Research

We'd renovated several houses over the past thirty years, but now was the time to build our own. The first thing to decide was which part of the country we wanted to live in. It had to be rural, it had to be near a reasonable sized town which we could cycle to for shopping and other facilities and not at the top of a huge hill. Some areas were ruled out as we'd already lived there or they didn't appeal, which narrowed it down to Perthshire, Dumfries & Galloway and The Borders.

So down to some research. The solicitor's property centres are a good place to start, together with estate agent portals such as Primelocation. Google searches for "building plot/site" usually threw up some interesting hits. Of course a lot of the plots were dross - too small, one of several plots being sold by the same vender, too near a town, no view, on the wrong side of the glen, surrounded by woodland, too expensive and so on. We had a profile of the ideal plot and a budget, but very few came anywhere near. However, you have to start looking, because it's only when you see something on the ground that you can decide whether to short list or dismiss it and often the photo on the website has little connection with reality - it doesn't show that the site is nearly vertical, or next to a quarry.

I downloaded some particulars of likely sites and plotted them on my mapping software. Then off in the motorhome to see what they looked like on the ground. Several plots didn't take long dismiss, but there were a couple still worth a look. One was near Lauder, the other near Selkirk, but the latter was quite a bit more expensive. We looked at the first one and although it was promising it wasn't quite what we were looking for. It was one of 3 sites side by side and next to an expensive house built on spec. The views were pleasant, if not spectacular and you could hear a bit of noise from the main road, though it wasn't excessive. However, the plots were very open which would mean little privacy once the other sites had been developed, so we decided against it and left the other one till later.

We then went off for a few days on other business and on the way back decided to look at a site near Jedburgh and another near Selkirk. The first one was up a steep hill so it was discounted and the Selkirk one was at a farm and seemed to be in a small quarry. We then decided we might as well look at the more expensive plot and drove along a quiet road to a small hamlet and found the site slightly above a group of fairly modern houses. The view was extensive to the south and west with slopes leading up to low hills on the northern side. At about 2 acres it looked ideal and was far and away the best one we'd looked at. But it was more than we had considered paying. On the other hand, it was so much better than anything else available and had already had some work carried out on it.

We took a walk up the hills behind to think it over. The gentle, dry slopes with good paths, excellent for dog walking only made us more certain it was what we wanted. I phoned the agent to discuss details, hoping that the seller might take a lower offer than the asking price. The seller was prepared to accept an offer at the asking price, but not lower and wanted a quick settlement. I said I would instruct our solicitor to get an offer in right away. It was mid-May 2009.