Yup, Jarrod and I are now bonafide (Chrome is underlining ‘bonafide’ and wondering I actually mean ‘debonair’.. no Chrome) home owners! We (when I say we, I mean Jarrod walked in the rain, I was drinking cider at work) picked up the keys on Friday afternoon after a nervous day of waiting for settlement to be completed. There was going to be a potential hitch in our settlement but, fortunately, everything went smoothly.
Funnily enough, the settlement was probably the least stressful part of the whole process. If there is one thing I’ve learnt from buying a house, it is that it’s very stressful and frustrating and confusing. You have to deal with 3 separate parties (Solicitor, real estate agent and broker) who only tell you the parts of the process that are relevant to them. I found the real estate agent to be the worst, pushy and rude and just an overall jerk. Although, are there any real estate agents in the world that aren’t jerks? Unfortunately, I’ve never met any.
They all say they’ll keep you in the loop as well, then they don’t. I feel like if they all just were nicer to each other and didn’t snark and blame each other for hiccups the process would probably be a whole lot easier. It seemed that no one was ever at fault for anything, it was always something someone else did. I don’t know how people do it every day. It would drive me crazy.
At one point, I considered just giving up and renting forever because it was easier. Obviously Jarrod would never have let us do that but I was just over all of the crap we were getting put through.
We’re on the homestretch now though, we visited a few times over the weekend and made our first home purchases – some solar lights for the garden – and considered what else needed to be done and what else we just wanted to do, you know, because we can. I wish I had some decent photos to show but it’s been rainy and gloomy for more than a week here and my photos turned out pretty poorly.
Overall, I’m glad we went through with it because the place has everything we wanted; a nice kitchen, 2 storeys (Jarrod wanted stairs), a downstairs toilet, an ensuite and a decent laundry. Oh, and NBN (basically faster internet). We also got a whole lot more which I’ll hopefully be able to show when we’re there on a nicer day.
6 responses to “We bought a house!”
Congratulations! I remember how excited I was just to rent, but buying your own place must be amazing.
I found that I was very poorly informed through the entire process of renting. In the end I had to ring them and ask them if they’d done the work and if it was okay for me to move it.
I believe that bona fide is usually written as two words. And both of the real estate agents I’ve met have actually been nice people who kept us in the loop. I guess either Australian agents are usually jerks or you’ve been unlucky.
But congrats! I remember your “Day in the Life” post from January was about not getting an offer through and I’m glad to see that your patience had paid off!
Strange, google shows that both are ok but it is probably why it underlined it. I wonder why it suggested debonair though..
And maybe it is an Australian thing with real estate agents because I’ve dealt with about 10 of them, when you’re renting they couldn’t care less about you (unless you haven’t paid the rent) and when you’re buying apparently they’re super pushy.
Congratulations! How exciting. Sorry that it was such a crap process to go through but I’m sure it will be all worth it once you’re settled in. Must be such an amazing feeling to finally have a home of your very own & not have to deal with landlords & such.
Oh my gosh Sarah that is awesome!! Congratulations to the both of you! 😀 And real estate agents ughhh I so know what you mean. I feel bad because they work on commission but at the same time, no one wants someone who’s uber pushy and/or shady! I am so happy that you guys bought a home though, enjoy your new house!
Oh, congrats on the house! House buying can be hectic, but worth it in the end. 🙂 I think it can be hit or miss with real estate agents. Some are great but others really do not need to be in that business. Or any business that deals directly with people.