Radioactive zone

Due to a various things, could not find the time to blog in the past 2 weeks. Strangely, the world suddenly has acquired this healthy glow. Stock markets could not drop for even a day. And the Sydney property market is getting into full swing as Spring approaches.

Officially, I hate to say it but we are rolling over to a limited degree. We are looking to buy a property seriously now. The decision was sparked by a lunch with an ex-colleague. He told me the Sydney property market had all the reasons to tank but it held together. While the world is still not well at its core, the next downturn may take some time to brew. And Number 2 is growing every day......We do need to buy our house at some point.

We actually submitted bids on 2 properties in the past 1-2 months. Needless to say, we missed out on both properties. A bit sorry to miss out on the first one but the other buyers were just willing to pay more. The property ended up going for 15% more than our bid. So fair game. We threw in the towel to participate in the great property game but at least we did not throw caution to the wind.

The second property was a more interesting story. For those who have been looking at the LNS, it is somewhat odd that there is this part of Greenwich that seemingly is very cheap. A reasonable house in that part of Greenwich (4-5 bedrooms + decent land) can be bought in the low to mid 1 range. The catch is it is quite close to a broadcast tower along the Pacific Highway. We put in a bid and thought maybe the broadcast tower is not such a big deal. Luckily, a friend told me to search on the web to see what I could dig up. After I saw a study specific about that issue in that area, we decided to pull our bid. I am not a scientist but, with our two little kids, we just did not want to risk it. Just before we called the agent, the agent called us and told us that the vendor was not prepared to sell at our price so we had a relatively graceful exit.

Talking about the agent......I just have to vent. The agent for that Greenwich house was a total jacka@@. Arrogant to boot. He is an out of area agent. One of the big agencies. We all know the tune..."Thank you Mr %$#@er". Instead, I would say something else less thankful to Mr %$#@er if I ever see him again. By the way, he operates in the Northbridge area. When my Better Half told him that we were not prepared to raise our price. He asked was it because we just could not afford to in a condescending manner.... I know how hard we have to work to save what meagre sum we have. Admittedly, he saw our bomb of a car when we went and saw the property the first time. He was just plain RUDE. Seriously, what real economic function does a real estate agent serve ? For God's sake, the vendors even pay for their marketing campaigns. I guess this is how a capitalist society works. The "Haves" get to laugh at the "Have-Nots".

Guess my strategy going forward is to put in bids for properties that we like. I figure, with our budget, for a property that ticks all the boxes, we are not really over-paying by that much. We will see.