For my final exam (only 2nd year, still one to go) we had to prepare an assignment in group. One of my classmates was so kind to open up his house to us and while sitting and working at his house, an old feeling got hold of me : I want a house of myself. (Which is not so strange, since it has been genetically imprinted in every Belgian).

So, one evening, instead of preparing for my exam, I started searching the internet for a house and a miracle happened : I found my dream house, it was splendid situated, had a lot of space and was quite cheap, compared to similar houses. Really, all I every wanted in life (except for the Aston Martin, the yacht and a billion or 2) was that house. Impatiently waiting until my girlfriend came home from work I told her about the house and lucky me, she shared my enthusiasm for the house completely and suggested I immediately should contact the broker, which given the time of day, didn’t answer the phone.

During that night, neither of us slept and the first thing in the morning, I called the broker who at the time was still on her way to work (sometimes I’m a bit impatient), but promised to call me back. An hour later, she rang me back with the message that I was very lucky, since there were 8 other people who were interested in the house and the first person in line just had cancelled his appointment and now we were the first to visit the house. (How convenient). Realizing that this house must be one hell of a deal, I contacted my parents and told them I’ve found a house and asked if they could accompany me, since we would have to make a quick decision and I wanted a second opinion.

Overjoyed, I called my girlfriend at work and told her we could visit the house on Thursday around 8’30. But rational as we are, we were a bit skeptic about only being able to visit the house in the evening and it was indeed a very cheap price. So, we came up with the master plan to visit the house on Wednesday ourselves and to have a little chat with the neighbors to gain some insight in the history and flaws of our soon-to-be property.

That evening, we only succeeded to depart around 8’o clock, thus losing the advantage of visiting the house in daylight, but nevertheless we were quite determined to visit the house ourselves. After a drive of half an hour, we finally reached the community, but couldn’t find the street, where the house was situated and being technically challenged (read : too cheap-ass to buy a GPS device) we lost almost one hour asking people for a street name no one knew. Around 9’30 and completely fed up with the search, we stopped in a pub in the neighboring village and asked the barmaid for directions.

She perfectly knew the street, she even knew the house and surprise, surprise, the neighbor of the current residents was sitting at the bar and of course, she know him too. My girlfriend swift as always, bought the man a beer and the man proposed us to show the way to his home and our we-just-need-to-sign-the-check property. During the trip, I and my girlfriend were continuously wondering ourselves if we would find any flaws or detect the reasons why the house was so cheap.

Just having crossed a bridge across a motorway, the friendly neighbor pulled over and pointed to a house on his left. I think it’s fair to say that it only took us 1/2 of a second to realize the reason for the cheap price : The motorway we just crossed ran through the garden of the house and as a bonus, a high voltage tower was standing next to the house.

Of course, the neighbor started talking about the house and we learned that he was a good friend of the previous owner, who sold his house 1,5 year ago to the current residents for half the price, they were asking. Right ……

Completely disillusioned we returned home, realizing why it takes other people over 2 years to find an attractive house and not the 2 days we thought. So, the next day I called the broker and told her we wouldn’t be visiting the house, since we already did and found out the house was very close to the motorway on which she responded : yes, we get that reaction from all the visitors. Well, don’t you think it would be a good idea to tell people this before they travel through half the country to visit the house.

Later that day, when looking through the pictures of the house again, my girlfriend realized that on one of the pictures, you can actually see the railing of the bridge in the right corner. That is, if you know it’s a bridge. Nevertheless, I’m quite confident the house will be eventually be sold, if they lower the price a bit and find some people who have hearing problems, no children who like to play in the garden and never ever are planning to organize a BBQ.