Looking at houses

Sunday:

That was an exciting and exhausting weekend. Firstly, we have a date for Tim starting at his new job: 9 November. So that is more like three months (now 11 weeks) instead of two, giving us a little more time.

We made the long drive to Sydney early Saturday morning and spent the day dashing from house to house. Each one was "open" for 30 minutes and some were 15 minutes drive apart, making it difficult when some were open at the same time! I had cut my list down to eight, and we made it to seven. There were a few surprises, the one I liked the most online didn't end up even in our top three, and one I decided wasn't a priority but we managed to fit in became our second favourite and is still a possibility for us. You just can't tell from photos or glowing descriptions. You have to go and see in person.

We came away with a definite favourite. We walked in and all loved it. Perfect floor plan, beautifully maintained, near Tim's side of the family, and a salt-water pool! It was just ideal. The only thing we didn't like was that it was at our utmost limit of distance from the nearest train station, meaning extra commute time for Tim as he'll have to drive to the station before taking the train to work in the city. I was kind of hoping we wouldn't love this house, because of that, but we did. It is up for auction in two weeks, but I think we are going to put in an offer before then (dependant on the bank's approval, we already have a copy of building and pest inspection reports).

I had expected to have to spend more than one weekend looking, and we still may have to if we don't get this one (or maybe our second choice, which had a couple of flaws and was also more expensive). And if we don't find a house in time we'll have to rent for a while. We're not going to settle for an "ok" house, we plan to live there for the next twenty years or so. It may not be the perfect mansion, but we can find a great house for us at our stage of life. And it's awesome we've found one we love already.

After the long exhausting day (and my abdominal pain was troubling me by the end, I don't know if the antibiotics are helping at all) we went to Tim's brother's house for a family get-together which was lovely. I am going to enjoy living nearer to them. Then we drove home this morning with plans to get some packing done but mostly collapsed. Nevertheless, an enjoyable and productive weekend.