Escape to the Country couple blown away by ‘unexpected’ mystery house but stun with U-turn
An Escape to the Country couple were left speechless just minutes into viewing the mystery house, however they stunned host Nicki Chapman with their sudden U-turn.
During Thursday's (January 2nd) episode of the BBC hit show, Nicki was on hand to help young couple Andy, who works in golf sponsorship and Jo, a tech entrepreneur, as they planned to swap their London flat for something bigger in the East Midlands.
Jo has always had dreams to move to the countryside as Andy revealed: “It certainly was very early into our relationship when Jo revealed she wanted to move.
"In fact it was probably about eight minutes into our first date, it was a topic of conversation that she is a country girl at heart and that is where her future lay.”
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The duo, who met on a dating app, had a budget of £750,000 for a 3/4 bedroom detached house with plenty of character. It was important that it has a spacious kitchen-diner or two good-sized separate rooms as well as two workspaces.
They wanted a large garden or land and location-wise, being close to road and rail links to London would be ideal for them.
Nicki went all out and set up a number of homes to view and at first it appeared as though she had messed up with the mystery house as the couple appeared unimpressed.
The TV host went on to say: “What I’m going to say with this is, never judge a book by its cover because it has quite a strong look from the outside but when you go in I think it’s a completely different home.”
Once they walked into the properties the couple were lost for words as Jo gasped and said: “Oh wow, this is unexpected. Oh my word."
Andy also fell in love with the house as he jumped in and said: "This looks like a holiday villa. It’s incredible and it’s a lot to take in.”
The riverside house located in Long Bennington, Lincolnshire was up for £750,000 and had a large kitchen-diner with a wow factor, two home offices, five bedrooms and a big garden by the water. It was also 15 minutes from the station.
Despite their reaction to the home, in the end they made a shock U-turn and decided that it wasn’t the one for them.
Andy admitted: “Looking at the property, we obviously noticed it had a real modern aesthetic. I think for us personally we’re looking for a few more kinds of character features in a property, maybe a bit more of a countryside feel so that’s potentially why it doesn’t quite work for us.”
Escape to the Country airs weekdays from 3pm on BBC One and iPlayer
