We've Found The Most Amazing Place For Rent! Living Next To A Castle!
So, me and my girlfriend have been house-hunting for a couple of months now and have finally signed a contract to rent one. The place we've found is honestly quite a steal, in terms of rent & space. We're paying around 600 euros per month for the house you see in the picture, which is a one bedroom, with decently sized living-room and kitchen. On top of that, we also get 4 separate storage areas.
Now, if that was the only thing we were getting, it would be great, but it's not all. This little house sits right next to a castle and we get private access to all domains around it, in total over 4 hectares and a private tennis court. We share this area with the other people who live here, 3 families in total.
In the picture above, you can see the castle, which is adjacent to our house. The owners are a sweet French-speaking elderly couple, who rent out a couple of rooms in there castle and two houses right next to it. All the buildings are registered as monuments, so they can't make any changes to the outside. That's why the buildings are quite old-fashioned. The interior is also pretty simple, but we have all necessary amenities.
Yesterday we started re-painting the interior and I've also set up a little vegetable garden right in front of the house. You can see a couple of tomato plants and some herbs.
Indoors there was quite a bit of work to be done, the former renter clearly smoked indoors, so we have to re-paint everything. No other way to get that nasty smell out & those stains off the walls. Luckily the owners provided us with the paint and some cash to do the work.
The living area still needs to get done, we started out with the bedroom. I mean, the surface of the house itself isn't that large, but the real value comes with access to the lands around it. The kitchen is far from modern, but it's definitely enough for what we need. My girlfriend is fresh out of college and I've just started a business, so saving up on rent is perfect for us. Especially since we're getting such great value with all the additional land we can use.
Speaking about all that additional land, it's a really big domain. I tried walking across the entire domain and wasn't able to get to the end before turning back. That already took me almost half an hour. There's this huge pond with a little bridge, which would be a great fishing spot. Though I reckon I can't really go fishing there, I might ask the owners about it after we've fully moved in.
Then there's the tennis court, I don't play tennis, but I might just try to play a bit in my spare time now.
There's one other thing I discovered when wandering around the domain, but I think this warrants a second post. I've found a small little 'village' of to-scale historical buildings that were built to use as play-houses for the owners' children. These small houses were built in the 40's and 50's and were pretty neat to see.
I'll give you a little preview below, but will go more in depth in one of my next posts ;-)
So, we're incredibly happy that we managed to find this place. We'd been scouring all the real-estate websites for months, even tried to rent a few other places but got rejected because we weren't fast enough. Now we're incredibly happy that we found this place.
In terms of price, I don't think we could have done better than this, it's quite steal here in Belgium. Similar places could easily go for 700 - 1000 euros per month, I'm 100% sure of that. I hope you've enjoyed reading this post and looking at all the pictures. It's been a while since I've written an in-depth personal post like this ;)
Wow, that is pretty awesome! I know how crazy it can be looking for a new place to stay. I remember when I first moved out I was living with a friend and he suddenly decided he was going to get married and buy a house. I quickly had to find something that was within my price range and it was a pretty stressful situation. This looks like it is going to be a really awesome place to live. Especially after you get everything repainted and all of your stuff moved in. Good luck with your new abode!
Yeah it definitely was pretty hectic these past few weeks. We were extremely lucky that we found this one. Thanks to turning on notifications on the real-estate website ;)
Missed the opportunity of the tree house as the title picture! Almost click-Bait! All the best with what looks an excellent place to live...
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Aww damn, you're right :D
WOW that is awesome want a cool find once you add your touches its going to be great
that’s great the owner is even paying for the paint and how cool to have all those facilities and grounds available
I am looking forward to seeing more of those smal scale houses
Yeah, the house itself is not that big, but more than enough for us. Just now, the owner has even suggested to hire professional painters to do the bathroom. That was one job I wasn't looking forward to, so I'll take it :D
WOW you have lucked out with such a good owner enjoy your time there :)
That's not just a lucky find – it's practically a steal. €600 Euros is around $670. Now way could you rent for that here! You might find a mobile home for that, but it would be on a lot little bigger than the trailer!
Yeah, even for Belgian prices that's really a steal. Maybe the owners had no idea what to charge, they're pretty old, so they might not have taken inflation into account :'D
It's a real bargain for certain. A place like that here in the area of the States where I live would easily go for twice that and more! The apartment we lived in before we bought our home now rents on average for $1500 a month – a more than 50% increase from just a decade ago. Even when we first moved out, we were paying more in rent than we ended up paying for our mortgage.
The house looks pretty great. The fact that you people are surrounded with families, it makes it more pretty good as it will not look like a house in a isolated environment.
Yeah, I've met a few of the neighbors and they seem to be quite fun people. I mean it's quite secluded here, but you're still around a couple of people. Best of both worlds, I think :)
Yea. Sure
Oh, it looks beautiful! It reminds me of a lovely cottage I used to rent on a farm, which was really a stately home with huge grounds near Loch Lomond. I lived there for four years, and only reluctantly moved because I wanted to buy a flat of my own.
Looks great! Enjoy it!
And enough space to walk around. So I do expect a daily actifit post with more than 10K steps :)
You know, I've never used Actifit before. What do you need exactly? Just a smartphone or do you need a fitbit-like device?
A smartphone alone should do the trick.
I only use my smartphone and normally only post of I have more than 10k steps.
If you have any question about it, just ask!
Cute little playhouses! The actual house looks pretty decently sized, especially for the rent that you are paying! A nice big kitchen as well is always good, we've got a small one and we are going to have to renovate that... (smash through a wall...). Lots of nice walks ahead as well!
That's quite a find @daan, especially with all that land around you! So much better than living in a concrete jungle and how interesting that you have the castle as your neighbour and living in a historical building as well! I'd want to go digging in the archives to find out about the history of the place. How cool is the miniature house! Enjoy your new home!
That looks like an amazing spot! I was looking to rent a house in Belgium before I moved to Ireland and I was never able to find anything even remotely close to that for that kinda price!
Congratulations! It looks like you've found a little piece of paradise.