I got totally distracted today by agreeing a purchase on the house next door to the one I'm renting....
This house has been on the market since I moved to Penamacor - for around 6 months now, and has been reduced twice, down from 20K EU to now 14.5K EU, at which point I decided I had to view it....
I was originally put off viewing/ buying by my friend/ landlady who had told me it wasn't worth it - but we had something of a mutual changing of minds with the price reduction.
Also for me, I've been spending quite a lot of money on my 'second home' (Read illegal) in Aranhas, and now that's getting the point where it's liveable in I'm more comfortable with buying a non-perfect house in Penamacor, given that I can see myself spending more time in Aranhas.
And this house is far from ideal - no parking outside, no garden, no view, and it needs a roof and the upper floor probably extending upwards, and a proper bathroom installing - so a good 10K EU yet to spend - BUT I can do that all gradually as the money comes in and it's next door, so EASY.
But on the plus side this house has PVC windows already (probably about 25% of the cost right there), new plumbing (another 25%), and the downstairs you could already live in, so it's not all bad.
And I figure that real estate prices aren't going down in Penamacor, only up and so getting on the local ladder now seems like a good idea.
I've been keeping my eye on the property market around here for a while now and to get something I want which I would move into would be at least 40K, probably nearer 50K - so I'm happy to compromise for half the price - the theory is that this cheaper house will appreciate roughly in line with the ones in the price bracket up - so if everything increases by 50% over the next two years I'm better off having something sitting in property rather than watching my all my fiat go down in relative value.
I think what's put most people off is that this is a quirky property, suitable for one person or a couple, but not families for sure, or for anyone with any kind of physical disability that rules out having to lug stuff a few metres from the car, so that's more than half the prospective buyers out of the way already!
Oh, and 15K EU just so happens to be about the amount of liquid fiat and stable coin funds i'm happy to free up right now - a bit of jiggling to be done over the next couple of weeks, but easy enough to extract that much.
Sorry if this all sounds like a bit of a case of Western Privilege - but it is what it is!
BTW the estate agent was a lot more attractive in person than her photo - she was gorgeous, but somehow she managed to smile so hard in her profile picture she gave herself a double chin, most unfortunate!