Mad Adventures in House Hounting (MAHH) Part 1

Yesterday marked the beginning of our house hunt (I don't count that one apartment we saw last Friday as it was such an unliveable dump). We saw 7, count them 7, houses yesterday.

D and I have arranged early time offs from our respective works for yesterday and today. This means longer hours on the other days. And lots of scrambling around for me to get things done quickly. I got dumped with work late last Tuesday that was due by this Friday. Since I am amazing and barely breathed yesterday, I have managed to finish what I had to do by this morning (hence, the time to blog).

Wednesday MAHH

We were on our way by 2.30pm.

The first house on the list was keys in office (this means the house is empty and you can get the keys from the real estate agent so you can view the property. this is ok if the house and agent are fairly near each other. it becomes problematic when they're suburbs apart.). When we got to the agent's office, we were informed that we had just missed the keys by minutes. The helpful receptionist said we should try and see if we could catch up with the other house hunter so we could view the property together.

D drove like crazy (nothing unusual, really) and we got to the house in good time. But, no house hunter with keys. It also turned out that there were 2 properties for let, side by side. But still, no keys.

D, being Curious George, discovered the back door for the other one (House #1) was open. Woohoo! Got to go inside to have a look. It was recently refurbished but it was minimal work done. It still needed a lot of work. It had heaps of space but the bathroom was atrocious. Had a huge backyard though.

House #2 was locked but Curious George managed to sneak in through a window. The house looked very similar to House #1 but this one had an even bigger backyard. It was like a forest!

Verdict: the houses had potential but since we were renting, we can't do much with it. D and I agreed that it would be something we'd buy and then renovate but not something we'd necessarily want to rent.

House #3 was keys in office as well but when we got to the agent's office, the receptionist said it had already been let.

House #4 was an open inspection at 4-4.15pm. When we got the place, there were about 15 to 20 people already waiting. And more people still coming. The agent lady came and opened the unit. It had only 2 bedrooms and was very small. So that was a NO.

Houses #5 and #6 were both showing at the same time (5.00-5.15pm). We had already prioritized these 2 out of the 5 houses showing at the same time. Since we had some time, we decided to scout both places first and see if we could look at both together. D didn't like my idea of us seeing one house each and looking at them together seemed doable as they were only a few blocks apart.

House #5 was my favorite. It had heaps of space in the back, a spa, a back deck with BBQ facilities and a dishwasher. It was right next to a train station (the noise will take some time getting used to) and off the main road. But, there were 20 or more people during the inspection who are our likely competition. We'll submit an application and hope for the best.

House #6 was fairly small and only had 2 bedrooms. No dishwasher as well. The person I called on the phone screwed up. I was asking about the property next door and she gave the inspection time for this smaller one. Oh well.

House #7 was a 2 bedroom unit in Caulfield North. It was a decent size, had a dishwasher and a private balcony. We're looking for more space though.

House #8 looked gorgeous in the pictures but turned out to be disappointing in reality. Too small.

We ended the hunt at 6.15pm. We were SO tired.

But we still studied for Spanish class and then discussed today's game plan. We're hoping to see 5-6 houses today.