We’re in our new house, our very own. I won’t spend a lot of time typing, since I’m freakin’ exhausted, but I will show you some pictures, and mention that there is a fair bit of progress to be made with the house (but we’re not afraid to do it!!). I forgot to take a photo of the bathroom, but it’s nothing special and I probably wouldn’t be able to fit it all in the photo anyway (it’s so tiny). I also haven’t taken a photo of the laundry/toilet because you probably don’t want to see that. Photos of the yard and outside are to come too.
Lounge (yes, Michael is asleep in his chair 
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=http://www.flickr.com/photos/terri-h/4597606569
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Dining/Kitchen:
=http://www.flickr.com/photos/terri-h/4598227718
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Master bedroom (excuse the mess):
=http://www.flickr.com/photos/terri-h/4598229682
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Hallway from front door:
=http://www.flickr.com/photos/terri-h/4598234122
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Hallway, from wall at the end of the last photo (it’s an ‘L’ shape), to the bathroom:
=http://www.flickr.com/photos/terri-h/4597620261
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Study:
=http://www.flickr.com/photos/terri-h/4597622407
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Spare bedroom:
=http://www.flickr.com/photos/terri-h/4598240612
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HAPPY!
At the moment, it’s now a week since we *thought* we’d have our finance approval, but hold-up after hold-up has meant that it’s not happened.
I’ll preface this with a bit of information to clarify what’s happening: essentially, the house we’re buying currently has tenants in it (paying rent) and when we get our finance approved, those tenants will be given notice and will have 30 days to move out. When we first signed the contract, the settlement date was the 29th April so, obviously, we needed to have an answer in relation to our finance by the 29th March (30th at latest). Otherwise, we’ll have settlement delayed and have to pay rent for at least another week.
We’ve been told that our income is fine, our valuations were fine, our credit checks were fine, and it just needs to be formally approved.
To start with, the lady with our file (we’ll call her ‘K’) told us she’d have approval for us by Friday 26th March. Michael spoke to customer service on the phone in the morning, and left a message for her to call him back. After lunch, he did the same again. It got to about 3pm when things started getting desperate, and he called again, only to find that she wasn’t even there that day. We were rightly pissed off, but gave her the benefit of the doubt after being told it’d be approved Monday morning if she was there, and Monday afternoon if she wasn’t.
Monday came around – nothing. I should mention at this point that Michael has called our bank at least three times every weekday. And it’s also worth noting that the bank we’re going through doesn’t have a branch locally, so all our correspondence is by phone, fax, email and mail. Our file had progressed up the queue, and had been marked urgent, but we heard nothing more.
Tuesday came around. Nothing.
Wednesday and we had a glimmer of hope, but nothing resulted. Apparently, just before K went home for the day, the credit people (who now had our file – since they don’t normally deal with Tasmanian properties, it had to be forwarded to ‘higher-ups’) had further queries for the valuers. She had tried to contact them but they had shut for the day. She said she’d try them first thing in the morning.
Thursday came around, and this was the absolute last day we could have before we’d have to delay settlement. K got in touch with the Valuers, they gave her the information she needed over the phone, and she asked them if they could put in writing what they told her on the phone. They said fine, for her to send them an email and they’d reply directly. About 2 hours following her phone call to the valuers, I actually contacted the valuers myself and they advised they’d not received an email. I called K and she said she’d definitely sent it but would call them again, email it again and fax it through as well. By this time it was about 3pm and our hopes of having finance sorted out before Easter were pretty much shattered.
So now, we’re on a 5-day break – we’re hoping to have something by Tuesday (not sure if it’s a bank holiday Australia-wide or not), but at the earliest it’s more likely to be Wednesday. Which is the 7th April, meaning we’d be settling on the 7th May (if the tenants haven’t moved out early), a week later than first anticipated. I was hoping to have that week off, but it might need to be the following week now.
So that’s the story so far – getting anxious but trying to remain calm. It’ll all be worth it in the end.
Today, Michael and I went house-hunting, as the house we were looking at fell through in negotiations (the owner wanted more for it than it was worth).
We looked at three properties, two of which we’d been through before. The last one was one that we really liked before, but changed our minds when we found a couple of others we liked. It always seemed, though, that this property would always come back up as a possibility.
So we looked through this one at 11am, and decided that we’d just go for it. We put in our offer of $180,000 (the house was originally on the market for $199,000, dropped to $195,000, which was what it was when we first looked at it, and was today on the market for $189,000). They came back to us with $185,000. We offered $182,500. They said they won’t go any lower than $185,000. We discussed it, and said okay – $185,000 it is.
SO, on Monday, we’re signing the contract. We’re really excited – it’s not really sunk in yet that we’ve actually agreed on a price and we’re buying a house.
Photos (the furniture isn’t ours of course – these are the photos from the real estate agent):
I can’t believe the month has gone so quickly. Already it’s the last day of February, exactly 22 days since I last blogged, and it feels like I only blogged yesterday.
We’ve been dealing with a lot of shit lately, namely our neighbours. Now I’ll preface this by saying I’m not a boring ol’ sod who hates parties and thinks that no-one should be allowed to have a good time; but when you’re constantly partying, making noise, and threatening your neighbours, the situation becomes a little different. It started at the beginning of January, when we had a day off for our local ‘Cup Day’ (horse race).
The rest is hidden, because this could take a while… I might end up having to password protect this entry too…
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