[Josie]

Hi all
I wasn’t sure where to post so I hope here is okay 🤞.
I’m right on the brink of my smallholding / land dreams falling through and I wanted to see if anyone had any suggestions before they do.
We recently sold our house and we are staying in a family property, so we are chain free etc, but this property has people coming in (it’s used for holiday lets) at the end of April, so basically we now have 2 months to find somewhere 😱.
We have been looking for 2 years. We have a budget of £420k and I need somewhere with enough land to keep 4 horses. I’m sick of livery and how much it costs, I can’t keep doing it! I would also like to keep some Ouessant sheep and button quail, all purely as pet/hobby animals. In the 2 years we have been looking our money has started, in the last 6 months or so, to buy us drastically less. We would do a fixer-upper etc as long as it was liveable but sadly everything is 7 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, 2 public rooms and half an acre of land, and never the other way around with more land than house!
We found the perfect house and unfortunately after months of no interest it suddenly sold for way above asking due to a delay in getting our mortgage - due to my poor credit. We can’t get a mainstream mortgage again until next month. For this reason I think it is extremely unlikely we would get approved for a self build even though we have the cash in the bank to get it off the ground, I would love an eco home!
My partner is now saying we just need to buy something and is suggesting suburban new builds that will put my smallholding / horse retaining dreams to bed once and for all
I’m quite desperate - I check rightmove, onthemarket etc several times a day and we are signed up with 2 off market search agents but no luck.
Our main issue is that my partner doesn’t drive and hates being anywhere rural, so as a compromise we are looking for somewhere with 2+ acres of land that is right next to a town or village, which drastically reduces options.
Thank you for reading my little panic - does anyone have any suggestions of where to look or off the wall ideas (we are looking for within 50 miles of Edinburgh) before I give up and move to suburbia?

Ps there is a perfect house currently for sale but it’s £495k. It has lots of land and buildings so I wondered about setting up a livery on it and seeing if I could get the additional funding required to purchase that way…..like a business loan or something?

[doganjo]

Have you looked at Galbraiths?
https://www.galbraithgroup.com/property/search/residential?max=450000&regions=9&type=8

[Fleecewife]

I really feel for you.  It's a full time job, and anything close to Edinburgh is snapped up by developers before you see it.  We searched for 2 years as well and ended up having to move beyond the then usual commuting distance.  Now we are retired it's perfect but when we were working it was a long day with all that travel, and rural buses are rubbish round here if you are restricted to those.
I think you just have to trawl all sites and explore even the most tenuous possibilities. I wonder if you went for a steading conversion and could negotiate the purchase of a couple of acres with the owner, something which they might not expect people to want.
I hope you get lucky

[Josie]

Thanks for the replies!
Yes Galbraith have our requirements, as do Savills, McRae & McCrae, Baird Lumsden, Rettie, and countless others .

Unfortunately I still have a job which requires me to work in person 2-3 times a week. We’ve considered moving much further (Dundee and surrounding), and me commuting down overnight once a week. Sounds like a hassle but if it gets us the house we want I’m open to it - but still we can’t find anything .

[doganjo]

https://property.mitula.co.uk/searchRE/sort-0/op-1/min_price-300000/max_price-400000/q-farms-stirling?req_sgmt=REVTS1RPUDtTRU87U0VSUDs=

[Josie]

All too rural - it needs to be on the edge of a town or village (as in, within sight of the amenities).
Plus Mitula and Trovit both have annoying habits of showing you perfect houses that sold years ago :p - lots of those aren’t for sale any more 👎

[Backinwellies]

Doesnt have to be all or nothing.     Prices will not keep climbing at current rate and lots of people will have spent over the odds buying in the current panic. 
Delay the smallholding idea say for 5 years....  buy very carefully now ... anything which will make money  by adding extention or improving bathroom and kitchen  etc.  Sort out your credit score ... and then go for it!

[Fleecewife]

Unfortunately we can't magic your ideal property out of nothing.  The kind of place you were seeking is exactly what everyone else wants, including every developer within 30 miles of Edinburgh.  You are in a panic now, but do consider Backinwellies' idea of postponing your dream, buy somewhere that suits your partner's needs as well as yours for a nearby, pleasant livery, put up with livery for a while, then move again to your ideal home more at your leisure.  I have a feeling that compromise is in order here.

[doganjo]

Unfortunately we can't magic your ideal property out of nothing.  The kind of place you were seeking is exactly what everyone else wants, including every developer within 30 miles of Edinburgh.  You are in a panic now, but do consider Backinwellies' idea of postponing your dream, buy somewhere that suits your partner's needs as well as yours for a nearby, pleasant livery, put up with livery for a while, then move again to your ideal home more at your leisure.  I have a feeling that compromise is in order here.

I totally agree.  I was almost 50 before my ideal property came out of the blue when I met my second husband after losing the first.  He wanted to have a farm so we bought a small one together.  It was badly run down and we spent a lot of time and money bringing it to a liveable condition.  Then as we had 24 acres, two barns, and a good stream, I broached the subject of having a couple of horses and discovered that not only was he allergic to them, he was afraid of them too - and he had just been made redundant so would have had to deal with them while I was at work.
Now, with changed circumstances, (John died some years ago), lifting a huge profit on selling the farm having improved it so much, then building another one, selling that for double the cost, I am elderly with two energetic dogs, some hens and quail, and a cat, this is my ideal property - on the edge of a village, high up, overlooking a wide vista of fields and river carse, and a small piece of land for fruit trees and bushes, vegetables, and my dogs' freedom.

Get on the property ladder now with a small house you can do up, with good livery within driving distance, and sell when you find the right property in a few years time. Buy and sell sensibly and improve your credit rating

Believe me it is worth the wait!

[chrismahon]

I agree with the previous posts. Renting is 'dead money', so buy wisely and wait. Ideally you want a property that you can add value to and that will then sell quickly. We made the mistake of buying an unusual period property which needed work which didn't actually add any significant value at all. However, just owning it and with prices nearly doubling, we did scrape enough together to buy exactly what you are looking for- a manageable house with enough land for horses etc. on the edge of a small town. Now that's a very rare thing even here in France (viewed 52 properties), so you may be trying to find something that doesn't exist where you are now?

[stufe35]

You could significantly open up your options by getting your partner to learn to drive .?

[SallyintNorth]

You could significantly open up your options by getting your partner to learn to drive .?

Maybe the partner can't drive, on medical or other grounds.