Finance was confirmed today. I've been sitting on this for like 5 weeks now - I've been on knife's edge in terms of getting finance; cautiously optimistic but equally terrified. I had already reached my max borrowing limit and had to do some financial gymnastics to even squeeze this in (cancelling credit cards etc). According to my original plan, I was going to wait until the next financial year before buying another - my income is due to go up in my next tax return. The timing worked out perfectly because AMP announced they were tightening serviceability literally 2 days after I submitted my application - you better believe this almost gave me a heart attack considering how tight things were already. Anyway, while casually browsing one day, this came up, and it was too hard to refuse despite my financial situation...I just had to give it a go:
http://bit.ly/1QNWqCt
It ticked all the right boxes:
Anyway going back to the day I found it - I had been browsing Realestate.com.au all day (I don't know why, since I didn't even have any money), and this must have just come up...just a few minutes past 5pm. I call the agency and they had closed for the day, and the agent's name was not on the listing - it was just the company's generic contact details (they didn't fix this until Monday). So instead of waiting until the next day, I did some Google-fu and hunted down the agent, called him directly while he was on his way home and locked it in.
Now it's not in my favourite part of Runcorn - the pocket around Warrigal Rd, just opposite Eight Mile Plains is the best part, but hey for this price I won't complain.
I'm so thrilled - all it needs is a paint job, maybe some new carpet, and it's ready to go.
http://bit.ly/1QNWqCt
It ticked all the right boxes:
- This particular street is wedged between three very highly sought after suburbs - Stretton, Calamvale, and Sunnybank Hills are literally across the street.
- The purchase price is pretty much what you'd expect to pay for a townhouse in that area, except...I get land!
- Generally at this price, the house is basically ready to be bulldozed. This one however belonged to an old lady who had it for nearly 40 years and it's in a fantastic condition. The bathroom and kitchen have recently been renovated too (within the last 10 years?). So the price basically reflected just the land itself, except I have a great house that I can rent out until I figure out what I want to do with it.
- Even if the house was a write-off, it would have still been considered cheap - I've looked around and there are similarly sized blocks for roughly the same or higher prices, in worse parts of Runcorn.
- It's a few hundred metres from the local shops, IGA etc, and 800m from Sunnybank Hills Shoppingtown (which is huge).
- The bus that takes you directly to Garden City and then the CBD is like a 200m walk.
- It's in a nice quiet cul de sac, and it's not surrounded by oceans of townhouses like so many parts of Runcorn are.
- Half the street only opened up within the last decade or so I think, so there are a lot of new houses down the road. This is sort of a "worse house in the best street" type deal.
- It's a small block but the dimensions are good. The blocks across the road are the same size but super skinny - hard to do anything with.
Anyway going back to the day I found it - I had been browsing Realestate.com.au all day (I don't know why, since I didn't even have any money), and this must have just come up...just a few minutes past 5pm. I call the agency and they had closed for the day, and the agent's name was not on the listing - it was just the company's generic contact details (they didn't fix this until Monday). So instead of waiting until the next day, I did some Google-fu and hunted down the agent, called him directly while he was on his way home and locked it in.
Now it's not in my favourite part of Runcorn - the pocket around Warrigal Rd, just opposite Eight Mile Plains is the best part, but hey for this price I won't complain.
I'm so thrilled - all it needs is a paint job, maybe some new carpet, and it's ready to go.
Last edited:
