Back in the UK for a 2nd Home Finding Visit

We are back in the UK for a second home finding trip and I am pretty convinced I will not be leading a jet-setting life anytime soon. The jet-lag has hit me pretty hard this time around. It is now 4am on Tuesday morning (UK time), and I am sitting in our hotel lobby surfing the net because I woke up at 2am with no real hopes of falling back asleep. 

We left Dulles airport on Sunday night and arrived at Heathrow airport on Monday morning (local UK time). We then drove back up to the Midlands Area here to meet with our relocation agent in the late afternoon. She had secured an appointment for us to view the house that we had recently found online so we could see it in person before signing the lease. It actually appears things are set in motion for us to secure this house as our new home. This row house is located in the actual town where Scott will be working and it is more of an "in-town" location, so we are both pleased with the choice. I will also be able to walk to a few shops and amenities, so I should be able to exist without a car for a while if needed.

Hopefully the front of our new UK home....

There are some downsides to the house: no closets anywhere, no wardrobes, no dryer, only a half fridge, no garage, etc, but overall it is a good choice and has old character, but has been nicely updated on the inside. 

The Refrigerator and the Washer ONLY (no tumble dryer.....)

Our time is limited at this point, so we would like to just settle on a place so we can move forward with securing the lease. We have FIRMLY asked our agent to make sure the check is cut for the deposit on this house. Only after the letting agent receives a deposit on a house, can one obtain a lease to then review and amend. The terms of the lease are not clearly spelled out with the owner and tenant until after this deposit has been received, and we are hopeful that the owner will not change the terms of our lease so we will not loose this house. Of course, finding this house and the process to secure it has been surrounded by more out-of-the-ordinary circumstances which now seem more normal to us, rather than if it had it gone smoothly. We are not sure if these problems have stemmed from the owners of the homes in the UK (who overall seem to have no motivation to move quickly on securing leases for their own homes) or if the problems have stemmed from the incompetency of our agent who is representing us here. Either way, it has been a less than enjoyable (and frankly quite frustrating) process. 

Since it seems that our housing situation should be as secure as we could hope at this point, we will be heading back to the US earlier than expected. We will drive back down to London on Tuesday evening to hopefully fly back to the states on Wednesday. I cannot wait for the jet-lag to set in again once I encounter another new time zone....