After the first road trip to Scotland - 500 miles up, 500 miles down, for a 30 minute viewing, together with the aftermath (exhaustion for about a week, a failed purchase bid and a major marital) we got our act together for a 3 day road trip, with timings down to the hour to ensure we saw every house we wanted to and maximise the time (and money) available. But as we'll reveal - even the best made plans have to accommodate unforeseen events!
So, on Tuesday evening we set off from Warwickshire at the end of the working day (5pm) and drove to Perth, to fall into a bed at a Travelodge (there's no need for fourposters and romantics - a clean bed and hot shower is all we needed). We had our itinerary detailing 6 interesting properties, two of which we were desperate to see, two of which were potentially exciting projects, and two we just happened to be driving past. We had had seven houses to view, but one had just sold the day previous.
But, on the journey, I tethered the laptop to our hotspot and did my daily property check - I just couldn't go a day without by this point in the search! And, there was one house that jumped out of the page (details to follow soon!) It was almost on our way - could we fit it in? Yes, with a bit of a shuffle, and a slightly earlier start the following day, we could. Did we want to fit it in? I managed to access the home buyers report and it looked good. We swapped car seats and John had a scan too - it was a goer!
All went to plan up until 10 minutes before collapsing into bed, at midnight, when John checked his phone to find a text message from Calmac Ferries informing us that our ferry to get us to North Uist the following evening to view one of the two best houses was cancelled. No details of alternative arrangements. In one word - shit. Thanks for that text message ten minutes before we want to get 6 hour sleep, after a 6 hour drive, before being up again at 6am. There really was nothing we could do except get some sleep, so we could stay focused on the first 3 viewings in the Cairngorms in the morning.
The alarm came round all too quickly and we had managed to get some sleep, but now it was time to plan out how to recover our plan. One thing we both agreed on was that getting to the Outer Hebrides was mission critical - everything had to revolve around getting to that property, so as Liz took the wheel, John was on the laptop looking at alternatives and trying to get answers out of Calmac.
Anyway - first stop at 9am: Ardgeith Steading Development, Strathdon, Aberdeenshire - offers over £150,000
Ardgeith Steading was a development opportunity. Steadings (farm buildings that you would call barns in England) are typical of this style in Scotland, often arranged as three or four sides of a square. Ardgeith fitted that mould and the detailed planning permission was to convert the steading into two detached dwellings each being a generous four bedrooms. You could even buy just a half of the project as it was available as two lots, making buying half an acre and the planning permission for a huge family home very affordable at just £75,000!
Ardgeith Steading is a large traditional U-shape granite steading situated on an elevated site with southerly views over the Deskry Water. The site in total extends to around 1.4 of an acre and is located on a no through road. Located within the Cairngorms National Park, the site has spectacular open views, south-east towards Bonlee Hill, Baderonach Hill and Gallows Hill, and south-west towards Morven. Ardgeith Steading is located within the picturesque burgh of Strathdon. The nearby Bellabeg is a quaint hamlet with a shop, post office and local primary school. Bellabeg is also home to the annual Lonach Gathering & Highland Games which was founded in 1841 and attracts thousands of visitors to the area each year.
A great opportunity but interestingly research showed that planning had been granted way back in 2006 and the for sale board had been up so long it was visible on Google Street View! So if this was such a bargain - why had it stuck around?
The location confirmed our research - lovely uninterrupted views across an open valley, good south westerly aspect, quiet location along a single track road to nowhere. The sale particulars were advertising this as a knock it down and start again. And sadly the fabric of the building was (in our opinion) 'shot', having floundered on the market for 15 years with no protection from further deterioration. I think it would be a shame to lose the lovely, original stone work to a new build project but the quality of the stone was poor and minimal materials would be freed up from the demolition phase to use again. We may have been overly pessimistic, but although the output of the project would be two houses of say £500,000 each, it was a project of scale. Even on site we decided that, despite the great view, it wasn't the one.
Interestingly though, a few days after we returned home, it move to under offer - amazing/spooky coincidence that after literally years of being for sale, it moved forwards within hours of our visit. Probably this simply shows the pressure on the market - high demand, low supply of project or completed properties fitting this (our!) criteria.
This last photo is the architects artist impression of what the 2 dwellings would looks like - let's circle back round in 2 years time and see whether someone's dream has become this reality or like many project it's become a bottomless money pit! Planning permission had been granted in 2020, so there would be no problem getting the show on the road with this project.
We were due at Old Ellick within the hour, so back on the road we went....
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