April 2010 Newsletter

Hello!

And first of all apologies for the delay in writing the April update... so much has gone on that it's just been a whirlwind of activity. You'll see why when you read on!

But before any of that, the biggest and best news in the world – we've an our offer accepted on our dream B&B!!  HURRAY!  We're so very very excited about it!

And... Chris asked me to marry him! :-)  He's made me the happiest woman alive, and of course I said yes! :-)  (more on that at http://becomingsarahwilson.weebly.com)

It's been a long and very busy month, so let's start from the beginning. At the end of March we'd managed to sell the London flat, which was fantastic news. But we still had a long way to go. The Preston house had been on the market since January and, although it had lots of viewings, still hadn't sold.

Until April that is! Finally we had an interested viewer who negotiated us to an acceptable price and we agreed the sale. It was really exciting and we were thrilled that we could now make an offer on our favourite B&B, our dream home and B&B, which we duly did!

Prior to all this, I'd also sent the business plan and financial forecasts to the Building Society and had an anxious wait whilst they decided if they would loan us the money... after a few days they came back saying yes! In principle they'd be happy to provide the mortgage! Hurray!

However, things weren't meant to be. Our buyer for the Preston house couldn't get a mortgage and the whole sale fell through. This put us in a difficult situation as we'd already made an offer on our favourite B&B!

Arghghgh! But we came up with a plan. We have some very good friends who were willing to offer us a bridging loan to see us through until the Preston house sold. Hurray! We got all that sorted and went back to talk to the estate agents.

Our first offer had been refused (as expected) and so we upped our offer. Money was tight and we didn't really have very much to play with, so we were hoping we could reach an agreement, otherwise we might lose our dream home.

Thankfully in the midst of all this, only a few days later the Preston house sold again! And this time for more money (see, things in life happen for a reason!). We wouldn't need the bridging loan after all! Double hurray!!

After a few days of thinking, we finally had the call we'd been waiting for – we'd reached an offer that the vendors would accept and we'd secured (subject to contract) our B&B. We were ecstatic! :-)

We told our family and friends and went out to celebrate! Suddenly everything was sinking in! We are soon to be B&B owners and make a massive move away from everything we've ever known! It's exciting and scary at the same time!

During April I also organised our wedding. When Chris initially proposed we'd decided to wait until we'd moved house to get married. But then we realised we'd be super busy, money would be tight and we wouldn't have any time to organise a wedding or go on a honeymoon when we were B&B owners. It seemed silly that I had all this time on my hands right now and wasn't doing anything with it.

So we set a date for the wedding, 3rd July 2010, and I set to organising a wedding and honeymoon in record time! Venue found and booked, catering sorted, disco and entertainment, invites sent out, dress ordered, jewellery, bridesmaid outfits, flowers, rings, hair, make up, table plan, confetti, accommodation and much much more... all done and dusted! All we need to do now is turn up! Again, another hugely exciting time in our lives!

Where are we now...?  Well, today I've woken up exhausted. Because last night we had our Leaving London party. We invited all our local friends to a bar, laid on a spread of food and drink and had a fabulous (if not rather emotional) night saying good bye to everyone.

Next weekend we move out of the London flat, so I've been doing as much packing up as possible in preparation for it. We've found somewhere to stay until the wedding, near Windsor. It's just temporary accommodation, house sitting for a friend of ours. But it suits us perfectly for this interim period.

In these next few weeks we'll be sorting out the exchange and completion of the Preston house. They're first time buyers so it shouldn't be too complicated.

We're also hoping to visit a B&B in Malvern to get some work experience. This resulted from the article we had published in B&B News magazine last month.

We also need to visit our favourite B&B again to measure up rooms and work out what we need to do in each room in order to get the B&B up and running to its full capacity. And of course we need to organise the survey and valuation.

I've already instructed a solicitor for the purchase, a local chap based in Keswick. And we've both become Self-Employed. Sitting on my desk as we speak is a hugely thick form, filled with difficult questions to complete for the commercial mortgage... that's next on our list!

Along with getting the website redesign and relaunched (I'm working on writing the copy and designing the wire frames), we need to open a business bank account, instruct an accountant, write and execute a detailed marketing plan, find out about insurance requirements... and the list goes on and on and on!

The plan is that we'll hopefully get a completion date in August, so we'll come back from our honeymoon and be able to move straight into the B&B as Mr and Mrs Wilson!
 
Oh and if that wasn't enough for April, I also ran the London Marathon dressed up as a gingerbread man!!!
 
Oooooooooooooooooooooh it's all so very exciting! And don't worry, I'll let you know as soon as we're ready to start taking bookings!!

Thanks so much for reading and being a part of our journey.
 
Love
Sarah and Chris xx