Home Sweet House

I was happily blogging the rest of my USA trip, then abruptly dropped out of the blogosphere because I was diving head first into the biggest financial commitment of my life.

We bought a house!

We weren't expecting to buy a house, at least so soon, but when our rental apartment told us they were giving us the boot we had two choices: rent again and keep saving up to buy a house - and sign ourselves up for a second move (groan times infinity) - or just go ahead and do it, start to finish in six weeks flat.  Over Christmas.

I don't know how in the hell it all came together, but the stars aligned and I am sitting in our new house right now, so I only believe it because I see it with my own two eyes.

Buying over Christmas I think was actually a fairly good move.  Sellers still want to sell, but not a lot of buyers are in a buying mood during the festive season.  There's less competition, at least I'd like to think we got a good deal.  If you can get a bank to call you back to arrange financing (big if) then you're in business!

Here are some snaps from the real estate ad:

And the piece de resistance:

Naturally it doesn't look quite that good when our crap is laying all around, and it's not being staged for photos.

But you know when it looks even worse?  Four years ago when the previous owners bought it.

I found the previous real estate listing online, so got a reference point for how far the house had come in a few short years when the previous owners (first time home buyers like ourselves) bought it and spruced it up.

I find this endlessly entertaining so hopefully you do, too.

It doesn't help matters that the old pictures are obviously amateur, and the new ones professionally done.  If you want to make bank selling your house, pro tip: spend a few bucks for good photography.

The biggest upgrade came in the basement, which was mainly unfinished before, and now is a livable space.  It went from this:

To this:

It essentially doubles the living space of the house, but Martin saw "the biggest spider he's ever seen" down there and now refuses to go out there.  At this rate we might as well just seal off that whole floor, because the only use it gets is for laundry by me!

So there you have it, our little slice of the world.

Nothing has gone horribly (or expensively) wrong yet so I'm happy with our decision thus far.  We went from living in the most populated, bustling part of Brisbane to 10 kilometers from the city in a very quiet neighborhood.  I'm already acclimated because whenever I venture close to the city I feel overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle and number of other people surrounding me.

But maybe that's just me getting old!