There's something I've been hiding from my readers since we first started this Blog in January.
Jameswood Villa is a building made up of four apartments. When Cal first went to auction, he only bought ONE apartment in the building. We decided not to post too much about this because we were in the process of negotiating to buy the other units. Ironically, one of the first times we made it clear we hadn't bought the whole building was in our interview with the Scottish reporter who "broke" our story - but she didn't mention it in her final article! This week was momentous for us, because we finally own Jameswood... ALL OF IT! And now I can finally tell you all about it. The fact that Jameswood was split up into seperate apartments is likely a major contributing factor to the building falling into disrepair and becoming derelict over the years. Owners hadn't agreed to make the repairs needed to stop closing orders being put on the building, and apartments weren't sold together, or at the same time - putting off investors. The fact that the building was split into apartments is ALSO the reason for Cal's (now famous) auction mix up. You can read more about how we accidentally bought Jameswood here. Three of Jameswoods apartments were up for sale on the day of the auction. The first was sold to another bidder, the second was sold to Cal and the third had no bidders. Later that day, the Auction house called Cal and asked if we'd like to buy the third apartment that had been up for sale that day. We hadn't yet seen the place, but we knew that if the last apartment had to go to auction again, we could be waiting months before there was another investor on board for common works to commence. We saw the unsold third apartment as a loose end that needed to be tied up - so we agreed to buy the flat for a discounted auction fee. Now we owned half the building. And this is when Cal first went and saw Jameswood. As most of you could probably guess, seeing the building for the first time was a bit of a shock. It was definitely more than the "upgrades throughout" that we were expecting from the auction description. Luckily, our good friends Barry and Dexter were there to calm Cal when he first saw the place. Together they did an initial survey of the building, and started to uncover the problems that would have to be solved to repair the building.
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Wow! What a whirlwind. About a week ago, Cal and I thought we were going to be in one Scottish newspaper, having done an interview with a reporter after they had seen our story in Dunoon's local paper. As the day progressed, we were shocked to find the story spreading, first to other UK papers, and then across the globe. We were soon getting messages from people in Australia, New Zealand, North and South America, Russia and Thailand. At first it was a bit overwhelming. It's a very weird feeling, knowing so many people know who you are, and know about your little mix up at an auction. The stories seemed to get more and more sensationalized as the day progressed, and unlike here on my blog, we had absolutely no control over how things were told by all these news sources. But what came from having our story spread all over the internet was amazing. Cal and I are incredibly moved by the enormous amount of support, the incredibly kind words of encouragement and the general positivity we have been sent by so many people. From all over the world, people have taken some time out of their days to follow our Facebook, Instagram and Blog, and to email, message and comment us such lovely well wishes. The scale of this project can feel very daunting at times. It is so nice to know that so many people from all over the world are supporting us as we take this on. We would just like to say a heartfelt and sincere thank you to everyone who has sent us encouragement. I will be posting a new update very shortly, but for now, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Sincerely, Cal and Claire A few of the articles we've found about our story.
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