We had an independent valuation of the place¹ and it came back $50K higher than WhichBank?’s valuer. Unfortunately this was still quite a bit less than our offer. And so we decided, with heavy hearts, to not proceed.

I’m much more “what is The Universe trying to tell me?” than Don, but we both realised that it would be sheer stupidity to pursue this.

Interestingly, after we had resigned ourselves to letting go, the lovely Real Estate Agent came back and asked if we’d like to make another offer. We thought long and hard and made one at the median (which was rejected) and one at independent valuer’s price (also rejected).

We’re at peace with it all and have gained many insights, which I will foist upon you in the not-too-distant future.

On the haus update front: WhichBank? came back and agreed with the valuer’s valuation (no surprise given that they contracted him).

Turns out warehouse apartments in semi-industrial areas with little churn prove quite difficult to value. Unfortunately, these are exactly the types of properties we want to own, so it will always be extremely hit and miss for the bank valuation.

We’ve chosen to view the whole thing as a learning experience. Or as I would position it, “what is TheUniverse trying to tell us?”

And thus, we’re having a good think about everything.

In the meanwhile we spent the weekend changing rooms, which resolves some of our immediate squashed, living-on-top-of-one-another problems – and Don and I have been reunited with our clothes, which is more satisfying than one could have imagined.

Everything was almost ready to go: we’d ironed out a couple of contract issues, the strata report was sweet, the building report showed nothing to worry about and the loan was approved. All that remained was the bank valuation of the property to finalise the loan (which was due today).

We expected no issues.

Boy!Howdy! were we wrong.

The valuation was almost $100K less than our offer for the property, which means no go on the loan.

Just. What?

We’ve been seriously looking for about 6 months now, but I’ve been receiving domain and realestate.com.au home alerts for desirable properties in the area for over 4 years. I feel at this point that we know what properties are going for and we offered accordingly (less than the asking price).

We estimated that we’d willing pay probably $5-10K more than market value, because we really wanted to live in that complex and would suck up the difference, but $100K difference! Huh?

After reading the report we became even more perplexed – the valuers comments and comparisons were clearly erroneous and, frankly, preposterous. According to our research, the last place sold in the complex went for a similar price to our offer and an identical place (the apartment next door) sold for more than his valuation – over 2 years ago.

Our super-fab mortgage broker has disputed the valuation with the bank (which bank?), with, you know, actual relevant data. Hopefully whomsoever’s desk it lands on has some vague clue and will come to the sanity party.

Otherwise, we’re $1,000 down in conveyancing and inspection fees, who knows how much in Don’s time and opportunity cost – and we start all over again.

I am not sure where this leaves us.

Another lender? Sadly, word has it that they all contract out to the same firm.

Oh! Universe! Why do you challenge us so?

In the meanwhile, we are managing our expectations and will be swapping rooms with Joe/Frank on the weekend, because clearly he has had enough time living in the room that contains our giant closet (we are in and out all the time and he bears the constant intrusions with very good grace). He needs a tiny space of his own – especially as he has a Very Important Birthday in a week from now. We’d been hoping to gift him with an adult bed (his lanky frame is rather too large for the single) for his very own non-Bessie / non-parent space in what-will-hopefully-very-soon be our haus, unfortunately we may now be gifting a rain-check.

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Now that I am a little more financially secure, completing online surveys seems like a whole lot more effort than it is worth, and I have not completed a survey for well over a year. I still receive the occasional email though and I was utterly compelled by what landed in my in-box today from a (very reputable) market research firm:

Here’s a new survey for you to opinionate your feeling

Excellent!

**title from this elderly post

Post lunch and, surprisingly¹ not too smashed, I decided to walk home – straight line across Pyrmont Bridge and down Pyrmont Bridge Road – not really too far (3km or so?).

Unfortunately while perambulating toward home, I misstepped while attempting to negotiate a gutter and twisted my ankle. I wish I could blame the alcohol, but unfortunately the ankle twisting also occurs when totally sober and can only be attributed to pure clumsy. Ouch!

So, I’ve been trying to stay off the throbbing ankle for most of the weekend, mostly indulging in sloth.

We did venture out and take advantage of the open-for-inspection of what-will-hopefully-very-soon be our haus (naturally we first telephoned the fabulous Real Estate Agent to check that our turning up wouldn’t be weird) to show Bessie around and do a wee bit of measuring.

We then visited space to suss out dining tables and armchairs (of which we need both) and came across polyform – we were bedazzled by their aesthetic and convinced that paying $50K+ for a new kitchen would totally be reasonable for what-will-hopefully-very-soon be our haus (clearly we are utterly insane).

Loan paperwork is the only thing remaining. We had pre-approval, so all should be on track to sign the contract tomorrow or Tuesday – there is of course, still the chance we might be gazumped. All bits crossed that it will not be so and it will be ours: oh yes, it will be ours.

Hand on heart, I promise not to become one of those home-ownery bores. But Holy!Goodness! it is utterly amazing to me that I am almost in a home-owning position, because if you had suggested that to me 3, even 2, years ago, I would have been on the phone to the nearest asylum to reserve a straight-jacket for you.

While it does need a little work (painters: stat!), it is $100K cheaper than lost dream haus¹ and is in a more desirable (to us) location – though no 3rd bedroom and no garage (but secure parking).

And so we thought and thought and researched and researched and thought some more. We had our conveyancer look over the contract and … we made an offer.

And after a little back and forth … they accepted!

Hurrah!

Everyone is excited for us, but we are keeping it chilled until contracts are exchanged.

But now, the endless admin and the waiting and waiting and the hoping to goodness that we are not gazumped.

All bits crossed please!

I’ve been reading, spending a good deal of my down-time with my head in the kindle¹ (that doesn’t quite work, does it?), re-reading the alphabet mysteries² .

It has been pretty marvellous, though somewhat frustrating at some points, where I’m all like, “hang on, it didn’t happen at all like that“. But honestly, I don’t think I’ve read any series where the events in one book have not completely contradicted events which came before (really, some editors should be ashamed).

I’ve felt particularly indulgent, lazing about on the couch, moving very little – it has been wonderful. Why it feels more indulgent than lazing about in front of the computer, I am not sure – perhaps it is the horizontal v the vertical.

Am currently at Q, so should be back to my usual state of mindless, vertical sloth in the not-too-distant future.

He did not find it objectionable, so we have hooked up a time for me to view tomorrow morning.

In the interim, we have been discussing our wants, and we arrived at the conclusion that dream haus, though $100K more than the property in question, was probably the place for us and we could possibly wear the additional $100K under an enormous deal of sufferance and give Princess almost what she wanted.

Nice haus

Today, after sending a link to lovely Imaginary Internet Friend, I discovered that dream haus had been sold.

Whereupon I became Terribly Sad.

Truly, I believed that TheUniverse would look kindly upon me and gift haus to us after a lengthy struggle over the multiple of y.

Clearly not.

People with fragile mental health might see this as confirmation that they do not deserve to own lovely homes. Sensible people with all their stuff together would be pleased that they can even consider buying such a place.

I will leave it as an exercise to the reader as to which is the current state of my head.

We were especially motivated after we realised that if we brown-bagged our lunch and did not drink wine for 3 days per week, we’d not be spending $120 – which would translate to $6,250 annually (or a quite decent holiday).

So we’ve challenged ourselves to bring lunches at least 4 days per week and only buy wine on the weekends (which, I must say, makes for much better sleeping). All dosh saved must be transferred to the high interest savings account at the end of the week.

And so became the pact – we’d each prepare something on the weekend that we could bring for lunch. This week was gumbo (Don) and an acquired lasagne (moi). Unfortunately, we were forced to cook the lasagne last evening when TheUniverse conspired against (late bus, initially omitting to include the sugar with the yeast, disastrous doubling of mixture etc etc) my planned pizzas. Fortunately it was only a three day week – hurrah for public holidays!

The non-drinking has also been working well, though with a public holiday tomorrow, we deemed today a Friday and got out pino grigio on.

Next week for sure.

The first two days back at SaltMinesLimited were dire indeed and I was forced to wonder what the hell I was doing there. I honestly don’t think I have ever been so disengaged in my whole entire professional life.

Things did become a little better once I had several pieces of urgent and extremely complicated analysis to contend with, but a good deal of my time is spent wondering what the goodness I am doing with my life.

Having been enslaved by SML for SEVEN WHOLE YEARS, it is time to Take Action, embrace the Not Resolutions, and Get The Hell Out.

And thus, I was forced, against all of my principles, to sign up to LinkedIn. As Milly commented: “Things must be serious for you to hit the mainstream networking sites!”.

Word.

I will say that was an unexpected delight to find what past colleagues were up to:
ZOMG! x is where?. Very 3 degrees of separation.

And hey, if you know me and my Real, Proper, Name, do feel free to connect to me – because Holy!Goodness! I need all the help I can get. And if you need a very highly-paid, kick-arse Crystal Reports developer or data analyst – I’m cheap and have m4d sk1llz beyond your wildest imaginings!