After our summer of camping, road trips and epiphanies we returned to our Spanish beach house and immediately contacted an estate agent about putting the house on the market. Our new plan to move to the countryside was underway. Now we just had to wait for a buyer and in the meantime do some research on locations and types of properties.
Coín, ANDALUCIA
After doing a lot of research we found an interesting little town about 45 minutes inland from where we were. The location was perfect, up in the mountains but still only 30 minutes to the beach and 30 minutes to Malaga Airport. We loved the idea of living in nature but didn’t want to be too far in the middle of nowhere, so we went for a drive to check the place out. It seemed like the ideal place to live, not at all a ghost town like I expected it to be. It was actually quite big with lots of shops, restaurants, supermarkets and even had a mall with a cinema, gym and spa.
Our aim was to find a run down old finca to do up. We wanted a big plot of land, but nothing too crazy. Big enough for dogs to run around, and to grow our own fruits and vegetables. There were alot of places like that for sale online with all different sorts of sizes and conditions, some with water and electricity, some without. Some had hundreds of acres of land and some only had half an acre, but that didn’t seem to affect the price too much, it was the buildings that were worth more than the land. But before we could start visiting properties we really needed to get a buyer for our house first…
FINDING A BUYER
The beach house had been on the market for a couple of months or so and we hadn’t had many viewings. We were so keen to get it sold quickly but the estate agent hadn’t even bothered to put up a ‘FOR SALE’ sign. In an attempt to speed things up, we decided we would put up our own sign outside the house and literally the next day we got a call from someone interested.
We gave the man and his wife a tour of the place and they told us that their friends had just bought the house a few doors down as a holiday home which they were visiting when they saw our sign! We could have so easily missed that opportunity if we had left it up to the estate agent! Later that day the man called with an offer to buy the house. Yay!
We were so happy we had found a buyer! Selling privately also meant we didn’t have to pay any commission to the estate agent. What a result! Also, this meant we could go and visit some of the properties we had found online. So, we set up the first appointment as soon as possible and arranged to see a few places.
OUR NEW HOME
After viewing hundreds of places online and about 10 in person we finally found the one. It ticked all the boxes! Well, pretty much… it didn’t have a pool, but it did have space for one. It had an acre of flat land with lots of mature fruit and nut trees. Pecans, oranges, lemons, pomegranates, olives, quinces, figs, mulberries, peaches, grapes and loquats. Yum! It was also exactly the amount we had budgeted for and had a lot of potential in our eyes. The plot was shaped was triangle shaped, like a little slice of nature that could be all ours. We made an offer and later that day it was accepted!
It took about 3 months of waiting impatiently for everything to go through. It was January 2019 by the time we got the keys to our new life in the countryside. As soon as we had signed the papers at the lawyers office we headed straight there. When we arrived we were so confused because it looked like the previous owners hadn’t moved out yet, they had left EVERYTHING behind! Below you can see the living room still absolutley full of their stuff!
Every room was like this. There was even clothes hanging up in the wardrobe and food in the fridge! We were like, erm, are they coming back for this stuff or have they just left it all for us to deal with?? So weird! We had a lot of work to do to this place to turn it around and make something beautiful. But I was so excited to get started! The first thing we needed to do was clear out so much stuff, strip it back to a bare canvas and then make it our own.
By this point I was asking G everyday when we could go and get a dog from the shelter, now we had our home with a huge garden where we were planning on staying indefinately. I was so eager to fill it with all sorts of animals. But every time I asked him when we could go and adopt a doggy he said that a dog in need of help would come to us on its own and that we had to wait… I thought he was just talking nonsense but he was right and it didn’t take long to happen…
Have you ever thought of moving to the countryside? Let me know in the comments below x
The Indi Blog 
Lol how weird is that! Who leaves all their stuff just like that… Can’t wait to find and renovate our own little house in the countryside! 😀
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So weird! I was not expecting it at all haha
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