And we are now (broke) homeowners!

Aug 4, 2012

Well, Where do I start?

Time has just flown by, I’ve barely had time to get onto the internet let alone write a blog post. Sorry guys!

I think I will try and break these last two weeks down into 2 or 3 posts as so much has happened… too much for 1 post.

When I left off last time we had just been told that Settlement had been delayed indefinitely but there was a chance we could still move in on Friday as planned if we signed a License Agreement.

We did this.

Thursday night we completed our final inspection on the house and were soooo excited that the following day we could be getting the keys to our new home. Mark, the Agent, met us at the house to begin the inspection… while the current owners were there (talk about awkward!).

Okay, it was awkward at first as I wanted to have a good look around the property and make sure there weren’t any glaring issues that hadn’t been there on our previous inspections (hard to do when the current owners are watching your every move) but they were pretty easy going and everything seemed in pretty good order so we all eventually made our way out to the backyard just to discuss our impending moves and the excitement of it all. The owners assured us they would be out by 4pm at the latest so we would be all good to get the keys and start moving in. YAY!

So after a restless nights sleep because I was more excited than a kid at Christmas, I awoke Friday morning and MOVING DAY WAS HERE!

Hubby and I had both decided that we would go to work for half the day as there wasn’t much we could do till we got the keys.

1:30pm rolls around and Ant arrives at my work, ready for us to take the trailer load of things we had stored at my work to our new house. (Well, back to his parents anywhos till we got the call to say come and get the keys)

We arrived back at Ant’s parent’s place and continued loading up the car and trailer, all the while anxiously waiting for our phones to ring and by 4:30 we still hadn’t heard anything. By this stage I was getting quite impatient and worried that we weren’t going to get them… Even to the stage where I started snapping at Ant (Sorry babe, I know it wasn’t your fault… Guess I was just a little edgy) and thankfully just after 5pm we got the phone-call from the Agent to say we could come and get the keys. Woohoo!!

So off we head, down to his office to collect the keys to our new home. By this stage we were both so excited we just wanted to snatch the keys out of the agents hands and head around to look at our new place but he had other ideas; He wanted to stand around and chat. I had to stop myself from screaming at him “JUST GIVE US THE KEYS ALREADY”… I mean really, we’ve been looking forward to this moment for the last 10 weeks and he wanted to stand around for half an hour and just make small talk? Can you blame me for wanting to do a snatch and run? (Don’t get me wrong either, I really liked our agent… but I really wanted to go see our new house)

Anyway, I did the polite thing and made the small talk until finally there was a break in conversation and we could make a hasty retreat and before we knew it, we were on our way to our new home.

When we got there it was such a surreal feeling. Walking up to the front door to unlock it for the first time was a bit awkward too. We had 7 keys to pick from and it felt like a game of chance, seeing which one of us would pick the right key that unlocked the door.

On the fifth try I finally found the right key… and we were in!

Ant and I kind of just stood and stared at each other with stupid grins on our faces taking the moment all in. We were finally in our own home (that we hadn’t yet paid for).

It didn’t take us long to make a start on unpacking the things we had bought with us, and within an hour we had most of his family there to help us unload. The boys then headed down to the storage unit to retrieve our mattress so we could spend our first night in our new house.

After sorting through the few things that we had with us (I can’t stand things just sitting around… I had to make a start on what we had there already) the boys arrived back with not just our mattress but our couches, bed frames, coffee table, outdoor chairs, entertainment unit and a few other bits and bobs.

I couldn’t believe it. After getting all that furniture setup in their places already the place was looking like a home. I also worried that there wouldn’t be anything left for the removalists to do that were booked for the next day.

That first night was a lot of fun and just consisted of drinking and fish and chips and watching the footy.

We finally crawled into bed, which was just our mattress on the floor (the boys had brought the frame around but had forgotten part of the footing so we couldn’t set it up) and I don’t think Ant or I could have been more content.

Saturday morning arrives and so began the crazyness of moving the rest of our stuff in.

It took the removalists, Ant and his friend an hour and a half to load the truck at the storage unit and an hour to unload it at our new house, saving us a small fortune thanks to the boys managing to get so much stuff out the night before.

The removalists were fantastic (If you’re in Melbourne, they’re called That’s Quick Removals) and were friendly, fast and efficient and by the time they left I had boxes piled in each room ready to unpack.

We also had a whole heap of our friends come around to help us unpack which made the process so much easier. We had people everywhere moving boxes around and unpacking things. It didn’t take long for me to have the whole kitchen unpacked and setup ready to go. Then onto the bathroom, laundry, lounge room… you get the drift (Do you remember The Jetsons tv show? In one episode Rosey, the robot maid is on a cleaning frenzy through the house and constantly says “A place for everything, and everything in its place”. This sums me up pretty well, I couldn’t relax till everything was nearly done and unpacked. It’s not a disorder but may borderline on OCD, Yes… I’m a bit anal but I blame my mother!)

By that afternoon we really did have a home that was filled with some of our closest friends and family that had graciously come around to help us set up our home (Thanks guys!) and it was time to pop the bubbly!

Needless to say, not much got done after that but that was okay, we had done enough.

I remember looking around the backyard at everyone and a complete feeling on contentment washed over me. We had done it, we had bought our first house and made it a home.

I got Ant started on a few DIY projects later that week but I’ll keep those for another post.

To save this from becoming a tl;dr  (too long, didn’t read) post I’ll leave it here but be sure there will be another update very soon on what we’ve been up to since we moved in.

We are all settled now and it doesn’t feel like we are just staying in some strangers house anymore and as I sit here this morning drinking my coffee in our backyard I couldn’t be happier!

 

x

 

 

Oh F… Dear

Jul 19, 2012

Oh… dear!!!!  (Not what I really said)

So after just pushing publish on my post yesterday (From old to new) I got a phone call from our Conveyancer. In that post I mentioned how I was waiting to hear from our Conveyancer so I knew what cheques I needed to draw for our settlement tomorrow.

I had spent the day baby sitting my gorgeous five month old nephew Patrick and sneaking in a quick blog post while he was happily playing on the carpet. My gorgeous sister in law had just returned from the hairdressers and was preparing Patrick’s afternoon feed when my phone rang. It was our Conveyancer. Hallelujah!!! She was a day early and it looked like I was going to have all of today to nick around and organise what needed to be done.

As soon as I heard her voice though my excitement quickly died away. Something was up. Something really bad was up.

Her words to me:

“Settlement has been cancelled”

Ohhhh….. F… Dear!!!!!

She went on to garble all this legal babble at me and all I can remember is my mind spinning and wondering what the hell we were going to do. The removalists were booked, we had Friday afternoon off work and Monday which gave us three and a half days to move in. The electricity and gas were all set to be connected and so was the internet. I also remember her briefly mentioning license agreement, breach of contract, default notice, extra fees and court. That was pretty much all I heard.

Once she had finished she was waiting for me to say something, all I managed was a “What does all that mean?”

She went on to explain that our Vendors, the people we were buying the house off, had bought another house and because of the way their finance was structured, their bank required both settlements to happen on the same day. The house they had bought was unable to be settled on Friday which then meant that our settlement couldn’t go through either. She also explained that she had no idea when settlement would go through as they hadn’t specified it at all.

She then started giving me our options.

We could serve a default notice on the Vendors as they were in breach of the contract. This would mean they would have 14 days to complete the contract or we could walk away from the house. It would cost them $440 plus any out of pocket expenses we would incur  as a result of the delayed settlement. Also, if it ended up in court then we would need to have been seen as doing everything necessary to keep the contract alive. The idea of court freaked me out a little, I mean seriously, all we want is the keys to our new home. We don’t want to walk away from it or end up in some nasty court battle that could go on for years and cost us a small fortune!

The other option was that the vendors were willing to let us have a License Agreement on the proviso that our conveyancer prepared the document at our expense.

Hold up, What? You delay our settlement and then want us to wear the costs?

Our conveyancer went on to explain what a License Agreement was. It’s an agreement that allows us to move into the property tomorrow even without settlement going through. It means that we take possession of the house as originally planned, and everything I had organised for the move would stay the same. The only difference is, we wouldn’t have paid for the house yet and nor would we be paying rent.

I was quite sketchy of the idea at first until our conveyancer explained this happens all the time and that as long as we had insurance on the place (Which we already do) then she could write up the agreement and sign it on our behalf and it would business as usual for us.

She also explained that because it wasn’t our fault settlement was delayed, she could write to the vendor’s conveyancer and inform them that we would take the License Agreement if the Vendors wore the cost of the preparation (Which is $250) or we would issue a default notice which would cost them $440.

By this stage my mind was spinning too much but I was too happy that there was a possibility we could still move in tomorrow as planned. We kind of know the Vendors, Anthony went to school with the wife, she was in his younger sisters year level, so we didn’t want it to get nasty. We just wanted the keys!

We decided that we would take the License Agreement and wear the cost of it ourselves to keep the peace and ensure we could move in tomorrow. It will also cost us extra now for the extra time our conveyancer has to put in reorganising settlement. All up it will be around an extra $400 we are out of pocket but hey, if we get the keys tomorrow I don’t care! It also means that we don’t actually start paying our mortgage until settlement does go through so by the time it does we may have saved $400ish out of payments anyway.

Crisis averted!! 

After a few calming glasses of wine last night we are now on track to do our final inspection on the property tonight with the real estate agent and will be all set to move into our new house tomorrow, that we haven’t paid for!

Now, let’s just all cross our fingers that nothing else unexpected happens and we can live happily ever after!

A long lunch and a bit of retail therapy…

Jun 25, 2012

Remember when I said I wouldn’t buy anything for our new house till we had moved in? Well, that didn’t go so well!

What a fabulous Sunday I had. I caught up with one of my gorgeous girlfriends for lunch and after, a bit of retail therapy. I emailed Tess on Friday (Yeah, we often email throughout the week as it’s an easy way to keep in contact and to while away the hours at work) and we organised a much overdue catch up. First stop was a gorgeous new little cafe in Mentone right by the railway station. And bad me, I can’t even remember the name! Sorry guys!

After having a light lunch with a glass of wine on a rather pleasant Melbourne Winter day (It wasn’t raining so yes, that means it was pleasant!) we headed off to Cheltenham DFO for a “browse”… At least that’s what I told myself, I wasn’t planning on buying anything, I swear!!

Once upon a time in a past life, I used to work at DFO as a retail assistant and once I finished up working there I avoided the place like crazy as trying to get a car-park on the weekend was madness. Thankfully Tess drove so I avoided my usual car-park rage. We did a few laps and managed to get a park finally somewhere down the back in the midst of what seemed to be a muddy field.

And so began our journey of “Ooohing” and “Ahhhhing” our way through stores.

First stop was Villa and Hut, the gorgeous homewares store, who happened to have a lovely “Up to 75% off” sale going on. After weaving our way through the stunning wooden mirrors and chests, pressed tin trays and general home decor without buying anything (God, we were so good in there I swear) we continued to meander onto the next store – My Cargo Hold. Here we found many beautiful items that I could decorate my kitchen with including a letter holder for mail and a gorgeous tea, coffee and sugar canister set (Which I have kept in mind). I managed to walk out of the store without buying anything although I will mention, after being in that store for maybe ten minutes I do remember why I love shopping online these days. The sales assistants were beginning to drive me crazy with their non stop questions.  Seriously… “I’m good today, no I’m happy just looking, yes I’ll let you know when I need some help thank-canyoupleasejustgoawaynow-you!”

Eventually I succumbed to the “Must spend Monster” when we walked into The World Kitchen outlet store. Here they had Pyrex dishes, Bakers Secret tins, trays and pans and Corningware all at amazing prices!!!  I had had my eye out for a giant cupcake tin for a while now and the best price I had found one so far was $65, a price I couldn’t justify for how often I’d use it but when I walked into the store what did I find? A Giant Cupcake tin for $12… SCORE!! As if I could not buy it! A further lap around the store also netted me a new glass Pyrex mixing bowl for $6. And yes, I needed a new glass mixing bowl as our old one broke the week we were moving out of our old place… it had a massive crack right through the middle so I had to throw it out.

My new Giant Cupcake baking tin! Can’t wait to use it!

Also, I bought a Lazy Susan… you know, the round platters that spin so you don’t have to reach too far. I had been looking for one of them for a while but once again they were around $60 and it was something I couldn’t justify but I happened to walk into one of those little Asian bargain shops and got a perfectly good glass one for $12.99. It’s going to be excellent for serving cheeses and snacks when we entertain.

My new Lazy Susan

By this stage I had the itch to spend some real money but I was such a good girl and resisted. We had a browse through Matchbox and The General Trader which reminded me that we really need a good quality knife block and saucepan set. I sussed out prices on these and have decided once we move in I’ll definitely be paying DFO a visit again to get those things but until then I was happy to just keep browsing (Gosh, there’s sooo many gorgeous things I could have bought!)

When I spoke to hubby later that afternoon I told him how good I had been and do you know his response??

“Oh, if it was for the house I wouldn’t have minded”

Uhh…. WHAT?? You mean I could have spent a fortune and gone crazy in there today buying as much stuff as I could fit in my car as long as it was for the house?

Thank god by this stage DFO had long since shut its doors for the day and it would have been impossible for me to jump in the car and head back but by jeeze was I ready to strangle my darling husband. Sometimes he just really confuses me! LOL!

Anyways, Tess and I have plans to go back next weekend now so we shall see what happens! Hopefully I’ll have a lovely new knife set and maybe even a new saucepan set… hey, it’s end of financial year sales, what better excuse? 😉

Our “To-Do” List

Jun 18, 2012

After browsing the many different blogs I’ve come across since jumping on the blogging bandwagon I’ve found many great and inspirational posts from which I’ve learnt quite a few things. Who ever knew there was more to internet research than Google? (Okay, maybe you did but I’m late to the party and here now!!)

I follow quite a few and one morning while searching the WordPress topics I came across a post from Kristin at Almost Perfect Harmony titled “To-Do” List. It was a list (Like Duh!) of all the things Kristin and her hubby wanted/needed to do around their new house and it inspired me to do my own.

In case you’re only just catching up with where we’re at, this is what our house looks like.

It’s pretty perfect but just like most things there’s still some of our own touches we want to put on the place.

With just under 5 weeks (32 days to be exact) until settlement it seems our ideas keep growing day by day on what we can do around the place and how we want it set up. Who knows what we’ll ever get around to doing… I’m guessing it’s one of those things where we’ll have a huge list and all the best intentions and then 10 years down the track hubby and I will be sitting there one morning and over coffee go: “Guess we should finish such and such hey?” or “We really should get around to doing that”, LOL! (Fingers crossed this doesn’t happen as I really hate the fluro lighting in the kitchen!!!)

Anywho, In no particular order here is my “To-Do” list…

– Remove shrub, extend driveway and concrete

– Create timber screens for master bedroom window (As it looks out into the street)

– Get Gum Tree cut down from backyard (Possibly houses termites and is destroying the gutters)

– Replace Gutters

– Freshen up front landscaping

– Possibly put in a front fence

– Get a new front door

– Install downlights in the eaves out the front

– Fix the hallway plasterboard and paint

– Change all light fixtures to down-lights

– Replace old school heater in lounge, either new unit or ducted heating

– Remove air-con unit from dining room and fix wall

– Move kitchen light switch from behind fridge space to more practical position

– Finish renovating the laundry

– Get timber venetian blinds for bedrooms and loungeroom

– Extend the pergola

– Get new concrete or pavers for under the pergola

– Replace garden beds with retaining walls/raised garden beds

– Make light feature

– Landscape out the back

– Buy a new fridge

– Buy new couches

– Buy a new bedding suite

– Get a puppy dog!! =)

I’m sure there will be more once we get in there but that’s all I can think of for now off the top of my head. Hopefully we can cross a few of those off the list in the not too distant future and I know some will have to wait but I’ll be sure to keep you all updated on our progress!

That’s it for now so till next time… Ciao!! xx

It’s official… We are home owners!!!

May 29, 2012

As the title says, we are home owners!! (Well… nearly) Woop Woop!

Our finance got approved today and the contracts are on their way so we are definitely a step closer.

I tell you, I thought I had dealt with a lot of phone calls going through the process but it was nothing compared to the amount of calls I made and received today… almost to the point where I wanted to smash my phone I was getting sick of it (Even though it was all mostly good news).

So, I am again on Cloud 9 and really starting to get quite excited about it. I’ve tried to contain it for the last 2 weeks for fear of disappointment if our finance was declined which would then mean we’d have to start renting again and lose this beautiful house we had found. (Although my back up plan if it did get declined was to spend our deposit money on an overseas holiday to console ourselves, LOL!). Thankfully though our Mortgage broker (From Aussie Home Loans if your in Aus) knew his stuff and came up trumps, and managed to save us about $4000 on our LMI (Lenders Mortgage Insurance) which is a tidy little bonus thank you very much!

Friday is the day we pay the rest of the deposit (we agreed to 5% of the purchase price) and then there really isn’t much left for us to do except wait… and wait… and wait! LOL!

As for the actual day of moving in, I’ve been trying to convince hubby we should hire removalists to do it for us, especially seeing as we just finished packing up our rental last weekend… the thought of moving all over again in 8 weeks is not very appealing but I’m sure I’ll be more excited about it closer to the day… It’s just soooo much work! Think I may never move out of our new house once we get there, LOL!

So, with 52 days till settlement (That’s 52 more days living with my inlaws) I’m sure I’m going to have lots of decorating ideas ready for when we finally get the keys and I’ve even started scouring the internet for some new pieces around the house (New couch and fridge!! YAY!) And I’ve got plenty ideas for the backyard which I’m sure will keep hubby busy!

 

For now I guess I’ll just have to be happy with driving past it every night on my way home from work and planning the front yard (I can’t decide if I want a front fence or not yet) and knowing that soon we’ll have our very own place to do with as we please!

I’ll have to get some photos up when I can!

Now, I’m off to get a glass of wine and celebrate!  Think my inlaws have gotten used to me coming home and having a wine each night… at least I hope so, coz I’m not going to stop or it would be a very long 52 days! 😉

Moving Day

May 20, 2012

Well todays the day.

A few weeks ago I posted a few photos of my kitchen along with a post about how we would be moving in the not too distant future so I wanted to take some photos as a reminder of mine and hubbys first house together.
Needless to say, life got in the way as it seems to do.

A few days after that post we received a letter from our landlord asking us to vacate in 8 weeks time (he’s had plans to knock down our lovely house and put units up the whole time we’ve been here so it wasn’t really a shock to get the letter).
It wasn’t really a problem to us as we were getting ready to purchase our first house but we would have liked a little more time but these things happen don’t they?

Anywhos, I digress…

After doing the house hunting thing for a few weeks in a row we put an offer in on a house we had found. It was perfect and exactly what we had been looking for, and at a great price too! Unfortunately by “offer” I mean “What the agent wanted us to do”.
All the terms in the contract were quite unfair to us and seeing as we were first home buyers we went along with it ever so trustingly. Big mistake! By the time we walked out of her office I was feeling so sick and thinking “What the hell have we just done”?.  Mind you, the house was beautiful and the price we offered for it was what we wanted, but there was no way we could complete the terms agreed to; 30 day settlement from when we signed (not when the vendor signed), 14 day finance, again from when we signed and a couple of other things I don’t wish to remember.
Anyway, after much stress and me not eating for two whole days I convinced hubby I couldn’t go through with the contract so we ‘cooled off’ on the property. Needless to say he was pretty pissed at me because it was a great house but it just didn’t feel right to me.

Lesson learnt: Stick to your guns when it comes to negotiating and if they wont meet you even half way then its not right for you.

We then continued on our house hunting journey, all the while wondering where we were going to move in the meantime.

After looking at many places that we couldn’t even believe someone could live in we came across another house we quite liked.
It needed a bit of doing up but that didn’t bother us, it had a great floor plan and big backyard so we didn’t mind that we needed to reno the kitchen, laundry and bathroom (did I mention hubby is a builder?).

So… We put our offer in and this time we stuck to our guns and walked out of there feeling great.
At the same time as we had seen this place we had looked at another but it was just out of our price range having recently been reno’d.

That night afer putting our offer in I got a call from the other agent from the reno’d house saying they have just dropped the price…!
Talk about bad timing. I explained to the agent we had put an offer in on another house and if it fell through we’d be in touch.
By this stage I had my fingers crossed that our offer wouldn’t get accepted but hey, whatever happened, happened. I would of been just as happy to go through with the sale.
As luck would have it though our offer wasn’t accepted. There had been another offer put in at the same time as ours and they didn’t need finance so even though our offer was higher the vendor went with the cash sale.
Inside I was trying not to show my joy to the agent as he explained all this to me so I tried to keep my stern, dissapointed voice on but it was quite hard I must admit. He must have thought I sounded pretty strange. Thank god he couldn’t see my face as I was smiling form ear to ear! LOL!

The next couple of days went by as we wanted to see this other house just one more time. Saturday morning we drive out to the inspection and look at the lovely, shiny renovated house again and it was decided we would put an offer in. By 4pm that day we were sitting in the agents office signing our name to a contract that we were extremely pleased with and then the wait began. By 6pm that night the agent had called to say our offer wasn’t accepted, did we want to go a bit higher? So we chucked an extra $3000 onto it and said that was it… Take it or leave it. 20 minutes later I get a phonecall back saying “Congratulations, You’ve just bought a house!!!”.

Ok, so this is where I start doing a happy dance around my brother in laws loungeroom with hubby (we were there to watch the footy on Foxtel).

Next thing we know the agent is there on the doorstep for us to sign the new revised offer then he was driving straight to the vendors so they could sign too so it was all a done deal. It all just felt right!

This was all last weekend. Not only has this whole week been filled with furiously packing but its also been lots and lots of paperwork as we get all our finance application papers ready.My hand is sore from signing things and if I never have to look at another contract contract again it will be far too soon!

So, here I am… 8am Sunday morning… Waiting for the removal truck to get here so we can move all our stuff into storage while we wait to hear if our finance is approved. We’re moving in with hubbys parents (yes, I know…) but hopefully, hopefully its only for 9 weeks and then we’ll be in our OWN house.

So keep your fingers crossed for us please, crossed that we get the finance to buy the house and crossed that hubby and I don’t get divorced while living with his parents.

Oh, I think the truck just got here… Guess I better start getting these boxes out, we’ve got a big day ahead and I hope your Sunday is much more relaxing than mine is going to be!

Remember: Fingers crossed!!!! =)