David and my search for a home took us to 5 open houses 3 weeks ago. Since then we've had Easter and my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary to attend (yes you read that right - 60 years! Still holding hands whilst watching TV and still totally in love with each other. It's the most amazing, beautiful and inspiring thing to watch).
We came away quite depressed at the price of homes in Canberra (got a spare $450,000 minimum to spend anyone?) but overall we liked some homes. We can't agree though on the kind of home we like. I like modern homes because there's no immediate renovating to do and they have decent kitchens. David prefers the older style homes which are nice but often require lots of maintenance and have sad looking kitchens (cosy as the real estate brochures like to call it) and outdated ovens.
We have come to the conclusion that we need to pick one area and really check it out in detail and then look at others. It's kind of nice that we can't buy for 6 months because it has taken the pressure off and we kind of enjoy sussing out the other buyers and the blatant sales talk of the agents.
Here's an example of great agent customer service recently:
David (picking up phone): Hello
Agent: Hello, I'm calling about the X property you viewed recently. Did you like the place?
David: Well the garage was a little weird (it was a fake garage because it had been turned into a study on the inside) but besides that it was nice.
Agent: Well that could be easily fixed, the study wall could easily be knocked down. The yard is not too big, the maintenance would be ok with you?
David: Well we are actually ready to buy anything at the moment and won't be ready for sometime.
Agent: So you don't have your finances ready yet?
David: No
Agent: Ok bye
Agents, got to love them...
