Making a home from a rented house

Right so you've sold the home you've had for the past 7 years but where are you actually going to live now?

Getting cosy with the donkeys and the pull of purple pullovers

One of the major reasons we love Cornwall is because of the beautiful coastline, amazing scenery and wonderful outdoor living we enjoy all year round. However, that’s also what makes it super popular with a couple of million people every year. We are graduating from Cornwall tourists to Kernow residents, hooray! (Although sidenote: I don’t think you can call yourself ‘Cornish’ until you’re at least two generations in.) But that also means we have tocontend with the tourist rental industry when trying to find a home - and quick. 

We had 8 weeks from when Winston got his new job to start date and whilst his new workplace was really kind in delaying the start date for him, it didn’t really work out to delay with getting a school place for our son. We decided to base our house search around which schools we liked for our son. If you are not aware, getting a school place for your child actually starts a year before they begin school - in September to January - as this is the window for getting your application in to the council. You are supposed to go round your local primaries, pick one and then fill out a form citing which is your first, second, third choice (some areas of the country you get to choose 6!) and send it off. In April-ish you get an email letting you know which school you have been allocated. Pretty simple so far, right? Well no, now introduce the fact that not all primary schools are suited to all children, that you’ve got 300 other parents trying to get their kid into the same primary and what if that’s not even the right place for your child? You’ve also got catchment areas to contend with so now you have to try and work out which is the school you like the most, nearest to your post code and are you in the catchment area? How many children that year are also applying for a school place and are they likely to also want the same school you have chosen? Does the school you like have wrap around care - because I have yet to find the magical job that allows me to earn enough money for a mortgage that I can also do between the hours of 9:30-2:30 so I can still pick up the children. And what if your kid really doesn’t look good in yellow, brown or purple jumpers? Oh and remember we are changing counties so we’ve got to figure this all out, move house and get our application in before 15th January - just 8 short weeks away. 

It’s a lot, I know. So let’s rewind a bit to that first week when we had decided we were going to go for it. We started looking at primary schools and as our son was already in nursery, I decided to narrow down the search to primary schools that he could start at immediately (in nursery) and hopefully carry on at in September 2024 for reception (if our application was successful). This did narrow down the search a bit, but as we were still unsure on exactly where we wanted to live there were still around 50 primary schools on the list. To narrow it down further, I thought I would go by Ofsted reports (which as a family of teachers I want to caveat by saying they are absolute dog shit, not helpful for a true reflection of a school and absolutely no indication of staff wellbeing or leadership) which wasn’t helpful anyway as they were all GOOD or OUTSTANDING. The only helpful information Ofsted provided was if a school was over or under subscribed and the total number of pupils. All of the primary schools that we were looking at had fewer pupils than the school our son is currently at (known as the small school in our area) and for the most part, fewer pupils than in a single year group at the schools Winston and I have taught at over the past 7 years. 

In my google-deep dive, whilst feeding our baby, I suddenly realised that half term for Cornwall was a week earlier than half term for Birmingham so we could travel down and have a look at the schools we liked - great! But hang on, that also means, as it was Thursday morning (having got the job and deciding to move our lives on the Tuesday of that same week) that I had that afternoon and the morning after to book in school visits before the Cornish schools broke up for the week. I called my mum to come round asap to hold the baby so I could get to work on a spreadsheet, make the fastest life decisions I’ve ever had to make and book in some visits at the primaries. 

NB: just want to point out at this point that I am generally quite levelheaded on a deadline/panic but ask me to keep on top of our laundry or keep a desk tidy and I am a complete mess.

A mad two hours later and I had booked us in to see 5 schools, across the two towns we thought we might live in. Now I know I was also only 8 weeks postpartum at this point and the hormones were running high but if I could fall in platonic love with someone over the phone I think I did that day. For one of the schools (my favourite from their website, Facebook and Instagram posts) a lady answered the phone with a soft West Country accent and helped to book us in for a visit two weeks later. She was so helpful and kind that I felt looked after and cared for by a complete stranger. She was excited for our move and wished us good luck on our journey down. I felt sure I had chosen there and then the school I wanted our son to go to and started calling every estate agent around to book us in for viewings near the prospective schools.

The week of our house and school finding holiday came and we packed up the car - along with the grandparents and headed down. It was exciting and nerve wracking all at the same time. We checked into our airbnb and had an hour or so on our favourite beach. That’s when it hit that this is where were were going to live, this beach was going to be within a short drive of wherever we lived and our babies would grow up surrounded by the ridiculous beauty all around us. It was, however, also the week a named storm was coming into town and forecast to rain heavily the entire week. To say we ignored this slight blip in the plan is an understatement and carried on walking through sheet rain ‘exploring’ the local towns and cafes. I imagine we looked a bit like a newly divorced middle-ager who’s gone out on a date and just wants to spill all they’ve been through and why they are so excited about their new life to anyone who will listen - for us this was a few unimpressed barristas and newsagent owners. 

As we made our way through our viewings it became clear that all the schools we had shortlisted were amazing. The teachers showing us round genuinely had a calmness to them that you can’t fake, the facilities were amazing at every primary and we just couldn’t get over how idyllic and lovely each one was. We asked everyone about catchment areas, thinking this would surely be our downfall as there were a handful of rental properties available and no guarantee of getting any of them. To our surprise, as the towns we were looking at living in areexpecting an increase in overall population in the coming years, they had planned accordingly and opened new primary schools in order to cope. We could pick any of the schools and were likely of getting in. 

So we went back to the house hunt. There was one house that was cheap, looked warm and was situated on a working farm. The morning of our appointment came and we had an early phone call from the esate agent. All the bookings were cancelled as the storm was setting in and bringing a fair few trees down so it wasn’t safe to be out on the roads - could we re book for next week maybe? Urgh, no we couldn’t, this was our only week to get our lives sorted and decided upon. We decided we knew better, it didn’t look that bad from our air bnb so maybe we should just pop down and have a look ourselves. We drove down the dirt (and extremely muddy) track and found the property next to a field with two utterly adorable donkeys. We knocked on the farmer’s door and introduced ourselves, made small talk about milking machines and how long his family had been on the land. They couldn’t find the front door keys so we spied through the windows to see if it looked okay. It did! We left and called the estate agent, keen to get the paperwork started. The property was near one of our favourite schools and it all seemed to be coming together.

No my friend, it was not. It turns out that as a landlord you are all powerful in Cornwall. There really are 10-20 good applicants for every property and having two small children doesn’tmake you the most attractive. Back in Birmingham now, with our trip over, the Farmer turned us down and we were back to square one. Feeling a little anxious, we carried on looking for properties and one came up in the next village along from the Farm property and quite close to a friend of ours. I texted her and asked if she could possibly view it on behalf of us, and being the angel she is, she organised to view it a few days later and send us over some videos. We waited and soon enough had the videos of a perfect looking dormer bungalow on a tarmac road with 2 more bedrooms than we needed. It was still in easy reach of our favourite primary schools and across the road from another tiny primary which wasn’t originally on our list. We called the estate agent and made an offer on the property. But which school to chose?

Eventually, it came down to gut feeling. Which place would be best for our little boy and his personality. We chose a great little school - not the smallest and not the biggest - but that had a great welcoming feel and a calm environment. It turns out purple jumpers can really grow on you.