Sometime around mid 2013 my man and I threw the house buying idea into the ring. We had been living in asbestos rentals on the Sunshine Coast for nearly 7 years and decided that it would be nice to live somewhere that wasn't going to give us cancer.
As owners of a 40kg dog it was really difficult to find ANYWHERE to rent, let alone a rental that wasn't going to slowly kill us. So with the interest rate at an all time low we decided to pretend to shop for houses.
We went to a few inspections, I passionately fell in love with every house we entered and imagined myself cooking at their (pink) benches, or sunning myself in the small courtyard. We spent evenings online browsing realestate.com and debating the pros and con's of certain suburbs. I had a strict list of criteria, needs to be walking distance to shops, public transport, entertainment, not too far from the beach, close to a gym, open plan, light and airy, and the list went on. As residents of Maroochydore, a suburb of Queensland's Sunshine Coast we had been spoilt by our rental locations, and would struggle to meet my strict requirements outside of the area at an affordable price.
A house had popped up on an internet search as 'The cheapest house in Maroochydore'. I had dismissed it as it looked like a pile of s$#t (to be blaitantly honest). On a daily dog walk I headed up an unknown path and came across Maroochydore's cheapest house in the bricks and mortar (or weatherboard and bricks) and it was friggin awesome. I headed home and arranged an inspection.
Mr Science and I could not possible have mentally prepared ourselves to inspection. The house looked like a squat. Apparently it had suffered through a nasty divorce, where the parents had split and left their teenagers in charge. You couldn't see the floor for the dog piss, empty bottle of alcohol, bras, clothes, food packages and general rubbish. The poor house had been trashed.
Looking past the squalor we could see the very house we had been looking for. Mountain views, bus stop directly below, open plan, light airy and bright, walking distance to major shopping district and bars and a bike ride to the beach. Most importantly we were a 15 minute walk from our old rental, which cemented to us that we already enjoyed living in the area.
We stated organising our finances and rang the agent only to find out the home had gone under contract. With sad faces we moved on and decided to sign another lease on our rental. A few weeks later we got a call from the agent to say the contract had fallen through and we were welcome to put an offer in. I had secretly never given up hope of spending my breakfast morning sitting on the deck watching the sunrise over Mt. Coolum.
Long story short we had LOADS of drama with the mortgage broker, the AWFUL estate agent and the timing of the buy (don't buy a house at Christmas).
On christmas eve our sale settled and we began operation home owners!
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