So after about 8 months of going to open for inspections and auctions (and fixing up our current place) Mrs Wannabe and I have finally bought a house which means we can upsize and list our unit for sale. And then we can starting fixing up the place we've bought...
Considering how much energy, head-space and time has gone into this purchase I can only imagin there must be some interesting tales regarding frustrations, lemons, the one that got away, dodgy real estate agents and mortgage brokers, bargains etc.
Also I know a few of you are into renovations and I'm sure there are others about to head down that path (like myself), so I'd like to hear some stories, see some pics and get some tips there too.
Bought a place off the widow of the guy who built it - he was a builder, did the job himself (pretty good, with a few bits of wonky joinery inside)
But he was obviously an AV nut. They had a pretty comprehensive setup when i inspected the place, TVs, a dedicated media centre PC, etc etc. There's wires EVERYWHERE, the whole place is wired both with ethernet data cable and with two separate sets of speaker cabling. There's holes drilled in the floorboards with speaker cabling for the surround sound from the home theatre. There's three sets of antenna cable, two of which don't connect to anything, every room has phone/data and two TV ports (many of which are not connected to anything), under the floor is a ratsnest of coax, there's wiring for (I think) child monitors in each of the secondary bedrooms, and a feed for CCTV and gate control from the front gate. I found a bolted-on panel in the pantry when I was trying to get TV reception, opened it, and a torrent of wiring of a dozen different flavours vomited out like it was shot from a cannon. Reminded me a little of that horrible old story of the zookeeper who was suffocated when she succeeded too well in manually assisting a constipated elephant...
There's nothing resembling a wiring diagram, and the vendor knows nothing about it. The guy who set it up is dead. I've probably got the most completely wired house for three suburbs in either direction, and I can't even get proper TV reception yet!
Bought a place off the widow of the guy who built it - he was a builder, did the job himself (pretty good, with a few bits of wonky joinery inside)
But he was obviously an AV nut. They had a pretty comprehensive setup when i inspected the place, TVs, a dedicated media centre PC, etc etc. There's wires EVERYWHERE, the whole place is wired both with ethernet data cable and with two separate sets of speaker cabling. There's holes drilled in the floorboards with speaker cabling for the surround sound from the home theatre. There's three sets of antenna cable, two of which don't connect to anything, every room has phone/data and two TV ports (many of which are not connected to anything), under the floor is a ratsnest of coax, there's wiring for (I think) child monitors in each of the secondary bedrooms, and a feed for CCTV and gate control from the front gate. I found a bolted-on panel in the pantry when I was trying to get TV reception, opened it, and a torrent of wiring of a dozen different flavours vomited out like it was shot from a cannon. Reminded me a little of that horrible old story of the zookeeper who was suffocated when she succeeded too well in manually assisting a constipated elephant...
There's nothing resembling a wiring diagram, and the vendor knows nothing about it. The guy who set it up is dead. I've probably got the most completely wired house for three suburbs in either direction, and I can't even get proper TV reception yet!
You didn't buy a brothel did you? I've got a mate who's a sparky and when he was an apprentice he worked on a job where he had to set up CCTV cameras and intercoms/alarms in each room, and didn't think twice until a few years later he went past and realised it was a brothel...
Soulnet, isn't every real estate agent a sellers agent? We probably could have done with a buyers agent when we negotiated the purchase but its too late now. We bought in Cheltenham (non-beach-side of the highway), ill PM you the details...
All the walls in our house were painted peach with the trim (including beautiful orginal doors and trim) painted salmon pink. Including all the bathroom fixtures being pink also. It's delightful. Also had dodgy electrics (lightbulbs last weeks) and a massive gas leak and plumbing that confused the plumber.
We almost put in an offer on another house which was then put up for "private auction" were they chuck each party in a seperate room and tell you "the bid is this". We said no, thankfully. It needed almost as much work as our house but went for $50k more!
My favourite houses we looked at were the "why is this house so cheap? Oh because the floors are wavy" and the "why does this house have 3 seperate 3 phase circuits and an awesome alarm on the garage?"
Decided I want to buy a property outright, with 100% deposit. A big ask, and you have to save the majority of your income. It means I have to buy a home later than sooner though.
But that way you bypass the interest which doubles, sometimes triples the amount you would pay using a loan on a mortgage over decades.
This means you only pay for basic bills and house insurance, maintenance.
Mind you, on the day I bought I went to three auctions. The first went BALLISTIC and left everyone else “Mayor of Hiroshima”-ing. A minor convoy then progressed to the second site, which was located slightly worse but MUCH nicer inside. And I got that for $44K less. And then the third, a hundred meters from the first, not as nice a lot as the first but much the same otherwise, failed to get a bid. Go figure.
Decided I want to buy a property outright, with 100% deposit. A big ask, and you have to save the majority of your income. It means I have to buy a home later than sooner though.
But that way you bypass the interest which doubles, sometimes triples the amount you would pay using a loan on a mortgage over decades.
This means you only pay for basic bills and house insurance, maintenance.
Then again, I want a home, not an investment.
Mootsy. Not trying to sound patronising here pal but I assume that you pay rent right?
Yeah, really minimal though. in a shared cousins flat, the house is paid off.
I see nothing wrong with a mortgage at all, it's a safe way to do it.
But I just like the challenge of being able to purchase a house fully, that way you can even negotiate a cheaper deal, because it's money up front.
You then move in and you only worry about bills and insurance, maintenance.
The way the job market is. It suits me more then committing to a mortgage where there are a lot of unknowns.
Decided I want to buy a property outright, with 100% deposit. A big ask, and you have to save the majority of your income. It means I have to buy a home later than sooner though.
But that way you bypass the interest which doubles, sometimes triples the amount you would pay using a loan on a mortgage over decades.
This means you only pay for basic bills and house insurance, maintenance.
Then again, I want a home, not an investment.
Mootsy. Not trying to sound patronising here pal but I assume that you pay rent right?
Yeah, really minimal though. in a shared cousins flat, the house is paid off.
I see nothing wrong with a mortgage at all, it's a safe way to do it.
But I just like the challenge of being able to purchase a house fully, that way you can even negotiate a cheaper deal, because it's money up front.
You then move in and you only worry about bills and insurance, maintenance.
The way the job market is. It suits me more then committing to a mortgage where there are a lot of unknowns.
I'm probably mad for doing it this way though.
Have you got a Mrs?
Single at the moment. My previous girlfriend wasn't into the career idea. So this is going to be really hard going. But I like the challenge.
Just say you earn between 40-60K a year.
You can save 30-45K of that and spend 10-15K easily a year. So after 4 years already you have just over 100k. But you can also look at a second job, if possible to earn more and a third income stream like selling on ebay or recycling for cash.
The trick is to do things like ride your bike a lot instead of driving. Brings down petrol, car servicing a heap.
With food, cook in bulk, freeze your meals. Buy the specials.
Use low energy green globes.
Charge your ipad and ipod with a bike charger, they work, or on a laptop.
Trick is to save as much as you can, like a game, make it fun.
Why would someone seller it cheaper just because you have money upfront?
I've heard from other people that this is what can happen. Though usually a mortgage from a bank is just as secure anyway. So it probably doesn't matter how you purchase in the end. The seller would still want their advertised amount and more. But it depends on location and demand for buyers.
Why would someone seller it cheaper just because you have money upfront?
I've heard from other people that this is what can happen. Though usually a mortgage from a bank is just as secure anyway. So it probably doesn't matter how you purchase in the end. The seller would still want their advertised amount and more. But it depends on location and demand for buyers.
Well, if it happens it happens, though I'm buggered if I know why it would.
The vendor doesn't care where the money comes from, as long as they get it. Whether it's 100% your money or whether you borrow a big chunk of it from the bank, it makes no difference to the vendor. Once you hand over the cheque and they hand over the title, then it's story over as far as they;re concerned. There's no security risk at all for them, any issues are entirely between the bank and the borrower after that.
Yeah auctions can be really unpredictable. I mentioned in another thread how we won an auction where our winning bid was 15k over the quoted range maximum, but we didn’t meet the reserve and it was passed in, we got “first right to treat” but the vendor wanted another 35k… We walked.
Fair enough he didn’t have to take it (as Reboot pointed out) but if we had of known what he wanted we wouldn’t have bothered showing up to the auction, I guess we got played… Some random buyer bought it a week later for 5k less than what he wanted…
Also regarding advertised ranges, Hodges around Cheltenham/Bentleigh/Mentone are a disgrace. It’s a bit of a joke once you’ve watched the market for a while, but they are listing places way lower than recent comparable sales. Lets just say, unless you want to spend 800k+, don’t even bother looking at anything listed as 600-660k. We never got sucked in, we’d just go to these nice places and think there must be something really wrong with it too be that cheap… Buxton aren’t too bad and Greg Hocking are quite realising from what we have seen.
One thing I’ve noticed is that because we were looking to buy a house and then sell our unit, they were in a hurry to help us buy, even if it was from another agent. For example they would give free property/data reports on rival agent’s properties, just so we would keep them in mind when we go to sell… No idea if they kept our interest confidential or not but the info was helpful. They would also tell you where they expected it to sell (or rather what the vendor would be realistically) expecting…
I guess what I got out of the experience is that its a very open market when you’re buying in a metropolitan area, its basically an auction every time, a private sale is just an auction where you can’t see each other. And it doesn’t matter what you think it’s really worth, its worth whatever idiot offers the most, and if you aren’t that idiot, don’t be surprised if you’re still house hunting in 12 months when prices are even higher…
Sold in Clifton Hill late last year. Currently renting with cash in the bank waiting for the right house to come up. Again in Clifton Hill or Westgarth at a pinch.
The question (to which there is no correct answer) is: