The Lay of the Land

Even though we had 4 properties lined up to view we only made it to two of them, the early one and the late one. We missed those in between because they fell during child ferrying time and we got caught in traffic due to road works.

The first one; lovely aspect, great entertaining area and yard, room downstairs for a teenage brat but not a lot of room upstairs. It was kind of cramped but definitely liveable and we could of course make it work. Many people live in much smaller homes quite happily. The backyard was raised and in a heavy downpour we imagine that the area downstairs gets a wee bit waterlogged. The house was currently rented to tenants who had moved in not knowing the place would be placed on the market the week after they signed the lease. I felt sorry for them - I've been in their situation and they've got two small children so moving again so soon would be a major pain in the rear.

The second one; This was a lovely home and we could definitely see ourselves living in it. The backyard was perfect - mango tree, pool, lush lawns etc. It had plenty of room downstairs and had been finished off quite nicely. Upstairs was smallish but a lot more roomy than the one we'd seen this morning. It had been nicely decorated but not quite perfectly finished. 3 bedrooms up, a rumpus and another room downstairs. Large garage and garden storage shed. This one was a possibility. It was also tenanted and the tenants told a similar story - they had moved in believing the house was for sale OR lease. They signed a lease believing it to be end of story but no, they've put up with open home inspections since they moved in in December. He wasn't above pointing out all the things that are wrong with it which was great but I suspect his motive was to put people off so they could at least see out their lease before it sold. This house had an asking price of about $40 000 more than the one mentioned above.

In both cases we wondered why the tenants themselves didn't offer to buy the homes. The rent they were paying would be slightly less than their repayments would be. I only asked this of the tenants in the second house. He and his wife were both in the army and were probably getting their rent heavily subsidised. They told us they couldn't afford to buy. They were in their late twenties and expecting their first baby. Maybe they were right and the timing just doesn't work for them. I ask myself over and over why I hadn't offered to buy some of the homes I've lived in that have been put up for sale while I've been renting them - I wasn't ready to take that leap in that point in my life. On all of those occasions though I was a single parent and it all seemed too frightening for me.

The same real estate agent was handling both these homes. He obviously doesn't need to be pushing to make sales at the moment. While he was very nice and polite he seemed a little indifferent to me. He answered our questions but usually with one word answers. The second house apparently had a few offers in on it and we're not ready to "get in quick" as he suggested so this one will slip through our fingers - unless of course none of the current offers come to anything and it remains on the market.