Home Sweet Home

So many aspects of our move to Queensland have gone remarkably smoothly and well, that it has got to the point that anything that didn't just drop into place sort of seemed - out of place - if you know what I mean? In reality, one of the few things that hasn't gone to plan is issue of purchasing a house. Which - as you could imagine - is not a trivial thing.

Our plan on day 1 was ambitious (I can see that in retrospect). We were going to come up to Queensland for a week in early November, and among other things dedicate a few days to looking around to find our dream house, which we would secure on the basis of an early January settlement. We'd then come home, sell our Melbourne home at auction on 29th November, with a month settlement, and so we would have the money in time to settle on the Queensland place. Well - what could go wrong with that? The obvious danger was the mismatch of settlement periods, so I had a talk with the bank about obtaining bridging finance secured against our Melbourne house. They more than happily agreed to this, and so we found ourselves pre-approved for briding finance which would enable us to put in an offer on properties in Brisbane without worrying too much about the sale down in Melbourne.

Well the trip to Brisbane went ahead, and had been preceeded by a good deal of internet research so we had a series of favourite properties, and appointments with various agents to have a look. Our region of interest was defined by distance from the school we intended to send the kids to, and the road with the reputation as the worst peak hour traffic problem in Australia - the Ipswich Motorway. My view was that we needed to be on the same side of the Motorway as the school was - which meant we were looking in suburbs to the south. Redbank Plains, Bellbird Park, and Camira were therefore all under consideration. Other suburbs like Collingwood Park carried dire warnings from our Queensland family - and although I suspected they were being a little mellodramatic, we decided to stay away. And then there was the outer ring of suburbs slightly further away but still in the scope - Springfield, Springfield Lakes, Augustine Heights and Brookwater. Curiously, after looking at literally hundreds of houses on line, all our favourites turned out to be in the same suburb - Springfield Lakes. So compelling had these places looked, that we drove up the Newell Highway at the start of November almost convinced that we would be moving to Springfield Lakes.

Unfortunately, within 24 hours, that ideal seemed in tatters. We drove into Springfield Lakes for the first time on Sunday afternoon get get the lie of the land, and we were stunned by the tiny blocks, narrow streets, and congested lifestyle of the place. We drove about and found our preferred houses, all squished into the back-blocks of the area, and felt genuine concern about the lack of space. Although - to be fair - there were a few exceptions here and there - places with a bit more room, and our pre-trip absolute favourite house turned out to be one of them. So - maybe it was not a total loss. On the way back home, we drove into Augustine Heights, another suburb on our list. And surprisingly, it was a different world. Lots of space and plenty of land - a completely different feel. We immediately fell in love with Augustine Heights, which had the effect of being yet another nail in the coffin of Springfield Lakes, even before we had looked at a single house. In Augustine Heights was a display village, and we decided to have a look at one. The Jennings house we looked at was really lovely and we thought looked great. Next door was another ex-display house now for sale, and turned out to be handled by the same agent who was selling our favourite house in Springfield Lakes - so we could talk with her about this in the morning as well. Anyway, we headed back to Shell's sister's place amazed at how our entire thought processes had been turned around in 3 hours.

It gradually turned into a frustrating week. We never got to the point of loving Springfield Lakes, and the houses we had loved on the Internet were not quite as good in person. The various agents we talked with all had properties in Augustine Heights as well, and so we spent a lot of time shuffling between the suburbs and getting ideas. Soon, all our favourite houses were in Augustine Heights, and we even took the step of taking Shell's two sisters to our two favourites to see that they thought about picking between them. We were loving the area, and loving the houses, but just could not quite make one work for us. They were also a step more expensive than in Springfield Lakes, and that took us beyond our pre-approved limits. We dithered on.

Then came an absolute surprise. An agent we had written off, who had given us very little to consider when we had dedicated some time to him earlier in the week, rang me back and told me he had found "our house". Remarkably, it was back in Springfield Lakes. Reluctantly at first, we went and looked, but once there we could see no reason to do anything but love the place. It needed almost nothing done to it to make it ideal for us. And it was affordable. In the end we simply had to try to buy it. We made a good offer - which turned out to be quite a complicated thing to do - and then waited. We had planned to head back to Melbourne on Saturday afternoon, but as we got closer to lunch time, we still had not heard an answer. We range the agent to find out what was happening. First it seemed the owner was angling for more money. We could offer some more, but we did not want to offer as much as they were seeming to demand. Still the agent worked on. And in the end - the truth. The couple were not united about selling. One wanted to, the other did not. It is not a dispute where there is middle ground. In the end, after hours of debate, they took the house off the market and we lost our only hope.

It was a dark time - because it seemed like the week had been wasted. And yet, it seemed to me that we had been driving around the answer all week, but not acknowledging it. The first display house we looked at in Augustine Heights was beautiful - we had seen nothing better. Of course, we had disregarded it because we were looking for something established, not to build. But wouldn't it be worth a look? We drove back into Augustine Heights and again looked at the house. Yes - it was wonderful. Then we visited the land sales office. The lady was lovely, and happily gave us some information about the development. She then marked up a map and mentioned that certain blocks were on special this weekend. A builder had bought them on spec, failed to deliver, and had returned them. The developers wanted them gone! If she could sell them this weekend, there was a $50,000 discount on offer. Now - that sounded like a con! But, as we looked around, it did indeed seem like almost all land in the suburb was around $50k more than we were being offered this block for. Anyway, she said to us, just drive around and have a look and see if you fall in love with a particular block. Of course, that seemed rediculous as well! Land was land, and it seemed pretty vanilla in the development areas, even in Augustine Heights.

So we drove off, and to our great shock, came face to face with a block of land that we literally fell in love with. It was up on a hill, across the road from a beautiful park, and in a lovely section of the suburb. Beautiful.

We again delayed our departure, and spent Sunday trying to work out whether our dream land and our dream house would go together. Surprisingly, for quite some time it looked like they may not. It was surprising because we had become totally used to the idea that God was leading us through all this, and had closed all sorts of doors to bring us to this point. So - why would there now be a problem? It was this day that we got to know David, who would end up being very important in the entire process. His response was that the land was too steep and too small to hold such a big house. He had a point, I confess, and so I allowed him to talk us into considering an alternative block. But we didn't love that one, and in a sudden moment, I realised how we could do this and convince David to go along with our original plan.

By the end of the day, we had purchased the land, received our $50,000 discount, and asked David to get on with designing our house to go on it. We headed back to Melbourne early the next morning thinking we knew the answer. But there was still plenty to go on this journey...