We have been looking for a place to buy for … way too long.
Our criteria read like a real estate for sale ad:
- 3 bedrooms
- 2 bathrooms
- At least 1 undercover garage
- Close to transport
- Less than 30 minute travel time to the city
- Quiet
- Not too old
- Practical floor plan (no strange hallways etc)
Of course the devil was in the details. So many places we looked at ticked all the boxes but one. And sometimes a place looks really good on paper (OK on domain.com.au) but when you’re there it just doesn’t “feel right”. That’s quite annoying because house-hunting is such a time-consuming exercise, and at times it felt like we were wasting our time for nothing.
We didn’t find anything for a long time, then late last year we started to have some luck with the search. I think there were about 5 properties that we seriously considered buying. The first two were practice runs in retrospect, we learnt what questions to ask and how the negotiation process worked.
Then one Saturday in early December, we saw 3 properties that we were keen on. It’s always feast or famine, right?
Like any good corporate citizen, out came the butcher paper and textas so we can compare the pros and cons of each place.
J actually liked another place better because it was fully renovated, and it was close to shops. But I wasn’t as keen because the living area was very small. Once you put in a sofa and dining table, there was barely any room to move. Also they didn’t have gas cooking, which is a big minus in my book.
So at the end we chose a place which has a big living area (separate living and dining rooms), but we had to forgo a courtyard. Also we needed to renovate the place somewhat. Although it wasn’t a very old building (7 years), cracks were starting to appear on the walls and the carpets were worn out. I think if we needed to make structural changes to the property (e.g. new kitchen) we would’ve shied away from it. But the changes are mostly cosmetic and it also allow us to “make it our own”.
So we made an offer and it was accepted, and the rest is history! (Actually we went through some heartache between the acceptance and the exchange of contracts, but this blog is about positive stuff.)
