Back home

Back home, our normal lives went on, with work, kids and yoga. Besides that, we worked with the parents of Maaike to build them a new home. So time went by fast. 

And we continued with Ardbol. Together with Yasmin we created a presentation. Making more clear what the goals of Ardbol are. I will add a copy to this site soon. In short: we want to create a place, built around trees, where all what humans need, comes together. Instead of the specialized world we usually live in; where work, leisure, food, energy creations, nature, healthcare and sport is all in different places. We want to combine them with the tree as the basis. 

Marcelino, the owner of the village Barcena, talked to land owners and found about 6ha of land around the village. He sent us an image with some black crosses, for which we assumed that this is the land we could buy. 

With this addition it became an interesting option. So we started the price negotiations with Rafael, the real estate agent. The houses were first priced 350.000 euros. Which was our maximal budget. But with the addition of the 6 ha land there was another 60k added. As the village had two parts Rafael proposed the south side of 20 houses plus the land for 350.000. Later, the north part of 40 houses plus the land for again 350.000. But as it was unclear which and exactly how many houses we talked about, I first wanted to get all the land registry numbers and focused on a price per land plot. 

As it were about 60 houses for three and a half tons it was almost 6 thousand per house. After some looking around and talking to Marjolein I suggested a price of 4.500 per plot. Rafael responded that it was too low and that there were other investors coming for a visit but, he would send it to Marcelino nevertheless.

After a week Marcelino answered he could agree with 5.000 per plot. For us that was doable for the northern part but was above our budget for all of the houses. If he wanted to sell all, 4.750 was our maximum. After again a week Marcelino agreed, so suddenly we had a price agreement on buying a full village of about 60 houses with 6 ha of land around it. Although thrilled with this we needed some time to get used to the idea. 

Luckily we had some time as Rafael needed to setup the provisional purchase agreement and summer time had arrived, where all is going slower. We also had time to prepare the trip of Maaike and Yasmin to the Artim festival. And to make a presentation too, and a meeting with the mayor of Abajas, the village 2 km away which is the same township as Barcena de Bureba. 

Exciting times!