Well we sold our place just over a year ago, went looking for houses (in a bad time of the year) didn't find anything we liked and ended up renting. The money from the other place (which was only an apartment but in a good suburb and we managed to have no mortgage) has been sitting in the bank gathering interest. We have still been looking on and off for something to buy.....BUT its getting nigh on impossible. Yes it's true I am fussy but the fact of the matter is you can't get a decent basic house for under 500k unless you want to live so far away from established services etc that you may as well take a post in Antartica! Or you could live in McMansion land (aka an estate) which for the most part are pretty far out...true some are more established than others but driving past a few of them a couple of years back they strike me as soulless bland places that in general don't have fantastic resale value. Important to us as its likely we won't be here forever. Don't get me wrong some of my friends live in estates and it suits them just fine. For me all I can hear is that song Little Boxes by Malvina Reynolds.
If I was working we would have no problem- but I (we) have chosen to stay home and be there for my children. The mortgage guy even told us that I should of kept working (I had the highest wage) and my husband go back to work. My husband couldn't quite get the breastfeeding happening and quite frankly I am not so crazy that I want to go back to work...infact having a child has made me realise that if I do paid work again it will be in my own business not for anyone else.....but I digress....back to houses.
So we've been to auctions and etc....done our research, even explored suburbs further out..then I heard good things about an estate just a suburb away from where we are renting....so we go for a drive, and truly I suspended all my preconceptions about estates, I wanted to like it...I really did....well as soon as we entered it...it instantly confirmed one thing housing estates are not for me...now I knew this deep down but I was getting desparate for another option....the houses (admittedly some of them were nicely designed) were packed in and around each other- had fairly small yards, the roads were narrow and it turned out the houses weren't actually that cheap anyway.
So turns out we have no option but to keep on looking...but its wearing thin....
Some links.....
