They want the solicitor’s details

When the agent rang to say our offer had been accepted she also asked for my solicitor’s contact information. What solicitor?  Oops, was I supposed to have one already.  I agreed to forward the information, but until I had finance organised I quietly ignored this request.

Within a remarkably short time, the vendor’s agent rang again asking me to provide details of my solicitor, and in the days following (or was it weeks) I was continually asked for this information.

I was dragging my feet. I didn’t want to proceed until my finances had been worked out. It was getting embarrassing.  But there was no way anyone was going to find out my real situation.

Unhappy with the response from my current lender, I was now shopping for a home loan elsewhere. I should have done all of this a lot earlier. I was beginning to get a bit anxious.

As a first step in financing the new property I scanned the web for a suitable lender. There are so many banks and other financial institutions that the task of filtering them becomes overwhelming. There are even web sites that do the filtering for you.

If you search using the phrase “home loan comparison” you get almost two million results. The phrase “home loan guide” returns 26,000 results.  And the last thing I wanted was it to be presented with was tons of pictures of smiling people on web pages with them sipping wine or carrying meaningless symbols when you are feeling stressed.

It gets confusing. Information overload. In the end, I opted to ignore the pretty web sites with pictures of happy smiling faces in favour of talking to people I knew seeking their experiences. This doesn’t say much for my web based solution.  I had already checked out the organisation that was currently financing my home, and that had ended abruptly. The search continues.

A nibble on the line

Spotted a property in Calwell, south of Canberra. It is a good sized house with four bedrooms on a relatively small block, but it did have some views of the distant hills. It had an amazingly large kitchen with a huge bench surface and great kitchen storage. S liked the size of the kitchen when spotted on the web. It must have had about six metres of bench space down one side. Though, the rooms seemed on the smallish side. I got the building report. It has villaboard, like the Bonython place we liked a few months ago. We may need to put up with asbestos. Villaboard is asbestos.

I also came across a property at Macgregor that caught my eye. It was advertised for auction and the agent thought it would go for between $330 - $400k. This was an older house and not as well cared for as the previous one, but this is a house with style. It had a very large lounge and four bedrooms on separate wings; three on one wing and the main and ensuite on the other wing. The design left an area between the two wings that might be large enough for a small pool or secluded garden. There was little in the way of views from this house, but definitely a house with a difference. Some of the doors and walls had been knocked about, and the kitchen looked like it needed to be ripped out and started again. But for all that, there was something about the place that clicked. The trouble in favouring unusual properties is that they may be more difficult to sell.

In Melbourne, S came home after an inspection, and found a strange car parked in her spot. It looks like someone was testing the drive. We did this before we bought the place all those years ago. In fact, there was no way I was going to buy the property until I tested the driveway. I actually wondered if the car could make it up, as the grade was so steep. Of course it did, but the driveway gave troubles in winter as on the steeper sections the car would loose traction when it was wet. So, someone else is going through the same thought processes. This is good!

According to our agent, there are two punters nibbling at the bait: a mother and daughter pair, and another interested party operating through an agent-friend. Eventually, our agent phoned to say they were offering $345k. Apparently, he said, we had earlier knocked back an offer that was below $350k, which wasn’t true. The agent-fiend would probably suspect this to be a lie. It’s a game this negotiation. By their previous experience, the mother-daughter won’t buy as they’ve been looking in the area for 5 years. Russell says the others are dream buyers, with the money in the bank. If they raise their offer to $355k well take it. He’s concerned about interest rates restricting the market. Our advertising bill is $5,000, so far.

A sick turbocharger

Money was the focus of this day. I got the turbo to the repairer in Fyshwick. Fortunately, I got a lift to my repairer’s workshop from my kindly landlady to pick up the turbo, and she dropped me off at the bus stop on the way to work. It must be about a 20 minute drive to Fyshwick but on the bus this turned into something in excess of an hour trip. The bus wound in and around so many back streets and byways that I almost lost my sense of direction. Still it was good to be able to see a few places I hadn’t seen before. It was an interesting joy ride. Though I suspect the few passengers nearby were wondering what I had on the floor by my feet as when I went to pick up my turbo, despite it being in a plastic bag and cardboard box, it had begun to loose a bit of black engine oil, leaving a little grease spot on the floor. Thankfully, the repair workshop, Cooma Diesel, wasn’t too far form the bus stop. I began to feel the weight of the thing as I reached the place.

I didn’t really expect the $460 that was quoted when I rang some months ago, with a general enquiry. What can you expect over the phone when it can’t be inspected in any way. I was expecting something in the region of $600 because of the amount of smoke that had been billowing from the back of the car. However, I didn’t expect to hear mention of $1000 for the repair. They suspected that the core was entirely worn out. With a new core installed I’d essentially have a new turbo on the car. I only have $600 in the bank; S has already used up her $400 and needs more money.

Anyway, at least its happening and I’ll be getting my car back on the road shortly, and as I walked back to the bus stop I was wondering how I can possibly pay for this. I’ll try and extend the limit on my credit card. If I can boost it by $1000 I could give S all the cash I have, then we’ll both be okay.

I managed to jump back on the same bus that I came down to Fyshwick on, which was rather nice as it’d save an hour or so wait, and it gave me a chance to clean up the greasy mess I’d left on the floor of the bus on the way down. It’s funny how some things just work out. All is right with the world.

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.

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.