House stories

Our little unit in the city received a mention in the Sunday paper a couple of months ago to demonstrate how the first homeowner's grant was making the inner city housing market crazy. Our unit was on the market on a Monday. Agent said she would take a couple of people to see it on Wednesday night. 7 groups of people turned up, and by 9pm on Wednesday, we had 5 offers, 2 willing to pay over the advertised price. We exchanged contract on the Friday, all these happened before the first open-for-inspection. That was crazy! We felt quite sad to say good-bye. It was a long time ago, but the fond memory of walking leisurely to QVB to have afternoon tea from the unit on sunny weekends was still fresh in our minds. I guess if we have decided to sell, then it's better to have it sold quickly. This was the best result we could expect.

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Another house story Simon heard from his colleague A.

A's neighbours were getting a divorce and they couldn't decide on the settlement so they decided to sell the family home (this was early 2000, maybe 2002). The wife bought the house back at auction for $1.3M and did a minor renovation (nothing structural- just paint, new bathroom/kitchen that sort of thing). She sold it recently for nearly $2.5M! I wondered what the ex-husband think if he hears about this?

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Our home is very cold. It feels colder inside than outside, especially when the sun is out. I don't know if this is a contributing factor but despite still having 10 months lease left to go, we made an offer on a house three weeks ago. The house itself is basic and in 'original' condition but we think it has great potential. We waited patiently and for a while we thought we would be moving again. The real estate agent finally got back to us after over a week. The vendor wanted more than what we were willing to pay so... the hunt continues...