Solicitor

The weeks dragged on. The vendor’s agent was getting pushy wanting our solicitor’s contact details. They wanted the contract signed.  I selected the first solicitor that seemed okay. What can you tell from an ad? Nothing at all. I went to the allhomes website which listed a heap of solicitors, and selected one from the range that was advertised.

The allhomes website advertised solicitors specialising in conveyancing. I had no preferences and selected the first one that caught my eye. No preferences, that is, other than avoiding one at Belconnen that stuffed up part of my finances on the last property I purchased. Don't get it wrong; I'm not a big league property dealer. I own a house where I live, and this new venture was something completely new for me. Anyway, after my last experience when buying my current home there was no way I was going to use that company again.

The company I had used back then was recommended by the real estate agent that I bought my Canberra house from. Perhaps that was the lesson: never trust a real estate agent. I had used William Heague at Belconnen. You would think a few solicitors or their reps meeting with a few banking people to swap a few cheques, sign a few documents, and pass some house keys across the table would be the formula for a simple exercise. The person Heague sent goofed. The settlement went okay, but they had organised a very large cheque to be made out to me, which should have gone into my account. The consequence was that I was paying interest on the loan for this huge cheque that should have been earning me interest.

Anyway, an email to the first company on the list brought a detailed response of their fees in very quick time and I was able to advise the real estate agent of their contact details. That kept the agent quiet for a time. Of course, at that point in time I had no finance approved from a lender. My application for a loan was in the mail, and so far I’d heard nothing one way or the other.

Here I was putting in an offer for a property, organising a solicitor, and as yet had no money. I wasn’t too worried, but I would rather the agent wasn’t pressing me so much. I emailed the solicitor’s contact information to the agent hoping to keep them off my back. I guess I was living in hope! Hope that my finance application would be approved.

A few developments

S was beginning to flake out with the workload of tidying the house constantly, and finding it difficult to find places to put everything. The photographer was delayed and couldn’t come, which is probably a blessing in disguise as there is now more time to tidy up.

At work, I asked my boss (by email) about extending the period for claiming removal expenses. He was confident it wouldn’t be a problem, but asked me to raise the subject again later, whatever that means. That’s not the most reassuring of responses, but at least I got a response, and its good to have these things in writing. It’s a great help that the company will cover some of the cost. The HR department said that I must make a claim for the funds within six months of starting employment. Not a chance of that, and I don’t want to miss out on the money just because I might exceed the deadline.

I felt lost without the car. The garage said they wouldn’t be able to get to it until Friday. I went to the National Library of Australia on the weekend, using Canberra’s bus services. It’s strange using the buses after so many years. The library has a rather nice café – now that’s a lovely idea. This library was a strange place. There were hardly any books on public shelves, most having to be retrieved by staff from storage. Though it resolves the problem of books being incorrectly re-shelved, but it limits your browsing ability. The 30 minute wait for materials to be delivered seems a bit much. All the books are referenced by an online catalogue, which is okay in that you can check things out from your home computer if you need to, but was a problem in that you have to compete with the web sufers who sit monopolising the computers, preventing others from using the catalogue. It's easy to whinge. I shouldn't really as it's a wonderful place and must see for everyone.

My landlady has had an offer on her house and a deposit has been paid. The sale will be pending the sale of their own house, and the settlement is expected to take place at the end of March. Now this is a problem. I’ll have to find somewhere else to live. Anyway, it was on the cards and mentioned when I moved in. I was rather hoping that I’d be in my house before she sold her place. That’s the way things go. It does go to show that private house sales do work. She said she got a price she’s happy with and has no agent’s fees to pay. She said when first put on the market not so many people showed interest. A few punters came by, but it wasn’t until she posted the house for sale on the allhomes web site that things took off. And, if that was her only cost then that’s not bad indeed.

Bonython in the Deep South

There was a property in the deep south of Canberra that I’d spotted earlier. S was interested in everything about this house in Bonython. The web really comes into its own in this situation. We can both view the same web site, and at least get some idea of what each other is talking about when we are discussing properties. It would have been so difficult otherwise.

So, I arranged a visit with the agent one lunch time to have a second look. It was a 25 minute trip from door to door, from work to the house. Real estate agents will just about fall over themselves trying to help you if they get wind of a possible sale.

The house was a bit rough in spots, and there was a general run down look to the place that I’d missed on my first visit. There were stains on the roof where the screws are located (rust), the timber on the steps was soft (wood rot), the veranda looked roughly made particularly with the handrails being roughly sawn timber and badly in need of painting, there were dead pot plants around the place and things that needed repairing. But for all that this place seemed sound. Once again, the asking price seemed high for what it was. But this is Canberra. There was a note in the news saying that, “The median house price in Canberra jumped 6.7 per cent in the December quarter to almost $507,000.” Oh, joy.

Its amazing what you miss on the first visit that you see second time around. One of the nice things about this place was that it had a toilet and sink in the garage. It would be great to be able to clean up after some work in the garden or after working on the car, without trudging the dirt into the house.

I took lots of pictures, so we’ll have a virtual tour happening when S gets to view them. Off to Melbourne for an extended Australia Day break for more painting and clean up jobs, and am getting a ride to the airport courtesy of my lovely land lady. It'll be nice to be home again.

A great real estate web site

Canberra has a great web site for real estate. The AllHomes site has the ACT well and truly covered plus a few surrounding areas of NSW. This is a particularly good resource and I recommend you have a look at it.

There are a lot of rubbish sites on the web that are used for real eastate, and some are so annoying to use but you often don't have an alternative. In Melbourne I couldn’t find a decent web site that covered everything in the area I was looking in. Oh sure, there are web sites that list lots of properties, but the trouble is that with the sites I’ve used either their search engines don’t work properly or they have been designed to include a lot of unnecessary listings. For example, if you want to search for properties for sale, say, in Bayswater in Melbourne you would enter Bayswater in the search box. A reasonable request I would have thought. But these horrible web sites are likely to return a listing of properties including St Kilda or Queensland as well as Bayswater. With the AllHomes site, you select the suburb and it comes up with the listing, no more, no less. It also includes various maps that are excellent in locating properties that you’ve just got to see to believe.

Anyway, I spotted a couple of rental properties that looked good. I drove past them after work and there is some potential there. Next step: catch up with the elusive real estate agent and have a look inside.