Saturday
5th March 2005We had decided that we were not going to look at houses this weekend, but when we looked through the newspaper, we saw some houses and decided to look at them anyway.
As Thomas was in bed after lunch, I had to stay at home whilst
Ann went to see an open house that is in the same street as a house that Linda
and Ashley own - just over the main road from their house. Ann came back after
seeing two houses, and said that one of them was very good. Thomas woke up shortly
after Ann's return, and so we then went to see some more houses in the area.
The one house that Ann had already seen and liked happened to be open still
(15 minutes after the scheduled opening) - so I had a quick look. It was indeed
a very good house - just what we are looking for, and plenty of potential. The
house had everything that we want, except an en-suite.
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More house hunting today. It feels like it's getting a little
too much for us, as the last 4 weekends we haved not anything else. There were
5 to see today - all of them in the higher price range. We saw a series of houses
that were quoted as "recently renovated", and when we had a closer
look, we could see that most of the renovation was purely cosmetic - and it
made us worry about what sort of horrors had just been painted over.
We saw a few houses with swimming pools - but it was at the expense of garden
and lawn. With Thomas being so small, it is better for him to have a safe lawn
to run around than a pool which we would have to maintain and fence off. There
were also houses with bar areas and games rooms, pool tables and outdoor jacuzzis
- interestingly those additions did not dramatically change the prices.
One house that we saw was on the same street as Thomas' daycare centre, and
it had exactly the same layout as Liam and Shirley's house, but it felt like
it was a foot larger all around. It was so similar to their house, it even had
the sliding doors in the same places - but it only had a carport instead of
a garage.
The best house we saw was in Summit Close, which is just around
the corner from Linda and Ashley. The house has everything we want, but something
that appealed to Ann was how neat and 'sharp' the house is. The bit I loved
the best was a large outside entertainment area, which has a pitched roof, and
is roughly the same size as our entire house in England was. The house also
had a large double carport (large enough for four cars), a big double garage,
and a large driveway for 4 cars. The gardens are beautifully manicured, and
perfectly seculded for Thomas.
The only two problems are that the house only has one bathroom (no en-suite),
and also that the cost puts it at the very top of our price-range. No swimming
pool, jacuzzi or pool table for us! Well, at least for a while!
The sellers of the house are down-sizing and they have already found the house
that they want. The thing is that because they have found a house, they need
their house to sell by Wednesday, so they are not taking offers from buyers
that are subject to the sale of the buyer's house. That puts us in a very good
position, as we can progress immediately.
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I called up to make an offer on the house in Summit Close, and the estate agent said that he would get back to me. When he did, it was to tell me that the sellers had pulled the house off the market. Maybe the sellers had their own purchase fall through. Maybe it was just not meant to be - at this time. We are still on the books of the Real Estate Agents.
Every Monday at work we have our weekly departmental meeting, where we set out what is to be done in the week and discuss what happened last week. There is a rosta of who takes the minutes, and who chairs the meeting - so that everyone gets the experience. This week, it was my turn to chair the meeting, but I did not have the last week's minutes available for me to draft up the agenda - so I ended up making the agenda all about what I wanted to talk about.
I had to move my latest batch of homebrew out of the shower room into the kitchen tonight. The problem was that the shower was starting to smell, which must have been caused by a bit of a spillage of beer when I bottled it on Thursday, and so I needed to clean the floor. We were both a bit worried about the smell (as Thomas is teething at the moment and a bit smelly), but then it turned out to be my beer. I wonder how my beer will taste if the smell of it can be confused with nappies...
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A few weeks ago, one of the guys who works in the Microsoft Exchange team left suddenly - today his job was advertised. The email went around the University, and within a few hours I had applied. The job is the same title, pays the same amount, is within the same department, but most importantly - it's a permanent position. So, for me to get a permanent role in the University, I have to change team from Systems Infrastructure to e-Business. My job role will change from looking after Microsoft Windows Active Directory to looking after Microsoft Exchange - both products are heavily integrated and are my two main skills. I will find out next month if I have been selected for interview.
At lunctime today I went for another walk around the lake
at Mawson Lakes. Its been a month since I last walked, and this time I wore
my pedometer so that I could see how far it is - almost 3km.
The weather today was perfect - a clear blue sky with no clouds and no haze,
a warm 22°C breeze and bright sunshine. Whilst walking with the other 8
people, they told me that this is the sort of weather that we can expect for
the next 2 or 3 months. I hope so, as it was perfect.
Today Ann took Thomas to the duck pond that is at the end
of the road, and gave them some bread. Thomas decided to eat some of the bread
himself, so Ann was pleased that she did not us stale bread - a lesson for the
next time too.
Thomas also went to the KinderGym today, to climb and crawl on the padded toys.
Now that he is more confident in his walking, he has been more adventurous in
climbing and going slightly further away from Ann.
Thomas must be coming down with a cold, as his voice has gone all husky. It
sounds quite mature, and even his laugh is husky. It's quite strange and funny
at the same time.
The weather today also made the Astronomy class good tonight.
We went up on to the roof and looked at Saturn and Jupiter through a large 10
inch telescope (my telescope is 3 inches). I was interested to find that the
image was not particularly clearer or larger that what I can normally see, but
there were a lot more fainter objects visible.
I am enjoying the class and learning more than I thought that I would. I now
know all about Right Ascension, Declination, the First Point or Aries, and the
ecliptic - all things that I did not even know that I did not know.
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After we missed out on the house on Monday, we decided to make an offer on the house that we saw (and liked) on Saturday and Sunday. We discussed the offer, and then offered about 8% less than the asking price, around $15,000 less than the sellers wanted. We went to the Real Estate Agents today to sign the official offer - a "Form 1". This cuts out a few days of wrangling and paper pushing by the Real Estate Agent.
Well, the good news is that the sellers liked that we are
ready to go immediately, and that we now have a house. The two day 'cooling
off' period starts tomorrow - so we have 2 days to change our minds. We want
to have a good dig around the house and get it surveyed by a building inspector,
whilst we have an opportunity to pull out. Once the cooling off is over, we
are committed to buying the house and moving in on the 22nd of April. The slight
delay in the moving time is because the sellers are not moving until then, so
we have to wait.
It's a big difference to England, where it took us several months to buy a house
(most of the time was waiting for the solicitors and estate agents to get their
fingers out of their arses...)
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We had another look around the house today. I had to take some time off work, and Liam and Shirley came up to the house to look after Thomas whilst Ann and I had a poke around. We originally wanted to do things like measure up, but we just had a really good look around and did things like poke in cupboards and look in the large garage.
I spent most of the day calling up people to tell them to transfer our services over to the new house. The sellers cannot pull out now that they have signed, so I have arranged the phone, TV, internet etc to be moved. The gas and electricity are the next things for me to do. I also had to arrange for insurance on the new house, because it is now legally ours, so we need to insure it - the insurance company is pretty good about this, and we don't have to pay a premium until we move in.
Now we have to work out a budget, for things like carpet cleaning of both houses, structural survey, removalists, transfer fees (Foxtel and the Internet company both charge $100 to move), electrician to install more sockets and lights, and all the other extra bits and pieces. The money is disappearing very fast!
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We had another look at the
house today, because we had too be there for the inspection. The surveyor
was different to others, in that he wants to spend the last 15 minutes of his
time at the house to go through the report with us. We had the opportunity to
have another little look around, and work out where we are going to put our
furniture.
The survey was quite successful, where he said that the house is structurally
sound and not in need of anything major. He listed everything that needed doing
- replacing the hot water heater, fixing some paving and drainpipes, replacing
the fuses with circuit breakers, replacing the smoke alarm, putting preventative
treatment for termites and white ant down, replacing the soil vent pipe and
fixing up an extension which appears to be badly built. Ann was a little worried
about some parts of the report, but we discussed it in conjunction with the
Real Estate Agent, and then decided to go ahead with the purchase.
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