Dreaming...

Those look good. Maybe an inspiration for me to clean my kitchen and get some baking done.
Hope you get cash in hand soon.

Maybe I missed this, but is your MIL moving to Ireland with you?

No, MIL is staying here. I offered to let her stay with us there and she refused and I said "thank you" quietly and didn't ask again

Any progress?

Yes, sort-of... The agent forgot all about the promising buyer she was going to bring round today. She brought some other people round yesterday, but we doubt they're interested. DH and I discussed things and decided to go ahead and take the farm off the market and let the tenants buy it. We're both a few miles past fed-up with this story. The tenants already raised 3/4 of the asking price and their son needs to apply for a loan for the remainder. He's 100% sure he'll get it though and he said he'll need a month max for that, so we should, hopefully get the sale in the works in February.

That's later than you'd hope for, but at least you can hopefully start making some plans now.

I was hoping we can get going sooner, but I guess we'll get going when the time is right… It's hard to be patient though!

all my life my mom told me that patience is a virtue and if that is true then i truly lack virtue because patience is so hard for me but the older i get the more i realize that you might as well be patient because you can't change it anyway. here is hoping he gets his cash together quickly

They have raised 3/4 of the asking price and only need 1/4 of the total amount. That's stacking the deck in the banker's favor! total no brainer if you ask me. That's the kind of down payment bankers drool over. How can the bank lose? If the tenants defaulted on the loan, the bank keeps the down payment, repo's the farm and sells it again for full price. I have seen loans go through on credit "ghosts" (people with no credit) with big down payments, and I have seen loans go through on people with bad credit, as long as they had a big down payment. Good credit and big down payment=LOAN!

Their son said he will get a loan for the remainder, no problem. But it will take a month to process. I'm not happy about that, to be honest. A friend of mine suggested we ask them to put down a non-refundable deposit so long and I like that idea. This will tell us for sure if they are serious and if they flake on us for some reason, at least we have something.

You all are not going to believe this… Another agent from the next town over rocked up here yesterday, completely with hopeful (cash) buyer He saw our ads, or she saw our ads and it's what she's looking for, so they thought they'd come round and try. We had to tell them we have a buyer, since we told the tenants they can have it. She said if the sale falls through we must please let them know, but it's going to take another 6-odd weeks before we know for sure?

Yes, get a deposit or earnest money as it is called here. I would ask for at least several thousand, and put it in a new bank account, to be applied to the sale price. If there is no contract between you and the tenant, then you could sell to the cash buyer. You are in a quandary, trying to do the right thing by keeping your word. Is there anything that can be done to hurry the finance process along? Especially with that large of a down payment?