I’ve just read two tales of woe from Greek people coping with the country’s desperate measures to try to get back into some form of economic stability. The first is from a small shopkeeper who has just been fined 200 Euros for not keeping proper records of what she is selling. She failed to give a receipt, and hence keep a record of her sales, to a man who purchased an ice-cream. She now declares that giving receipts for everything will be her downfall, after all it will mean that for the first time ever, ALL of her sales will be taken into consideration for tax purposes. The other is from a man who has a full-time government job for which he is paid. This job is so onerous that he spends between 3 – 5 days per week driving a taxi. He has just been fined for not declaring the cash earning with this moonlighting job; now ALL sources of income will have to be taken into consideration when assessing tax payment. He moans that it is outrageous and that the government are stealing money from him. To both those Europeans, I say welcome to the real world!
Tax avoidance is a national hobby here in Greece, and on this island is no exception. Those looking for property beware, for things are not the same as the rest of Europe. Here the estate agent claims 4.5% from both the buyer and the seller! Cheques are an unheard of means of financial transaction, credit cards are only accepted by two shops selling expensive household goods, and even then they are discouraged in favour of cash. As for bank transfers forget it - I think we are one of few people on the island who have direct debits for paying our electricity and telephone bills. Everyone else queues up in the relevant office, on the last day before fines are imposed, and pays by cash. We have long since stopped going out on those days; even if you think you are lucky with just three people in front of you, we have learnt that each one will be paying at least 10 other accounts for friends, relatives and neighbours. We have reduced our telephone bills by no less than two-thirds by transferring our communications to e-mail or technologies such as Skype. Now, we are considering solar power, at least for heating water. When we have travelled through Greece we have often marvelled at the environmentally friendly Greek attitude and the extent to which solar power is used on individual properties. But we now realise that the environment has scant consideration when compared with the politics of electricity bills. Instead of municipalities levying a separate community charge or local tax, it is simply added to one’s electricity bill. Non-payment of such charges mean getting cut off with electricity. There are two impenetrable equations which link electricity use to the amount of local tax each household pays, but essentially it means more electricity used, more tax paid. Providing one’s own electricity not only reduced the electricity bill, but local tax contribution as well!
When building a property or renovating an old ruin there are a few basic rules relating to the style of the property which must be in keeping with local tradition. Depending upon whether the location is within a limited number of metres from a beach, within a village boundary, just outside or in an isolated area there are rules relating to the ratio of the square metres of the land owned and the footprint of the property. All records of all costs must be kept, and until this expenditure is signed off for tax purposes, it is not possible to be connected for electricity. Thus the electricity organisation is a very powerful means of tax collection for the state. All of this was explained to us when we first met up with our friend on the island.
When we first met up with him on our return trip, Keith was just as I remembered him, except that instead of being dressed in a pale cotton suit and looking the archetypal British civil servant abroad, he was now in shorts and casual top, looking the archetypal British gentleman on holiday. He had walked from his new build, which was the other end of the village and so was glad of a drink. Fairly quickly we got down to the task in hand and were pleasantly surprised that Keith had a complete three days mapped out for us. Today he suggested that he took us around the north of the island, helping us to get our bearings, showing us properties that he knew were for sale and generally showing us the off the beaten track Kythera. If we liked any of the properties we could then follow through with an estate agent or the owners. Keith would then arrange for the estate agent to see us the next day and then the third day would be allocated to reviewing what we had seen and meeting another estate agent to see what he had to offer, he was a much smaller operator and estate agency was only one of his portfolio of entrepreneurial ventures, but most of his property was in our chosen area. Whilst Keith telephoned the estate agent, Waldo went down to see Liana, the daughter of the hotel owner.
On our last visit we had discussed the potential for buying as property with Liana. It turned out that she was a lawyer and said that she could act for us to ensure that any purchase we made would be legal and correct in Greece. This was wonderful, to have a professional person who also had knowledge of the island. Her own business was based in Athens, in fashionable Kanigos suburb which indicated a good business, and she spent most of the summer in Kythera helping her mother run the hotel. We had taken Liana to Karavas and shown her some of the houses that we liked. We promised that we would send her the photographs as soon as we got home so that she could find out who the owners were and whether or not they were interested in selling. We had done this within two weeks of returning home, enclosing a hand-drawn map locating each of the properties. We had then spent the interim year writing, e-mailing and faxing Liana. Her only response, just one week before we were leaving this time for our holidays was that she would arrange for us to visit houses. Waldo now wanted to know what arrangements she had made as he didn’t wasn’t to double book ourselves. We needn’t have worried, in typical Greek fashion the whole thing seemed a surprise to her, but she agreed that she would meet us the next day at six-thirty and tell us what she had arranged.
Knowing that we could now fill the rest of the day and up to six-thirty the next day, we fell in with Keith’s plans. Day three was far too far away to be concerned with. First we went to Keith’s building site and met his wife Androma. They showed us round the skeleton building calling on our imagination to see the lounge, main bedroom, bathrooms, kitchen and the variety of divisions that would make the house. We then set off in Keith’s ancient Lada 4 x 4. It had once been red, but time in the sun and years of hard work towing boats in and out of the water meant that was a rather fetching orange in the front mutating through rose to clearly identifiable rust at the rear. But it was great for the off-road terrain that constitutes most of the tracks of Kythera. The first house we saw was an old property being renovated by a friend of theirs. When we saw the huddle of stones nestled into under a ridge just outside Karavas we thought it looked hopeful. Clearly we both identified a white part of the building which was probably habitable, then walls and surrounds which were near completion and then rubble which was yet to be started in the restoration project. As we drew near Waldo and I looked at each other and smiled, we both thought this was a great beginning. Keith stopped and we all piled out. I was rather unsure as the track appeared to run between the house. Then, as Keith explained the layout we came to understand that what we had thought was one house was actually three semidetached houses with an animal barn being restored on the side of a fourth house. The house that was complete was locked up and so undaunted, Mickey fetched a set of metal cutters and cut open the lock. Between clenched teeth holding a cigarette I just heard the heavily accented words “It was a shitty lock anyway.”
The ‘house’ was just one storey and comprised two buildings together which seemed like curved bunkers. The iron gates that Mickey had just ‘unlocked’ led round the curve of the bunker, to the left was a small storage space and inside was a small dark room with a single bed on each side wall. There was one tiny window at the far end and off to the left was a small shower room with toilet. It was rather like visiting a property in a folk museum as we took it in turns to see inside, there being no room for four people at once. The next door entrance was similar room except that it was smaller and the two single beds had to be placed at right angles to each other, with the heads overlapping leaving a space of about twelve square feet to move in. Once outside I asked where the kitchen was and was shown to the outside wall of this second bedroom. Here was a long stone shelf with a basin in the corner; the food preparation area! A few ancient sheets of corrugated iron with vine branches resting on it served as the roof. There was also a large wooden table and a long bench. This was the kitchen, dining and living area and the rest was left to our imagination.
Concerned that I thought the Mickey Mouse House, as Waldo and I named it later, was too small, Mickey then showed us the property next door which he was working on. We could buy the two. Now was the time to do it so that he could organise the new rooms just as we wanted. There was potential. There was a good view. But there was a lot of work to still to do. The rooms were all rather small. Even buying the two properties we would still be semidetached and have a track running past the back of the property. There was little garden space, in fact as Waldo worked out, barely enough space to park a car. No, the Mickey Mouse House was out as far as we were concerned. But it was an interesting start.
After viewing the local church, the graveyard of which had the best view of all, we continued along more tracks towards an isolated farmhouse. As Androma pointed out the property in the distance we agreed that it was worth a look. One side was painted white and the other, longer part, remained stone. Once we were close up and personal, we realised that the property was in fact three houses and the farthest, smallest one was for sale. Again the backs of the property were the edge of the road track and it looked very small. We were in a hollow and a wonderful country location, but there was no view of the sea, maybe if one stood on tiptoe in a room at the top of the house. This was a non-starter.
Our next port-of-call, Keith told us, was to meet a friend of theirs who could perhaps tell us about the properties in Karavas that we had earmarked. We came off the track and joined the asphalt road just by the old mill at the edge of the village. We drove through the archway, a huge triumphal portico which looked totally out of place in such a humble village, but had been built in the memory of some previous citizen of Karavas who had since moved on to ‘Big Kythera’. We drove through the village and just at the other end, turned up to the right; we couldn’t believe it, into ‘our’ road. Haralambos, known as Harry, had a relatively new house which didn’t follow the traditional Kytheran style of small windows. It had been built by his father who had been a fairly influential man and had achieved a lot for the island such as getting the Flying Dolphin, the fast hydrofoil boat, to come weekly between Athens and Kythera. It was indicative of his personal power that within weeks of his death the service was withdrawn. The house was on two floors, but the large lounge at the front of the property had a huge balcony above it and around the front of it with the ceiling extending about 2 metres out to give a large outdoor living space. We were warmly greeted and ushered to this space. After some discussion Harry declared that he did not know who were the owners of the houses we had highlighted, but we should take a walk and ask some of the neighbours. It was very strange that nobody knew anything about the houses, neither neighbours living next door nor opposite some properties. One house was for sale though and we walked to see it. The house was located off the road and on a flat topped hillock below Harry’s house. It was complete and showed signs of having been lived in recently; it seemed a possibility until Harry suggested that he thought it was for sale for 95 million drachmas. Despite moving to the Euro, Greeks still think in drachmas, particularly for large purchases such as houses and cars, giving an unreal fixed rate at 350 drachmas to the pound.
We then walked back towards Harry’s house and on up the road to a dilapidated property which had not been on our list. The walls stood but part of the roof had collapsed and the house looked rather small, it was one floor in the front and two at the rear. But it was sandwiched between two other properties, one of which was derelict and there was no view for it seemed set in a hollow on the hill. After more searching and asking neighbours we came away feeling very despondent. Here we were with some influential local people, living in the road we preferred and having the advantage of being able to speak with the neighbours and yet nobody knew anything about the houses we had earmarked. What was the problem? What was their secret? Would we ever find out?
After Karavas, right opposite the house that was our number one choice, or at least the pile of stones that marked the spot, we turned off the asphalt onto a rutted track. Eventually we came to a small house that belonged to a German chap who had settled on the island some twenty years ago and eventually married his Australian girlfriend. Between them they ran a number of businesses including farming, estate agency, managing properties for rental, property management and maintenance for distant owners, making jams and all manner of preserves and pickles, providing firewood and others now lost in the distant memory. He seemed to have the control of the side of the mountain between Karavas and Aghia Pelagia. This was certainly an area that had the view we were looking for and the distance away from a village that ensured peace and quiet. In fact he told us he had a property just in front of his own house, and would we care to look. My flip-flops would not stand the rough terrain that we had to walk and so I was given a pair of his wife’s sturdy gardening shoes and we set off. I didn’t make it more than about ten feet and the thick marquise overtook me and my unsteady feet. Waldo and Keith soldiered on returning some half an hour later shaking their heads. This was just one pile of rubble too far. Three walls barely stood and even Waldo’s vivid imagination could not see a completed Shangri la at the end of it.
We were very despondent when we dined with Keith and Androma that evening. We tried not to show it as they had been so helpful and taken a lot of time and trouble to find us an array of different properties to view. We were rather daunted by the extent of dilapidation of the properties we were being shown and the high prices of those that were habitable. Maybe we had misjudged the whole thing and maybe we could not afford to follow our dream!
The next day dawned hot and hotter. I arose with the dawn and watched the sun rise over the sea until its searing heat pushed me inside around eight in the morning. Could I live in this heat? Was this a dream that would turn sour on us? Keith knocked on our door promptly and the estate agent turned up some half hour later: a rotund Greek-Australian wearing a large bush-hat. Waldo’s business experience came to the fore and he took an instant dislike to this man, but undeterred, he felt up to matching him on negotiations. We had decided to see what he had to offer, we didn’t have to buy anything or enter into any negotiations that we didn't want to. The first thing that he got us to do was to sign a piece of paper agreeing only to negotiate through him for any properties he showed us, and to pay him a fee, an agreed percentage of the buying price. This was one thing that we were not expecting. In the UK estate agents get their fees from the seller, not the purchaser. But apparently here the estate agent obtains fees from both parties.
He then described five properties that he had for sale and we agreed to visit all of them. The first property was a very standard square building, of typical Kytheran style. If could serve as one house and could easily be used as three flats in the summer, where rentals would be a good opportunity. Downstairs was a small one bed roomed apartment with a shower room and one other room which would serve as kitchen, dining and lounge area. The remainder of the ground floor comprised a garage, which didn’t have a door on it because the owner’s four-by-four was too long to fit into the garage. The property had been built by two brothers who had now run out of money and so wanted to get rid of it as quickly as possible. The shell of the building existed with windows and doors and the outside was painted white. Inside however, every wall needed rendering and painting, the plumbing was mostly in and there were a few electricity wires around the place, but exactly where they went to was not clear. The outside staircase led to the first floor apartment which comprised two bedrooms, a bathroom and toilet, a small kitchen and a small dining and lounge area with a small balcony. The top floor was similar except that it had one bedroom and a larger balcony. The rooms were rather small, as were the windows, but this was the Kytheran style. Windows could not exceed a certain size and could not be located less than one metre, apart. The property had spectacular views over the village and down to the sea, but the small windows meant that the view could not be enjoyed from indoors. We were rather amused that the property had been build on the side of a sloping road that led up the mountain behind Aghia Pelagia. When the contractor had bulldozed out the ground for the footings, he had bulldozed across the road, which was a rough, non-asphalted track. This meant that the track came down the mountain to the side of the house, and then dropped a sheer four feet, before continuing on to the village. The farmer whose land was at the top of the road now had to make the long detour around the other side of the mountain every time he needed to tend his land. No system seemed in place to ensure that the builder repaired and made good – at least that was what we were told, and secretly wondered whether that was part of the package of expenses that came with finishing the property. I thought it good as an investment potential, ideal for renting out. But as our future home – no.
The next property, we were told, had a swimming pool. Our immediate response was to declare that we were not interested. Swimming pools need maintenance and they also mean expensive properties, out of our league. The agent said we were going past the property anyway and so we might as well have a look at it. We drove back to the village and turned left along the front, just after the Hotel Romantica and before our hotel Waldo turned left, up a steep incline on a concrete road. The concrete only lasted for some 500 yards when the road became a rough and bumpy track. We twisted and turned on this uneven surface, winding our way up and around the mountain. Soon Aghia Pelagia was out of sight, then the Hotel Marou disappeared and all we could see was a river valley to our right, terraced with sparsely planted olive trees and slopes of shrub and wild flowers to our right. Eventually, after about two kilometres of bumping and jostling we turned a corner and caught sight of a flat roof extending out over the valley with what looked to be a series of patios. We pulled up to the double gates at the long driveway. The agent got out and unlocked the padlock linked through a huge chain: little did he realise that the chain was merely placed over the top of the two tallest spires at the end of each gate and so served no security purpose whatsoever! We walked down the driveway and were confronted with large roller doors to the front, this was the garage and workshop which would hold three cars, and the door to the house to the right. To the right of the front door was a massive coiled earthenware pot standing about three foot high.
Nothing prepared us for the entry into the house. Behind the front door was a long white corridor with a step down to a landing where we turned sharp right and I gasped. We continued walking along a wooden mezzanine corridor spaced with windows on the right and overlooking a huge double storey hall. One wall, hugging the mountainside was a crazy paving of unpolished marble of every hue imaginable from black, dark green through every shade of brown to terracotta, rose pink and sandstone. The rest was painted white. A small shrub and trailing plant grew in a small patch of earth at the bottom of this wall and apparently there was a fountain which could be used in the summer months to keep the place cool. Next to this was a large rose marble shelf with a collection of shells and artefacts uncovered during the excavations for the house including an almost complete earthenware jug. The floor through the house was of the crazy paved marble but with a high proportion of pearl and pale opal colours. At the end of the mezzanine there were stairs to the hall and just to the right of these were a set of double swing doors. We couldn’t believe it when we opened these to find a room some nine metres long and eight metres wide. The inside wall comprised a decorative fireplace and unpolished marble feature with niche’s and hidden lights. On the other side of the fireplace from the entrance doorway was a balcony with stairs leading to it; really something for a grand entrance, for it led from behind the chimney to the master bedroom. On each side were two large windows but the feature of the room was the half-octagonal shape at the far end which comprised five pillars with double patio doors between each pair. These led out onto a veranda with patios at each end, leading down to a further patio and then another patio area with a swimming pool. The view was spectacular. In front of the house was a long valley, with no houses on it, just trees and a few dilapidated old huts used once by shepherds or for two weeks of the year when gathering the olives. The valley ran down to the Karavas – Aghia Pelagia road where there, in the distance, was one small house. On the other side of the road was a small hillock with olive trees on the slopes, to the left was a steep hump with a tiny church perched on the top. Beyond that was the silver blue Straits of Elafonisos and then, rising from the mist the Krithina Mountains at the base of Cape Maleas in the Peloponnese. On the extreme left of our vision was the small island of Elafonisos with its small hill silhouetted against the backdrop of layered mountains higher up the peninsular. Never, ever, in my wildest dreams did a property such as this enter the arena of our thoughts, and, although we didn’t know the asking price, it was going to be way out of our budget. I suppressed any emotion and said in a flat, English way, ‘yes, very nice’. The rest of the house comprised a large kitchen, a living room and three double bedrooms, each with an en suite. There was also a huge workshop, pump house and boathouse which was accessed from the long and winding rear driveway.
Keith and I stood on the patio in front of the lounge and enjoyed the view and identifying the various trees and shrubs around the pool area: the white delicately perfumed mock orange flowers, pink and deep red flowering oleander, myrtle with it’s white flowers emitting the smell that is so much of Greece, white flowering jasmine with its heady scent, delicate red flowers of a pomegranate bush, geraniums with pink, red and orange flowers, the orange and red flames of the trumpet flower and lavender, a heady mix indeed which had palm trees as their backdrop. To our left were pear trees, and the olives. Even though it had been windy down on the beach, there was no wind here; such was the protection of the mountain. Whilst Keith and I talked in general of anything but the house, Waldo seemed to be exploring every nook and cranny whilst the estate agent studied him closely, greedily thinking of the possibility of a sale. I thought it was all rather excessive. We couldn’t afford it, so why put on the sham? It was so way out of the realms of possibility that we could ever own such a place, I did not even tuck it away in my ‘can-but-dream’ section of my brain.
We drove back down the bumpy road and turned left onto the road to Karavas – so much for the ‘we are passing the house anyway’ line! Soon, on a ridge to our left we saw what looked to be an old Kytheran farmhouse. It equated to a small manor house in the UK. This was one place we had spied as a possibility, but thought it might be on the limits of our budget. We need not have worried for when we reached the farmhouse it was clear that it was much smaller than it seemed, although it was long, it was only one room wide, what you saw was what you got! It was a most bizarre design. The farmer who had built it had thought it could be used for renting out rooms, but somehow this had never happened. We were not surprised for the downstairs of the property, from left to right comprised a lean-to shower room and toilet; a musty storage room full of decaying bedding and furniture; a well for the water supply of the house; a low, dark kitchen with a dining area next to an old fireplace; a chicken shed complete with chickens; all of which could only be entered from the outside, there being no inner connecting doors. Upstairs comprised a long narrow balcony spreading left and right of the outside staircase with three ‘boxes’ off: these could not be described as rooms for they were small, each with a one foot square window. There were no light fittings, no living area, no scope for expansion and even the view was not particularly good. The asking price was over a quarter of a million pounds and it needed at least a further £60 – 75k spending on it.
The next property was just on the outskirts of Karavas, in fact it was up the road that we had earmarked as our second choice. Waldo and I looked at each other as we turned up the familiar road, here was hope. We stopped outside one house that had not been on our list because it was clearly occupied, but it looked good and the view was what we wanted. But our hearts slowed to their normal pace when we realised we had just stopped to collect the key to the property which was for sale. A smiling old Greek gentleman came out and said he would walk to the property. His name, he told us was Lucky, although he wasn’t lucky he explained with a grin. His English was good and his accent, like so many Kytherans was Australian. The German occupation of the island followed by the ravages of the Greek Civil War cause many island people to flee to the mainland and further afield. America had closed its doors and Canada seemed too cold for these people used to the sun and so they headed for Australia. Many have since returned in their retirement, some run tourist businesses in the Australian summer and similar businesses in the Kytheran summer, some young people return to their parent’s native land working as doctors, nurses and other professionals as they gain an understanding of their culture and use their bilingual skills. Lucky took us to a house which turned out to be the one we had viewed from the outside with Harry. It had one main big room which served as the kitchen, dining and living area. In a higgledy piggledy maze behind this were three or four bedrooms, depending upon whether a bed in a corridor constitutes a bedroom. Somewhere off this little twisting corridor was a door which led to a sun room which ran the whole side of the house, it was big and clearly would be ideal as a living area, but it was difficult to get to and it was on the north side of the house and thus perpetually in the shade. There were guest quarters with the property and I followed Lucky across the well kept garden to a tiny, traditional Kytheran farmhouse style building. It comprised two rooms and, we were getting used to this now, each entered only from the outside. I ducked my head and turned sideways to get in through the door and couldn’t believe my eyes. The guest bedroom comprised two concrete plinths down each wall with a corridor between them leading to an even smaller doorway. I opened this and was confronted with, what we would call a shower room in that one could just squeeze sideways into the room, and then by standing, leaning backwards over the toilet and then bending forwards over the tiny sink one could perhaps get some water from the spray fitted on the opposite wall. The other room was bare except for two single beds placed at right angles to each other leaving a space some three foot by four foot. There was no room for storage, no wardrobe, no room even for a suitcase. Out of curiosity we asked the price of this house and were surprised to learn that it was just short of a third of a million pounds!
A town house in Karavas built in a Venetian style was our next stop. It was once a beautiful house but had long since gone into decay. The tiled floors were still there and remnants of the high double doors hung like drunken sailors on one hinge. It was a three storey house but had no garden, a tiny patio at the top afforded a small view over the village roof tops. There was no room to park a car and besides the only entrance was along a walking street of steps. Any goods brought to the house would need strong men and / or a donkey; given that just three donkeys remained on the island that seemed a difficult task. The house would be wonderful with tasteful restoration, but this would need about two years of constant project management and cost more than our budget and still not give us what we were looking for.
Not wishing to outstay our welcome, we dined alone that night, arranging to meet with Keith and Androma the following evening, after we had visited properties with Liana. Wild goat, hot beetroot, potatoes cooked in cream and cheese went down a treat that evening, washed down with a bottle of Macedonian wine. We needed something to cheer ourselves up. It certainly did the trick, although the following morning we realised that the fine wine we had drunk the night before was not quite so. Or maybe it was the quantity of ouzo that preceded it and the brandy on the balcony afterwards!
Liana, as befits a true Greek, was late. But eventually we got going, following a man on a motor scooter who was supposedly from the post office, but he knew of a house for sale on the other side of the island. We took the now familiar road to Karavas, through the village, through the arch, past ‘our’ pile of stones and back along the road towards Potamos. We soon turned off the asphalt and onto a cement road which climbed gently towards a high plateau. We took the left hand fork towards Petrouni and soon reached the huddle of houses called a village. Just before a corner the man on the scooter bounced off the road and up an embankment. Without hesitation Waldo followed and the shocked man, who now had stopped waved his hands wildly indicating that we had arrived. The house was reached down a long garden path. The semi-detached house was along the traditional Kytheran country style that we were now becoming used to, two bedrooms and a kitchen, all reached from the outside only. The view from the treacherously narrow path to the kitchen was quite spectacular, as we were actually walking along the edge of a steep cliff. Looking through the tops of trees we could see the mountains beyond. We turned up our noses at the thought of gardening for ‘our’ garden, it was pointed out, was actually at the bottom of the cliff, ‘Look to there, down, down. Nice place. Plenty vegetables.’ The reason the path was so close to the edge was that it needed to skirt a huge extension, a massive flat roofed box which seemed to serve no purpose unless a previous owner had thoughts of opening a tavern. But, we were told, it could be a lovely sitting room. Sure it had the space, but character needed much imagination.
I told Liana that I thought it was rather small, that we needed more than two bedrooms for when we had guests to stay. Immediately she guided me back along the treacherous path, down the long garden path, over the deep verge, past of car, over the road, across a small field and triumphantly showed me what looked like two pig sties, only one with the roof still in tact, ‘Here are the guest quarters,’ she declared without a trace of irony. I could just see my sister, after a cosy evening together sprinting in her customary 4” heels in the darkness to her ‘guest quarters’!
We returned to Karavas and met a man who showed us the beautiful, but dilapidated Venetian town house. We seemed to on some sort of charade for he knew that we had already viewed it, he was from the village and nothing happened without everybody knowing. He then said that his brother was coming and we could see another house. This time it was a town house, a few yards away from the ruin, but this house had been beautifully and lovingly restored. It belonged to a couple who had now split up and so the house was being sold, with most of the contents. It was rather good, but again it had one large room downstairs which served as kitchen, dining and living areas. One bedroom had a tiny pocket handkerchief of a corner balcony, the other bedroom was almost within touching distance of the church bells and the third bedroom was actually part of a corridor or upstairs landing. There was no garden. There was nowhere to park a vehicle but that wouldn't be necessary because the house was only reached via a flight of steps whichever way one approached it.
We walked back to the car park and the man, who now purported to be an estate agent, pulled out the photographs that we had given Liana a year ago. He started pointing to the ridge and discussing particular houses. For a split second our hopes were raised, but then I caught part of the Greek conversation and it was clear that after a year, he had only been given the photographs two days previously. He had asked around but nobody knew anything about those houses; they certainly remain a mystery.
That evening with Keith and Androma we shared our thoughts. Nothing that we had seen fitted our needs. The only property which fired our enthusiasm was beyond our wildest expectations was the one on the mountain outside Aghia Pelagia. The one with the swimming pool. But it was something of a Hollywood style sea view dwelling and well beyond our means. Even within the realms of normal dealing, we couldn’t get the place down to a price we could afford. The price had already been reduced by some fifty thousand Euros and we would need it to be reduced by a further one hundred and thirty thousand to come within our budget. No it was impossible that people would come down almost two hundred thousand Euros, we agreed. Then Keith suggested that we should have a word with the estate agent. We would never know what was really impossible if we didn’t ask and know for sure.
Thus it was that two days later, on Friday, Keith and Androma, Waldo and I were back at the house with the estate agent. Waldo looked into every nook and cranny, checking the structure, checking the drainage, the electricity and the plumbing. Then he returned to the kitchen and sat down with the estate agent. In true Greek fashion Keith sat down too. I stayed in the lounge and Androma eventually joined me. Waldo went through a great preamble, saying that we were interested in the property, but that it was way out if our price bracket, but would the owners consider a deal? The estate agent suggested that he made an offer and he would then relay it to the owners. Waldo then went into a long discourse about the poor access to the property, the need for repainting, no guarantee that the electrics, the boiler and all manner of things were working, that the swimming pool may be leaking and, in true negotiating fashion, highlighted all of the negative points about the house. He was so convincing that I started to wonder whether we really wanted to buy such a wreck. The estate agent reconfirmed that the asking price had already been reduced by fifty thousand Euros. Waldo immediately negated this fact by saying that as far as we were concerned the asking price was what it was now, anything higher was prior to us viewing the property and thus irrelevant. Yes, we were interested and there was no way we could afford such a price, he then made an incredible offer just over half the asking price. Even I was shocked. This was so far removed from the asking price that it was bound to be rejected. What was the point of even offering such a low price?
Not for the first time in our life together, I underestimated Waldo, for he knew full well that the price would be rejected. But in the world of horse-trading and that band of men found the world over who live by their wits and ability to ‘do a good deal’, Waldo knew that it immediately set the boundaries for the negotiations; the selling price would now be somewhere between his offer and the current asking price. However silly his offer appeared, it set the boundaries and thus lowered the potential final agreement.
The estate agent was indignant. He wasn’t even going to put such an offer to the owners. I thought that Waldo would then up his offer to the next round figure, but for the second time he surprised me and immediately went some twenty thousand Euros. I was starting to get worried for this was close to our limit and he didn’t have much room to manoeuvre. Waldo then explained to the estate agent that he knew the property had been on the market for about a year and now it was the end of the season, the owners probably hadn’t expected an offer now and so he suggested that they take the weekend to consider this serious offer. It was a cash offer, we needed no mortgage and the deal could be done by the end of the week.
We were somewhat surprised to have a telephone call from the estate agent the following morning saying that he had been in touch with the owners and that they would come down to a further twenty thousand Euros and that was as low as they would go. Whether he expected Waldo to increase his offer as a consequence of that new asking price, I do not know. If he did, he didn’t know Waldo’s nerves of steel when his own interests are at heart. Waldo did not flinch, neither did he revise his offer, he merely told the estate agent that he was surprised that he had called before Monday, hadn’t he said that the owners would need the weekend to think over his offer. There would be no further offer coming this summer and he reiterated the fact that we needed no mortgage, no time to raise the money; we could sign the documents on Monday and instruct our solicitor.
We then settled down to enjoy the rest of Saturday and make sure we were at the airport on Sunday to meet our good friends, Meg and John who were coming out to join us. It was great to see them and so difficult not to rush them up to the house and spend all our waking time talking about it. It was also so difficult to leave the hotel, as I felt that to do so might mean missing the all important telephone call from the estate agent. Waldo the brave, assured me that we would not miss anything, there were no other buyers and we could always call the following day.
The estate agent starting playing a more canny game, but a more dangerous one as far as Waldo was concerned. He did not call on the Monday. By Tuesday my nerves were in shreds, but Waldo refused to call until the evening, to be told that a further twenty thousand Euros reduction was the absolute lowest figure the owners were prepared to go and that there was now interest in the property from the Internet. Waldo was furious, he wasn’t going to be blackmailed into a higher price by threats of other potential buyers on the scene. He realised that the owners had made considerable reductions, which indicated that they were desperate to get rid of the property. We had already done more homework and found that they also had a property in Switzerland as a winter holiday retreat and it appeared that they were quite well off. The husband had died two years previously, and had been ill for two years prior to that. The house was too much for the elderly widow to manage and the children, although mature adults, did not have any particular interest in the property. Waldo played for time and told the estate agent that he was up to his budget and needed to talk it through with me, but again he reminded the estate agent that it would be an immediate cash sale and suggested that the vendors rethink their final asking price.
I had scoured the Internet before we came away and was convinced that the property was not on the market via the Internet. I assured Waldo that, unless the property had been put on the Internet within the past ten days it was not there. I had not been able to find anything on Kythera for sale via the Internet, nor even find a contact for an estate agent on the island.
The following morning when we were in Potamos enjoying a wander around the shops and then settling in the square for ouzo’s or fresh orange juice, Waldo decided to ‘phone the agent for the last time. All previous telephone conversation had been about the vendors reducing their asking price and whenever it was expected that Waldo would increase his offer this had not been forthcoming. Waldo decided to left-foot the man by immediately opening the conversation by increasing our offer just 10 thousand Euros. The shocked estate agent replied by saying that the vendors had agreed to come down a further twenty thousand as a full and final offer. Waldo immediately agreed that at last they were now within talking distance of an agreement. He was still getting the same story from the estate agent about the potential Internet purchasers, but Waldo called his bluff and challenged him to prove the story. Then Waldo played his master card, he increased our offer a mere 2 thousand Euros, stating that we could come down to his office the following day and pay a deposit; money which the agent could use to go to Australia for the winter, he could go and buy his ticket and be away by the end of the week. Personal greed overcame the man and he capitulated and Waldo had a verbal agreement that we would buy the house at that price.
But Waldo did not stop there, he did not verbally shake hands and come off the line. Waldo then persisted ‘That price includes all the contents of course?’ The agent was thrown. But in essence he agreed. We ordered another round of ouzos and celebrated our purchase.
The following day John, Meg, Liana our solicitor, Waldo and I squeezed into the car and travelled to Chora, Kythera town to meet with the agent. Liana checked the nominated ownership with the land registry, Waldo and I opened a bank account and we signed the papers. The agent was very annoyed that we were only prepared to give a 200€ deposit, but we explained that we were on holiday and were unable to give any more; the rest would be made over in a bank transaction when we arrived home.
He kept muttering about the fact that it was insufficient to hold the property, the Internet buyers were still interested and he could collect money from them. Waldo simply ignored the man’s ramblings. When we looked at the plans for the property we were amazed to find that the house included some 10 acres of land, in olive terraces down the valley and a further 2 acres of land across the agricultural track and further up the mountain. It was clear that the agent didn’t even realise there was land above the road which belonged to the house. Neither Waldo nor I said anything.
I was brought to some sense of reality when I heard the estate agent say that two large earthenware pithoi, which stood about 6 foot high in the hallway were not included, nor was a tall, narrow chest of drawers which was almost the same height. These were the best pieces in the house and had apparently been promised to the woman who had cleaned the house and prepared it for the time when the owners visited. I was somewhat dismayed. Then he started talking about ladders and certain tools which had apparently been promised to the gardener, the husband of the cleaner, and Waldo felt the same. Eventually we agreed that we would go to the house the following day and make an inventory of what was to be included; this would be signed by both parties. The agent said that he would sign on behalf of the owners and this convinced us that he was attempting to acquire some of the good things he had seen in the house.
The following day we bounced our way up the narrow track. John and Meg were thrilled with the house; they had only previously seen it from the outside. We wandered around the patios and garden. John, ever the security expert tried the patio doors until, to his amazement, one opened. We immediately went in and started making notes and taking photographs. The agent was late, and kept insisting he had another appointment to go to. I couldn’t help thinking this was a ploy to rush us into taking a bare glance around the house and so miss much of the detail. He was furious to see that we were already well into our lists and that Waldo and John had made excellent photographic records of each room. We matched his fury by declaring that he was not looking after the property for the vendors, for it had been left open. We insisted that he made a list of all the people who had keys to the property and that on hand-over we had to have all sets of keys.
It was just six weeks later that Waldo flew back to the island to take possession of the house. He took with him a sign ‘Kalithea Villa’ (Goodview villa) to mark the new beginning. I joined him a week or so later. We changed the electricity, telephone to our names and thus started changing the house from a family’s summer holiday place to a sanctuary for an old couple and their visitors.
