Desperate to Move House

The day after I got home I have to go and get my Visa from the Peruvian Consulate, this is a crazily easy thing, you make up some details and then pay $30 and 2 days later it is all in your passport and you then leave, so easy that any criminal can do it without thinking hard. So I then get my air ticket to fly and the weather is miserable and raining, not normal rain but horrible heavy beating rain that makes the tin roof on my house ping like an out of tune steel band. I hate the roof of my house, I had also noticed that a wet patch had appeared in my bedroom ceiling and when I finally got into the roof space to check I found drips all over the roof , I was getting desperate about the house, I hate the place, it was only meant to be temporary and that was 2 years ago, so now I was determined to change houses, only thing was that Jenny is still at university and it would be difficult for her to travel and things, we had tried moving to the beautiful south and found nothing so I wanted to move into a new house in San Jose itself. We got into the car the next day, this being Wednesday now and went for a drive around the area of Escazu,



view of surrounding hills

This is the posh neighbourhood where all the rich Americans live who are avoiding paying tax in the USA, and this is probably the only place in the whole country that you can buy nice new houses. It is easy to find, it is on a hillside easily viewed from anywhere in the city of San Jose, you can see the 10 story apartment blocks, again the only place you can see them , on out way to Escazu we passed through a suburb called Heredia and we saw a sign for a condo, Jenny by now was getting the house hunting bug so we pulled in and went to look at the houses, they were nice 2 floor houses and a little patio but the house was pretty small but it was laid out very nicely and the quality of the finishing was fantastic, the bathrooms were the best we have seen with the most exquisite tiling I have seen, in fact the tiles were the biggest I have seen, maybe 80X30 cms, Jenny wanted to buy it there and then but I said we had to look round to see if we could find something nicer and cheaper, it didn’t have much of a view and the neighbourhood was pretty nasty, they wanted $125,000. we left to carry on with our journey, so we arrived and drove around and found a really nice condo with trees and fountains and were told that plots cost $350,000 alone without the house, so we drove away miserable from there, but 10 minutes later the guy rang us and told us that he new a realtor that could find us a house anywhere in that area. He told us if we wanted he would get him to ring us for an appointment, so we agreed not expecting anything, this guy rang 2 minutes later and offered to take us around all the condos and houses that he had for sale, this was an offer I really wanted to take up as trying to find anything was hard work and everything is hidden in little condos amongst trees. So this guy turned up in his $100,000 top of the range Range Rover, now I thought this man knows how to sell and make money and probably sells only huge houses, we did tell him our price range, he took us to a pretty nasty house that wasn’t new and was too small and needed shitloads of stuff doing to it and only 2 bedrooms. The prices was $145,000, far too much as I wasn’t wanting to pay that. He then took us to a development out in the wilds and amongst some trees and even though the idea was nice I couldn’t imagine living there, so we left, to be honest I wasn’t in a financial position to but at this time , we told the guy that we were looking for perhaps 6 months down the line, well he took us to a small condo development and it was nicely laid out and it had a swimming pool and a nice garden area but the quality of the houses was horrible and I didn’t like it at all, Jenny could only see the pool, probably imagining herself around it in her bikini, so he took us to another place but the owners were not in , it was high on the Escazu hills and they looked interesting houses but they were $165,000, again probably out of our range. I said it wasn’t critical about the pool and he immediately said, right and took us to this small Condo inside a gated residential area, this was in a nice flat area within a large residencia, the roads were quiet and not many kids running about the area.



The drive looked nice as we drove in and we could only see the show house as the keys were not available for the unsold house. As soon as we walked into the house you could tell that the quality of all the finishing was top class,



All the doors were great and highly polished and the skirting boards were nicely finished, the walls looked great and the rooms were huge. Once we got upstairs I was in heaven.



The master bedroom was immense and had on suit bathroom with great tiling and a huge shower and double basins, the bedroom had a huge walk in closet and beautifully finished off, the other bedrooms were equally large and with walk in closets. The other bathrooms were just as nice and nicely finished off, it had a loft access to enable you to stuff your junk up there,



Downstairs it had the a nice kitchen and large laundry room and the granny apartment complete with another bathroom, I was taken, I told the guy I have to have this but will the owners let me pay over 6 months, he arranged the meeting and we met the owners Thursday morning, the day I fly to Peru. It was a crazy meeting and over coffee we spoke about how the payments would be made and it seems the guy is a Cuban exile who lives in Miami and his house had just taken a good beating from the hurricane Wilmer, he is a doctor and very well spoken with that typical Miami Cuban accent. He lives only 2 houses away from our condo so we knew that he likes the area, I was so happy about the house I am thinking about how I can generate some extra cash so I can move into the house early. The other problem is with a house of this size how much is it going to cost me to furnish it, I think it will be minimalistic, a few nice pieces of dark furniture here and there with off large ornaments to make it look tasteful, my excuse for being cheap. So from wanting to look around to buying a house all in one afternoonand I am so delighted about the house by far the biggest place we looked at and with all the things we would have wanted and a granny flat for my sister to come and visit, perhaps a spare bedroom for my brother and his wife to use when they visit. I just want to move in now, my desperation may get the best of me.