An update and some observations.
We are still looking for somewhere to buy. But at least the kids are bedded down in schools.
We have more or less decided on one of two areas. Either Narrabundah or Queanbeyan. We have a budget of around $450.
In Narrabundah, we get a very dodgy house (3 bedroom but livable) but with a lot of room for capital growth, and fairly solid rental returns.
In Queanbeyan, we can get a very livable house, (4 bedroom and ensuite or within 3/4 blocks of mainstreet) but slightly less capital growth. Although there does seem the odd opportunity to buy the 'worst house in the best street' with some very large disparities between houses within close proximity to each other.
We have made a couple of offers and I have had a couple of funny/odd things happen.
Firstly we put in an offer (just fishing) of $395k on a house listed at $440. That offer was rejected, and we put in another offer of $420k (realistic). However the agent this time sort of seemed like he wasn't interested at all. Just said too low and left it at that - no counter offers, no call back, nothing. We would probably go a little higher, but the agent is making it really difficult to negotiate - by not being interested! The agent is the owner of the real estate business and the house is still on the market.
We put another offer in on a house that we felt was priced realistically (no fishing offers). We offered $395k for the house listed at $399k. But it was sight unseen (although we were happy with the due diligence). However this time the agent rejected the offer because we hadn't looked at the house and she wouldn't accept our standard condition of pending building/pest report. I was actually willing to acccept the vendors building report which was only completed in May, but she wouldn't allow that either. I always thought money was money, but I guess in this case it wasn't. To be fair, the house is now under offer.
I rang Jason at Maxwell RE, who was very pragmatic and provided some good advice regarding purchasing. And we will still keep looking. We do have a couple of auctions coming up, but I always bid low at auctions and would be loathe to buy at one - hoping to ge them passed in and go from there.