We found our dream farm/home and now needed to actually buy it....how do we do that? Ana was in Colombia, I was back home in AZ, where do we start? We already sold our house with the money sitting in the bank so all we needed to do was get it to Colombia safely, to the right people, for the right property, for the right amount, easy peasy.
Another sign that we were doing the right thing was the dollar value at the time vs. the Colombian Peso. Over the years I've always made a habit of checking the dollar vs. Colombian peso to get an idea on what things cost there, are things cheaper or more expensive? Well over the years the ratio was usually around $1 dollar to $2000 Colombian pesos, sometimes as low as $1800, sometimes up to $2200 pesos but always in that range. Well at the time of our discovery and desire to buy the dollar was at the all-time high vs. the Colombian peso, $3400 to $1!! This was incredible, such a fortunate coincidence for us, it made it even more appealing to buy at that time, no time was ever better!
So Ana found a family friend who was/is a real estate agent that could handle this process for us, to make it as easy as possible and to be sure we did the right things at the right time. Long story short....Ana did a great job along with the agent to get all the proper paperwork done, to work with the bank to get the info to me and our bank back in AZ, and we made the transfer without any major problems (a few inconvenient things had to be done but nothing crazy). Funny thing is the deed, which does have both our names on it (in Colombia, that's the deal) has no address...we have no address! It's so weird, it talks about trees, plants, and the river that separates our farm from our neighbor's, describing in detail what borders our property. No street, no numbers, so strange;) But hey, it's ours now!!
Everyone back home in AZ couldn't believe it when I first told them we did it, we bought a farm in Colombia. I'm sure most people thought we were just blowing smoke, that we wouldn't actually do it, we'd find some excuse to explain why we didn't follow through. Wrong. This was real, the plan was in full motion and there was no turning back.....honestly it was so exciting, who does this right!!?? We we're (and still) willing to risk everything we had to make this dream come true, "regular" life just wasn't doing it for us (me especially) anymore. Work, work, work, drive, drive, drive, bills, bills bills, same thing every month, over and over.....had enough. We don't think we're special, or better, or whatever people might think we are for doing this (crazy is a big one;), we just wanted something different we could do together.
Next....how hard it is to get rid of all your stuff, and send the stuff you do want to Colombia.
