House hunting day 2

The boys in the Zentrum

So we began the Tuesday with a trip to the Zentrum, the BMW factory visitor centre in North America for a meeting with the international HR manager.  She was lovely, very nice, straight to the point lady.  Our friendly German was also there.  It always amazes me to hear people conversing in two languages, one after another.  I have much respect for people who can do this, would like to also be able to do this someday.  The boys sat brilliantly through this, playing iPods, again.  Paul then had to go into the main building for his health check so me and the boys were left to kill half an hour looking around the Zentrum.  It is a pretty cool place for car enthusiasts, like my children.  All sorts, cars, motor bikes, engines they really enjoyed it.

After we went for some lunch then on to meet out relocation company realtor.  We had arranged to meet at a show home for a house that has not been completed yet.  The show home layout was fab, and we were quite interested, so we went to see the incomplete house on the plot.  First thing that put us off was the distance to the communal pool.  Then it was the dog barking in the house behind.  It was quite overlooked too.  So this was another no no.  We the went to see the neighbourhood of a house the realtor seemed pretty keen on, but we could not get to see inside till later that afternoon.  All of the houses on this day were quite near each other, and all in our advised area of Simpsonville/ Five Forks.  We drove to the next house.  The realtor took us on a little tour of the area before pulling up at the house we were looking at.  All we  could think while driving the neighbourhood was "bloody hell these houses are massive". When we pulled up, we were impressed.  It was big but not too big.  Greeted by a lovely tenant who showed us around, first thing for the boys was the toys belonging to the tenant's children.  They were happy.  The tenant was so helpful, answering questions, she had things laid out well.  The house was lovely.  Big entrance hall with formal dining room one side office space the other.  Small bonus room next to the downstairs toilet and big open plan living room/ kitchen/ diner.  Large fenced in back garden, but a manageable size.  Upstairs the master bedroom has a den to one side plus built in wardrobe, full ensuite.  There is another bedroom with ensuite, then down the other end of the hall 2 further large bedroom with built in storage areas.  There is another bathroom between these two bedrooms.  This was by far the best house we had seen.  The tenant asked questions about school and preschools, she advised not going to see one of the ones we had down to visit, but highly recommended another which we had planned to visit, just a couple hundred metres down the road.  We thanked the tenant, and headed to the next house, which was even bigger. It was over 3 floors. It had 5 bedrooms a massive living space leading onto a decking overlooking the lovely grassed fenced on back garden. The only way to access this garden was through the basement, so we went and checked it out. It was a massive granny annexe with its own kitchen, bathroom and living space. It was huge, but too big for us. The realtor Said she had in provisionally line dip for a German family coming next month with 6 kids!!! We then went and checked put the previous house to see inside.  Again, it was totally amazing, huge, with a mega basement.  But the garden was a no go, there was no fences on the side, and it dropped off to a steep incline at the very back.

We concluded that there was only one house we wanted to go back and look at the next day.  The agent said she would arrange it, and true to her word she did.  After we left her, we went to the supermarket, bought some more food for a nibbly dinner and headed back to the hotel,for an early night for all concerned.