Our search for a Guernsey property prior to our move to France (see previous blog post) really began in earnest in Spring 2022 as suitable properties began to emerge as did the number of buyers for each decent property. It was a dog eat dog situation and all about price and cash only buyers. Buyers were being asked to put forward their “best and final” offers during the 20 to 30 minute viewing of any property of interest, such was the demand. Of course the market worked in our favour too and we had received and accepted an offer for our house within a couple of weeks of it going on the market. This effectively put us in the fortunate ‘cash buyer’ position now as we would not be needing another mortgage. The definition of ‘cash buyer’ seemed somewhat loose as we discovered further down the line. Buying the worst house in the best location and investing 23 years of time and money on renovations had paid off and presented us with a lifetime opportunity.

Getting onto a property viewing list was a challenge in itself – first come first serve, only 2 days of viewings booked! Basically if your name wasn’t on the list for the first day of viewings you didn’t stand a chance – full price plus offers were being made on the day. Needless to say my concentration at work was somewhat adrift (sorry Dawn) – it was a first finger to the phone situation. We made full price and above offers on at least 5 to 7 houses over 7 months of intensive searches and viewings. We’d been pipped on every one. When the house purchase prices were later published we discovered that one of our favourite houses had received a £100,000 overpayment to win the deal. One house we did manage to clinche, failed the home survey which meant we were back on the search and out of pocket. A tight deadline loomed – we had agreed to be out of our house by the end of August 2021. Pressure and desperation was on the rise.