giovedì, marzo 10, 2011

A house may be a home

So we made some offers and the vendor made some offers and we met, well, not halfway, but lower than I'd dared hope. And if all goes well over the next month or so a big lovely fucking house on a massive fucking lovely lot that is out of the flood zone next to a rainforest reserve will be ours. We have hit a big dip in the local real estate market, thankfully. This house is selling to us about $60,000 below its initial asking price, at a price that much smaller, shittier houses in the local floodplain were selling at this time last year. In fact, we're paying around the asking price of the shitty rathole floodplain rental that we're renting now, which is on the market, which is another reason to move.

But present conditions aside - and I do have the feeling what happened to the rest of the world a couple of years ago is finally happening to Australia now - I think there are one or two things that actually attracted us to the house that probably repelled other potential vendors. First, that it's right next to a massive flying fox colony (which means netting over the fruit trees and no parking without cover since their shit eats paint off cars). I'm quite fond of flying foxes. They are fucking enormous, and they squawk like birds, and they're fucking cute.

Second, it's an old house. We're getting all the typical inspectors in of course, but during our visits we brought around an architect friend of ours to tip us off to any serious shit, and it's in pretty good shape. I think everything charming about the house is in its age, frankly; high-quality timber in the hardwood floors, handsome old windows, a decent squat fireplace, understated moldings on the ceilings - and none of it is fashionable here anymore. It's all tiles and french doors here now. People just aren't into the old here.

One of the drawbacks of this being an old house is that the toilet is all fucked up - looks like the council put it in in the 1950's just out back of the house, far away from the bedrooms and the washroom. That probably repelled a lot of buyers, certainly of the older variety. Mummy La Spliffe has said she won't come visit until we get in a new bog close to the guest room so do that we shall, stat.

3 commenti:

noodles ha detto...

There's nothing like an old house. They're just not built like they're used to. We looked for an old house for ages, I loved the woodwork and the charm of an old home. We ended up with a 3 story queen ann build up with some charm, but nothing like an old home. It was what worked best for us, but shortly after we moved in, the shit hit the fan and house started to fall apart on us. We shelled out a good 25,000 in repairs. Not to mention all the other shit we had done before we moved in too. Shit, houses are expensive.

Regardless, I'm excited for you!!!

Dread Pirate Jessica ha detto...

I know, right? If a house is still in good shape after 50 years, it's probably not going to crumble into rubble in the next ten. But new ones seem to have such short lives - too much pre-fab and not enough on-site builders with reputations to maintain.

We're buying about $45,000 beneath our top limit, which I'm pretty happy about, as I'm sure all those "savings" are going to be eaten up in all sorts of bizarre and unexpected ways.

Lady ha detto...

email me pictures pleeeeeeease!!!!!