In a nutshell, god there's some shit out there. It's only been a few weeks but if you're ever feeling depressed, don't ever decide to buy a house to cheer you up! Although, you have to laugh and take it all in your stride. It is quite interesting looking around other people's places and seeing how they live. We've spent some time going to inspections left, right and centre and we managed to have a look at some places we've always walked past and thought "I wonder what they are like inside?" - now we know. They are generally, very very average! Especially this place in Newtown that had a wonderful view of the railway tracks. I mean, actually looked over the railway station. Terrible!We've continued to focus on our main target areas in the Inner West, despite being swayed by cheaper prices on the Northern Beaches (such as Dee Why for example) and have only really found one that caught our eye in Erskineville, in a new development that was very nicely finished off.It really is an eye opener going from looking at places to rent to places to buy. The Real Estate agents are so nice to you! I especially enjoy walking around places that are on the market for around $900,000 and pretending that I'm interested. They must look at me and wonder what I do for a living!You feel like walking around and saying things like "The views from our place in Mosman are much better than here" or "Oh, it doesn't have a spa, how do people live here?". Hehehe.
I thought I should update the blog as it's been a little while since the last post. No specific topic this time but just a quick update on the happenings of the past week or so.- Guy and Dale are back from their holiday to the red centre so we've caught up with them both a few times
- My friend Nicci managed to get us tickets to Kylie's rescheduled concert in November! Apparently this was quite a difficult task as the tickets are like rocking horse poo
- We're still scouting the market for a decent place to live and talking to very exciting people like banks and mortgage brokers
- Bo will come back from 3 weeks in Spain (as black as the ace of spaces most likely) on Saturday so we will doing our second trip to the airport in a week
- We've booked to go to the Blue Mountains for a weekend! Yay! The first 'holiday' since our last holiday :)
- We're freezing our butts off over here and drowning in rain while the UK slowly melts to a halt after stupidly high temperatures for a country that has practically zero airconditioning on public transport
- I can officially stop doing two peoples jobs when my colleague gets back to work from her jaunt to the UK on Tuesday. Hurrah!
Is there anything more soul destroying that looking for a somewhere to buy. I think not.
Not when you are after a place that looks like this...
But your budget is more like this...
Still, all us first home buyers are all in the same boat I guess (except the rich ones). It really does take time, there are lots of places on the market and it takes ages to get through them all (even if using the internet) and places that look great from the outside need completely renovating on the inside or vice-versa. Then there is the entire process of securing a loan, finding a solicitor who won't rip you off (good luck) and sealing the deal without some bastard gazumping you.
In Australia, there is the First Home Buyers Grant. Introduced a few years ago to help first home buyers get into the astronomical Sydney property market, it provides those eligable with $7,000 plus no stamp duty on properties up to $500,000. Which is a huge help considering that the normal stamp duty on a house that price would be around $20,000.
If you've ever wondered what the difference is between a First Home Buyer and a normal Home Buyer is, the answer (for Sydney anyway) is about $100,000. We've seen lots of places with great potential but the problem is, if we bought it we wouldn't have any money left to renovate! So if anyone wants to help out two young, harder working first home buyers you are more than welcome!
We haven't found anywhere that is right for us yet (well, there was one place that was fantastic in everyway possible, except when the planes flew over and you could practically wave to the Captain), but we will keep looking around for that mythogical 'First Home Buyers Dream'.
A year ago, London celebrated winning the bid for the 2012 Olympic Games. I went searching for some news on how well London was shaping up for this huge event. A trip to BBC News was a good place to start as they have an entire section on the subject in their sport section. I hadn't been to Sydney before they hosted the 2000 Olympics but I have been a beneficiary of the the changes that were made to make it such a success. The entire Darling Harbour area was regenerated (okay, so today it looks a little worse for wear but when I was here in December 2000 there was still an Olympics buzz about the place). I have been many times to the fantastic Olympic Stadium (now called the Telstra Stadium) out at Olympic Park in Homebush. The entire Homebush area was a wasteland, and I believe London has half of the Sydney contractors/organisers involved so they probably intend to do a similar re-vamp of East London.Every year we always talk about going canoeing/whitewater rafting in Penrith at the man-made facility that was built there (never made it yet, maybe this summer). And apparently the trains were unbelievably reliable in those two weeks. Although CityRail have been regretting it ever since as everyone says "If they could do it for the Olympics, why can't they do it now!". London hasn't been quite so accepting of being the host of this party, and many people are probably already nervous after having witnessed the whole Wembley Stadium debacle (Australian contractors, a-hem). Still, they have another 6 years to make their mark and let's face it, if Athens can do it, surely London can.
Not Barty Crouch of Harry Potter fame, but Peter Crouch, England's very own 10-feet tall beanpole.Who knew he was so talented off the football pitch as well as on it. Blimey.
On the up side this weekend we headed to Nelson Bay to pick up the cats after they had 7 weeks of luxury holiday camp rest and relaxation. It was quite amusing when Jo called after Zhanna and went to pick her up and Zhanna ran away! How quickly they forget!! It wasn't long before they remembered who we were and were curled up at the end of the bed as if we had never been away.We both really enjoyed the weekend (if not the drive home with Zhanna doing her usual vomit, pee, poo, sleep routine) and Jo's mum spoilt and looked after us as usual.On the down side, WHY CAN'T ENGLAND SCORE FROM PENALTIES!!!!! Honestly, they all need to go to therapy sessions or something to help them with the pressure. I stupidly set the alarm for 12:55 instead of 00:55 so I got up late and no more than 2 minutes after I sat down to watch the game, Rooney was given a red card. I can't speak for the first half but the display the England team put on for over an over without Beckham or Rooney was ironically the best of the entire tournament!As soon as it went to penalties though, we were sunk. You could see it in Gerrard's eyes, he was never going to score. So it's over for another 4 years and who do you go for now? I can't go for Portugal, the team that knocked us out. As much as I enjoyed my holiday in Italy I can't go for the team that knocked out the Aussies so unfairly. And it's unheard of for the English to go for either the French or the Germans! I might have to switch back to AFL.
In a nutshell, god there's some shit out there. It's only been a few weeks but if you're ever feeling depressed, don't ever decide to buy a house to cheer you up! 
