So my girlfriend and I are walking up the high street on Friday. Hang on. Rewind a bit. My girlfriend was a bit knackered and decided to take Thursday and Friday off and suggested that I take Friday off and we could have a nice relaxing day together. It doesn’t take much to persuade me to take time off work (in fact it takes no persuasion at all, just the hint of an idea), so I jumped at the chance. Anyway, we went for a pub lunch (with my work colleagues I might add – that’s how well we get on) and afterwards we thought we’d have a wander through the centre of Skipton. Which we did.

Okay, that takes me to us walking up the high street. So we wander past one of the estate agents and do our usual routine of looking in the window to comment on how bloody expensive houses around here are. Wait a minute. Let’s just rewind a bit more. In case I haven’t mentioned it before (or you didn’t know), my girlfriend and I live next door to each other. We met over the garden fence and we both have one bedroom houses. She owns hers and I rent mine. We can’t move in together because there’s not enough space for the both of us (and everybody needs their own personal space after all) plus, we’d have to argue about which settee to throw out (quick answer: mine).

Anyway, we’ve talked many times about how much money we could save by moving in together but the problems with that plan have always been as follows:

• Her house is too small for the both of us.
• My house is too small for the both of us.
• Houses are damn expensive just now and so it wouldn’t be a good time for us to buy.
• We could rent a larger house, but that’s a bit pointless as she already owns her own.

In short, we’ve talked about it but not really taken it seriously. And that brings us back to the estate agent. We went inside to have a look at houses for rent and after picking up the leaflet, had a quick look at the houses for sale. And then we saw it. Our perfect house. And at a price we could afford. We couldn’t believe it.

We had previously decided that should we live in a house together it would need 3 bedrooms and a garage. That way I could put my gym in the garage and turn one of the bedrooms into a second lounge to give us a bit of personal space when we need it (i.e. when I watch football on TV). We realised that houses like this were expensive thanks to the strength of the housing market, so we kept on dreaming. But here we were looking at the perfect house (it actually has 4 bedrooms, but nothing’s perfect), and it’s in the same village we currently live in, which we really like. We wandered around town a bit before deciding to arrange an appointment to go and see it.

We spent the evening talking about the reality of buying a house together and my girlfriend decided she would sell her house to move to this one because it’s exactly the sort of house she’d want to live in (albeit with me). I was all for it, mainly because it’s an ideal house for me and I’m an impulsive, do-or-die sort of person. So Saturday comes along and we drive the short distance to the house, and it’s raining cats and dogs. But as the owner showed us around I could see myself living there more and more. I’m stupefyingly observant so I was making mental notes of little bits of cracked paint here and there (it’s a 2 year old house and I know what current building standards are like) but I was liking what I saw. After we left my girlfriend was smiling too. We want this house.

So there you go. We’re going to make an offer. Well, to be more precise, I’m going to make an offer. If I get a mortgage sorted out then we can get the house without having to wait to sell my girlfriend’s first – so no chain. At this point, I’m not expecting that we’ll get the house. It’s a seller’s market just now so I’m not going to get my hopes up. However, we’re going to arrange to go and see it again ASAP (unless somebody else has already bought it) and mention to the agent that we’re interested and are not waiting to sell. Fingers crossed.

I’ve tried recently to be less impulsive and save money and be more predictable. I guess it didn’t work and it’s rubbing off on my girlfriend too. I suppose you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.