When I was much younger, the prospect of converting a barn into a character home appealed to me (and my wife). At that time this was beyond my financial capabilities, and although I maintained an interest in finding a suitable property, this was as far as it went.
In more recent years my interest switched to building a house from scratch, but the biggest problem here is in actually finding and securing a suitable plot of land. I subscribed to various self-build property lists and scanned through the planning applications on the local planning authority website. The latter was by far the best source of leads, since this is likely to be the first place information will be published about planning applications for garden developments, conversion of buildings etc.
As decent plots of land were like hens teeth, I started considering existing houses, with a view to either demolition or extension. This offers a much wider range of opportunities for reasonable sized plots in generally better locations.
At this time we were living on the outskirts of Wellington near Telford, and unfortunately, nothing was coming up locally that really matched our requirements. My family and I originate from the Black Country and since all our relatives still live there, we decided to consider relocating back to the West Midlands. A quick trawl through a few property and estate agents websites revealed an abundance of the type of property we were interested in; pre-war character houses in decent areas with generous plot sizes.
After about 4 weeks of searching I came across a 1928 4 bed property in a village I was vaguely familiar with, but in a street with which I was unfamiliar. It seemed rather expensive for what was described in the estate agents particulars, but aroused my curiosity enough to take a look on a block viewing day.
