We found our dream house!
The view of the Yellow House as make your way up the tiny street it’s on.
We spent 3 weeks in Portugal between February and early March in hopes of finding and buying our new home that will double as a space for artist residencies. There was one house, which we have been calling The Yellow House, that came on the market late last year. I had been stalking this place despite it’s original listing price being way above our price range. I saved the listing, and visited regularly to see if it was still available.
In January, the price dropped closer to our budget, but remained a bit out of reach. I kept it on the list and emailed my realtor about it to ask some questions about it. The Yellow House checked all the boxes. At least on paper. We got our plane tickets for late February, and started reviewing tons of real estate listings, making lists of pros and cons, trying to narrow it down to ten houses to see while we were there. A few had sold before we arrived, so we ended up with a list of 8 houses.
The first day, we saw four places. Two were automatically disqualified for mold and mildew issues (something we’ve learned is very common in Portugal due to the concrete construction), plus some really strange construction things. Two moved into the maybe list. The next day we saw three more houses, the last of which was the coveted Yellow House. I was nervous driving up to it. Nervous that it would be moldy and gross inside, but also nervous that it would be everything it seemed, and that the homeowner wouldn’t want to negotiate on the price. As we drove up and saw it perched on the hillside, I said to Nick “I am torn between hoping it’s a total piece of shit inside and we hate it, and hoping it’s perfect and we can talk the homeowner down another 20,000 euros. I already love this house so much.”
So which was it? The Yellow House checked all the boxes: land to farm, peaceful agricultural area but only 20 minutes to the city, big enough to host guests and resident artists or retreats, space for a studio… check, check, check! You see the Yellow House is not just a house, it’s TWO houses, set on 1.25 acres of agricultural land. The small house, where we’ll live has 2.5 bedrooms (one is tiny), a big enclosed walkway (for plants) that leads to a common area room with a bbq/fireplace and guest bath, and then stairs that lead to a large garage/future studio space, and the second house that has 3 bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and bathroom. The bigger house will be for guest artists and small retreats.
But there was the problem that it was 20,000 more than we had, and the bank would only finance 70% of the loan. After lots of coffee and list making, we decided to make an offer and hope the owner of the Yellow House, Senhor Antonio, would accept. Senhor Antonio had already stated that he would leave most of the furniture behind, so our realtor suggested that we offer 25,000 for the furniture and the balance for the house. This would provide some tax relief for the seller and make the lower offer more palatable, and he was right! The offer was accepted quickly and now it was just up to the bank to do an appraisal. If the house appraised at or over selling price, we would secure our financing.
No longer published because it’s ours!
There’s been some back and forth on little things, but we should be signing the paperwork and making our deposit this week. If all goes smoothly I could have the keys by the time I fly back to Portugal in late May to have my immigration interview. After years of planning, we’re finally getting this thing going. I plan to have a studio set up in the house for myself and resident artists to use while we get Com Fusion Community Clay off the ground. I’m writing a new post with details about that, because there’s so much to share there as well.
One of the tile panels on the exterior. There are also tiles with the previous owner’s name, and name of the house.
We’re planning to rename “The Yellow House” and have a proper Portuguese tile panel made for the exterior with the name. Do you have suggestions for what we should call it?