considerably. As it turned out Murray’s contract with her firm had actually run out on the 3rd of March and the Estate Company had no reason to keep sending people to look at Murray’s house. We also felt that they needed to sort things out between themselves, as it is not really our problem. |
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We
eventually arrived back in Napier exhausted and just wanted to go out
for a meal and be treated with a little bit of T.L.C. We did find a nice
restaurant but the food was very expensive and not very good.
We woke up on Saturday, promising ourselves a leisurely day of not doing very much. Just after I had said that, the phone rang and Kay had found just the right place for us to look at, half the price of Murray’s house and it has everything that we want, she said. This house was north of Napier and we agreed to get in touch with Mary-Ann, the agent for this property. She took us out to see it on Saturday afternoon. It was quite nice, and had everything that we would want. However the house was small and dark and some of the windows had wrinkled glass so that you cannot see out of them. Most of the land was a very long narrow strip between the railway line and State Highway 2, which had very noisy traffic on it. The gardens were lovely and I could have had my alpacas, but the noise from the traffic would drive us both mad. We came back and we promised to think about it. Fergus was very quickly very clear that he could never live with the noise, it would drive him mad!!!! |
| We wait for Monday, the meeting with Murray and Helen and wonder what will happen next. We often talk about it and we will make a list of all our thoughts, which should help us to negotiate. The overwhelming thing for me is that Murray's house is properly built, has all the permits, is nicely decorated and we could eventually just move in and start living the dream…. |
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