A matched set - 35/50
I think my brain is fried from looking at far too many houses in new estates that all look the same. It's depressing how they are all just plonked onto the block with no consideration for the angle of the sun, and without basic things like eaves to create some shading to the north.
It's also annoying that the agents don't put all the basic information in the listing, especially when they have things like the house plan available from the sales listing already. Plus basic information like whether there is air conditioning in the whole house or only one room is often missing.
I have found a small selection of the least terrible houses to go and inspect next week. It's frustrating that they are pretty much all 4 bedroom 2 bathroom places - I don't need that many rooms, but the step below that is tiny units with no space and no yard. The middle section of the market barely exists. I still have my fingers crossed for one of the few older places around, but 90% of the market seems to be the cookie cutter new estate places.
I've decided I need to get really serious about my house hunting. I'm going to implement a spreadsheet.
I've been looking at the route I ended up driving yesterday, which involved some major wrong turns due to the difficulty of following GPS directions for an area of the city I don't know that is also effected by major roadworks. I think I was supposed to get off the Western Fwy and head north around the Ring Rd, but I missed an exit and ended up on the Westgate Bridge, then had a brief diversion off the Fwy and around the Convention Centre dropoff circle before getting back on the Fwy and through the tunnel. About the same amount of time to get home (if you ignore the 10 mins the convention centre diversion added) but a significantly more expensive and unpleasant trip.
I absolutely hate city driving, but I am finding the new van quite comfortable. And the side mirrors give much better visibility for changing lanes and merging than the car did.
I expect ducks would consider it lucky to be out in the rain.
I think it's got great potential - I'd definitely consider buying something like that to do up, but as a rental where you are stuck with it as is I'm much less enthusiastic. I also assume that as the property was only just bought that the landlord would be planning to kick you out in a fairly short timeframe to do some sort of renovation, it's definitely not something you'd buy to hold as a long term rental.
If anyone is interested in looking at some more outdated decorating I've found another fabulous house. The wallpaper in the bedrooms is particularly interesting.
It was. It was particularly traumatic because I didn't realise it wasn't a normal Kit Kat until I was eating it. It was also made by someone who seems to think the defining characteristic of a hot cross bun is cloves.
May I please have anything that is not a Hot Cross Bun flavoured Kit Kat. I really need the taste of that out of my mouth.
Yeah. There were a bunch of other things wrong too which I could have lived with (primarily cosmetic stuff, like damaged paint and old carpet). It was pretty concerning that the real estate agent didn't even seem to know what the heating and cooling in the property actually were, they were advertising things as current that had obviously been replaced years ago, and even the replacements were broken!
I did get to pat the owner's puppy though, so there was some good.
TIL I had the same cot style as Prince Phillip when I was a baby. I'm practically royalty ๐คฃ