Home Owners

So much 5! The calculator letting us know how much out 5%

I have done rather well in the last few months.

Since the 19th of October, I have manged to graduate, get a job, start a job and now buy a house.

Not bad really!

Our new place is a numerologists dream. 5/125 Euston Road, Alexandria 2015. Purchased on the 25th of February, for a 5% deposit amount of $15,550.... Lots of 5.

This would be our house, it would.

The home owning journey started last year when we altered our focus from renting to buying a property. A little frightening, but Milana had a damn good deposit to work with, so it wasn't long before we figured this might be the best option.

We have been close to purchasing other properties, but a whole set of circumstances did not allow it. Here are the properties that were almost our place of residence:




Woolly: 57/19 - 23 Forbes Street Woolloomooloo
Milana really got close to buying this... till we talked it out. In late Decemeber, Milana viewed the property, got a home loan approval, contracts viewed by a lawyer and made a bid within week. She was scheduled to come to Melbourne and she made her bid before she left. The vendor failed to take the offer, and when he finally came back with a decent offer... we had moved on. He really screwed the pooch on that one!

St. Peters: 49/159 Princes Highway, St Peters
This property was advertised as 'offers above $350' so it just fell within the range we had given ourselves. I did not like the place upon my first inspection. It smelt like rice and it was all over in my mind! Milana however, felt that the extra room was a worthwhile investment and much more important than my aversion to the rice smell. In all fairness the strata was the main concern of mine. But Milana plowed on ahead and had a conversation with the agent for the property and came upon a much greater problem than my concerns... A complete tosser.

The agent completely boxed her out after she pitched a lower price of $340k not as a bid but as valuation we had determined the place was worth and we wanted to know what he felt were the reasons why we should pay more. Well he lost his shit and told her look in Lekemba...I have no idea about Sydney suburbs so I assume it was not a pleasant comment.

Anyway we moved and now the place is valued at $369,500... it still hasn't sold and I hope it doesn't so that psycho agent doesn't get a commission.

Little Mac: 46/52 - 54 McEvoy Street, Waterloo

The height of sadness, the place we were so excited about. Offers above $335,000, lovely location... so we trundled into the apartment super excited, we find the agent. We start our questions... and he stops us. "The place is under offer at the moment." Bollocks!! we want it! But to no avail, the place is gone before we could even try.

Flood: 20/87-91 Flood Street, Leichhardt

We were so cautious with this property. Weighing in at 37 sqm we knew it was small. But the location was awesome. The balcony was lovely. We moved in (emotionally), we scouted the area and really liked everything. The property was a company title, something that we had to look into, and get our heads around how it worked compared to a strata property. We were willing to take the risks, but we still didn't care for the price, $340,000. Milana called the agent and he basically said straight up, we would take $305,000.

We were gobsmacked, we could not believe it. We started the process of getting a loan application submitted, we talked to a mortgage broker. Getting around the company title issue and the small size of the property (under 50sqm and we needed 20% deposit) was proving a little difficult, but before we could get our act together, it was gone.

Sold. That was it. We were shattered....then we moved on quickly.

Finally.

Little Alex: (<---you can click this) 5/125 Euston Rd Alexandria

Pretty

This place, it had to be going to auction. We honestly could not be bothered. The waiting was awful, the constant worry that someone would come in and spend too much money on it. It was unpleasant. But the price point offered to us by the agent kept us motivated. Low $300k's.

The place ticked all the boxes, 61 sqm, (bye bye deposit woes) close to the city, not to close though. Sydney Park so very close to us, was a bonus. But it looked nice and the space really seemed liveable.

As we continued going to other properties and checking places that were to expensive, we kept getting more and more excited about getting "Little Alex". There was an apartment literally the one next door (6/125 Euston) which was going on sale for $379,000, we called it Big Alex (clever, right) and to be honest I was keen on attacking the property, I could see the price.

The bed room!

Well we waited it out. Did the strata report, building report for Little Alex and made the decision to wait.
On auction day we did another sweep of the area, checked out Sydney Park, found a nearby pub and tried to sell the area to ourselves. We sorted our ceiling, showed up early, watched for other to register..... only one other couple... this is looking good.

Auction starts, the vendor bids $310k, we wait. Everyone told us not to be the first to bid. "Going once," says the auctioneer. "Going twice." Ok this is weird, the agent comes up and to us and asks if we want to bid something like $1000 instead of $5000. "Going three times." The other couple, I assume a gay couple cause they were giggling like school girls and reminded me a little of Mitchell and Cameron from Modern Family.

Milana to sign.

So Milana and I looked at one another, and just thought screw it. Card goes up and we bid $311,000. The agent tries some incredible jedi mind tricks. "Won't you make it $315,000, otherwise we will be here all day." So he goes through the process again, "going once, twice...sure you don't want to up your bid? (yes we would love to bid against ourselves) going three times..... we will check with the owner." A rather short/intensely long feeling wait and the agent comes again with the owner....boooooooom sold. We win the place is our. The people get out of the apartment......our apartment.

All we need to do is sign the contract.

Adam to sign

That's it.

Home owners.

Tethered to a mortgage, but one far better than we had budgeted for.

I think the best thing I heard from the agent was this.

Our balcony

"You should be really happy, I am not, but you should be," awesome!