What do you think of this?

[stevie_sloth]

THIS is my dream home. It is perfect for everything my partner and I need, in terms of practicalities AND that "feeling" I need in order to be blissfully happy in a property. Ahhhhh *basking in the glow of property-love*

http://www.realestate.com.au/property-unit-qld-mermaid+waters-109075316

Tragically, however, right now it is priced at $370,000. This is too high for us. We have not sold our own place yet, but based on other similar property sales in our area, we would expect to get around $320,000 and HOPE to get $330,000 - $340,000 at the most.

Does anyone here have any opinion (educated or not, lol) on whether the current price of $370,000 for this beloved property of our's is reasonable? I think it's at the high end for the street...Duet Drive is considered to be a bit of an undesirable street. We have never liked it, however this particular block is within the first third of the street. Any further and it begins to feel like you're walking forever (we don't drive). Also you tend to get a lot of cars parked all over the nature strips, and not so nice looking, very cheap rental properties with tenants that do not care about looking after them.

Apparently the median unit price for Mermaid Waters is $275,000 (or thereabouts). So obviously this is significantly higher than that, but that result is also skewed by the many expensive units in the better streets of that suburb as well as (mostly) by the large number of incredibly cheap and small units in the suburb (which is a large suburb).

In our experience, water-side properties in this street go for around $330,000 - $350,000. Non water-side maybe $270,000 - $320,000, depending how nice they are.

Other streets nearby (that don't have the "Duet Drive stigma"), water-side properties go for around $360,000+. But not always.

Any thoughts?

Edit - I also do not care who sees this post, like the agent or sellers or the property we love. I don't care who knows we love it. We WOULD pay the full asking price if we could. We don't care. We just WANT IT. So...yep. lol

 

[kittykat]

The great thing about real estate is that a property is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

It looks like you've done your research, but don't let that median price fool you. Like you said, medians are easily skewed.

Personally, I'd offer about $340k and see what happens.

 

[stevie_sloth]

Yeah, $340k is maybe what it might end up going for...

I forgot to add...a property in a street 1 block over (considered a better street), not on the waterside of the street, was originally asking $430,000 a year ago. 3 bedrooms, 2 storeys, separate laundry, 3 bathrooms, open plan kitchen and living, separate open dining area, 2 courtyards (front and back). It was in a complex of about 8 units but was more like a house.

It sold finally after a year for $330,000. This is INCREDIBLY cheap for this street and also for how large the property was. And considering they were asking $430,000 initially.

It DID need a lot of work, but structurally it was good. The only work you would've needed to do was cosmetic.

 

[wylie]

Have you decided what your plan is... sell and rent somewhere whilst sitting with a pot of cash ready to go in hard and try to get a really good buy?

I believe moving twice will be a PITA but having cash ready will mean you can move quickly and grab one of the bargains like the one you outlined above.

If you sell quickly, who knows whether a cash unconditional offer with a short settlement on the one you have fallen in love with might be accepted?

 

[kittykat]

Yeah, $340k is maybe what it might end up going for...

I forgot to add...a property in a street 1 block over (considered a better street), not on the waterside of the street, was originally asking $430,000 a year ago. 3 bedrooms, 2 storeys, separate laundry, 3 bathrooms, open plan kitchen and living, separate open dining area, 2 courtyards (front and back). It was in a complex of about 8 units but was more like a house.

It sold finally after a year for $330,000. This is INCREDIBLY cheap for this street and also for how large the property was. And considering they were asking $430,000 initially.

It DID need a lot of work, but structurally it was good. The only work you would've needed to do was cosmetic.

Ouch. They must have been extremely motivated to let it go for that. I wonder why the huge drop? Crazy.

 

[stevie_sloth]

I know. It is indeed crazy. Maybe the sellers WENT crazy after waiting for a year and just had to sell finally. Took what they could.

Wylie, yep, our plan is to list our property, see what happens in terms of offers...if we get anything above $330,000 we'll take it. Anything below, we're not sure...

We calculated if we got $330,000 for our's, we would be left with around $319,000 net (after agent's fees and legals).

And for any offer we made on a new property, we'd need to add on about $10,000 or slightly above, for stamp duty and the small legal costs incurred to buy.

Ideally of course, we would want more than that ($340,000 - $350,000 would be amazing), but it's just not gonna happen these days. A place in our block sold after 3 weeks for $300,000. Another place directly above us has been sitting for almost a year at $325,000. The place that sold quickly is slightly smaller than our's but nicer in terms of the fact it's an end corner unit, with much more light / windows, a more spacious layout. The one above us that is unsold is identical to our place, but with smaller balconies.

Also ideally, we wouldn't want to rent, but realistically this will probably happen. Unless we somehow managed to get our dream home of course.

Otherwise, I wouldn't mind renting as long as it was only TEMPORARY. It'd only cost us $2,000 to move each time, and that's a small price to pay to actually have SOLD finally and be in a position NOT to miss out again on a property we could really be happy living in.

 

[vaughan]

I also do not care who sees this post, like the agent or sellers or the property we love. I don't care who knows we love it. We WOULD pay the full asking price if we could. We don't care. We just WANT IT. So...yep. lol

That gave me a good chuckle. All the best, I hope you can get it.

Have you looked at getting equity out of your current properties to assist with the purchase? Maybe even buy this new place and rent it out for a while to make the numbers work...

 

[stevie_sloth]

That gave me a good chuckle. All the best, I hope you can get it.

Have you looked at getting equity out of your current properties to assist with the purchase? Maybe even buy this new place and rent it out for a while to make the numbers work...

Oh yeah...we have indeed looked into this.

The only property we own is our current home. We paid $337,000 in May 2008. We could only HOPE to get this again when we sell, but it doesn't look good based on the market here and other sales of similar / almost identical properties in the area.

We borrowed the whole amount, including legals, when we purchased (my mum is the lender to me and my partner).

Right now we still owe $287,000. So...our equity pretty much sucks!

The rent we would get from our current property is about $330-$340 a week. The rent we could get from our dream property would be about $360-$380.

My mum could not afford to lend us any more money unless we sold our current place first to pay her back that original loan.

If we borrowed money through an official lender AND kept paying my mum back, the total repayments we worked out would come to almost double my weekly income and almost the entire of my partner's income. The rent would help, but not enough. We do not have sufficient back-up savings to keep us afloat while owning 2 properties and not getting enough back.

But that's ok.

Oh, and glad I produced a chuckle! Heheh.

 

[wylie]

Otherwise, I wouldn't mind renting as long as it was only TEMPORARY. It'd only cost us $2,000 to move each time, and that's a small price to pay to actually have SOLD finally and be in a position NOT to miss out again on a property we could really be happy living in.

I know from previous threads that you have a LOT of "stuff" but $2000 sounds crazily expensive to move locally. We moved a whole houseful for $600 last time we moved. Even allowing $1000 now, surely you could save at least $2000 just on moving (assuming you have to move twice).

 

[stevie_sloth]

Wow! $600? Really? Which company did you go through to move for that price? Did that include insurance?

We went through Allied Pickfords the last time, which cost us $2,000. That included $1,000 in insurance.

We got 3 other quotes, and they were the cheapest. One quoted upwards of $4,500 (incl. insurance), another was around $3,000 and another was $6,000!

I'm not quite sure why moving is so expensive for us...we thought $2,000 was fairly cheap.

I know whenever the movers come to do the quote, they're quite surprised by how much stuff we have, and when they come back to actually move everything, the guys are SHOCKED (unpleasantly) but how much there is to do. The quoting people always understimate it. But really, we live in a 2 bedroom apartment now. Surely people moving from a 4-5 bedroom house would have a heap more stuff than us!

When we moved from Melbourne to the Gold Coast, it cost over $10,000. Eep.

 

[wylie]

We've used Mini Movers for each move we've made. We have and/or had a LOT of furniture. We just paid by the hour and got the biggest truck. We packed and boxed everything. They just picked it up and put it in the truck and out the other end.

 

[Player]

I know from previous threads that you have a LOT of "stuff" but $2000 sounds crazily expensive to move locally. We moved a whole houseful for $600 last time we moved. Even allowing $1000 now, surely you could save at least $2000 just on moving (assuming you have to move twice).

That's an insane price. We paid $4500 to move nearly 2000 km inclusive of insurance and we had a lot. Five bedroom house and office packed in Melbourne and all the acccompaniments. Much of my mum's stuff included.

Stevie, you have already acknowledgedd the reputation of the street, which IMHO, is very unlikely to change anytime soon. Also, is this place directly west facing to water? If so, you are going to fry and may indeed wish you had the pool that you allude to in your strata fees thread and how you don't use it. Perhaps also spend some night time due diligence in the street and the neighbourhood near this dream unit to see what indeed you may be in for. I suggest Fri night and Sat night maybe even 4.00 am or so on Sun morning.

By the way, if you purchased in 2008, knock off at least 20 % of your purchase price to get a reasonable approximate idea of where you may need to pitch your unit.

You've had sound opinion above. Sell yours first and see what the kitty delivers. You may find yourself in upside down equity. It is what it is on the coast right now. If things aren't at bottom yet, we are nearly there...............however, it will be unlikely to change significantly to the upside for another two years or so and peak a year or so before the Comm Games. That may be the time to exit again as the cycle repeats.

 

[stevie_sloth]

Yes, true.

Our issue is we have wanted to move pretty much since we bought. It was a major emotional mistake for us to buy here. We have never been happy, and blah blah blah.

We just cannot stand living here another 2 years...we need to start living our life and actually be happy again. We have not been happy.

Anyway, mini movers...they supply the boxes and you pack them and they load and unload, right? And obviously you unpack. We got a quote from them too, but we were put off by having to pack everything up ourselves, and they said if WE packed them, we would not be covered by insurance. If THEY packed it and thus it was covered by insurance, it was going to be over $4,000. So we didn't go with them. We wanted to get them to pick up our boxes afterwards actually, but obviously they only take back (and pay for) their own boxes.

In 2008 when we bought, the price was originally $357,000 but then went down to $337,000, which we paid.

Another property in our building that sold late last year got $335,000. So at least that's not 20% down on what we paid I guess...

In terms of the street, you are completely right about checking it out at night. It seems that it's further down the street and only certain blocks that are questionable, and APPARENTLY the street has improved over the past couple of years, but even so.

It'd be a horrible thing to move into our dream home and then discover we couldn't stay there and have a happy, peaceful life because of feral neighbours or violence or burglaries or something.

 

[JWR]

Perhaps post your house for sale and we will see if its at its best - presentation wise/pictures/writing etc... and also we will see if you are dreaming with your expectations... which I believe you are (but hope I am wrong!)

If you didn't like this one from Day 1 what makes you think the next one will be different? Have you considered a 10-15 min drive into suburbia to live in a nice house with no strata and more space? Might ease the stress a little of city life but still be close by.

 

[stevie_sloth]

We don't drive, and transport out to the in-land suburbs is a bit lacking.

But besides that, I KNOW I would be happy in this "dream property". I love it. I am in love with it. It feels beautiful being there. I didn't want to leave after the inspection. The area is where I was always happy being.

When we bought our current place, I didn't want to move. I loved our old (rented) place, but we wanted to buy something and not rent forever. I did not buy out of love. I bought because it was all we could afford and it wasn't bad. Quite nice. It did not have the "feeling" which I now know is SO important to me in terms of being happy living in a property. I switched my heart off when we bought there. It was the biggest emotional mistake of my life and I have been unhappy ever since.

Oh, and yes, when we list our place I will post here. We need to neaten things up, try and put some things into storage to de-clutter. We have SO much stuff. That's the main problem with trying to sell our place. Just all the stuff. It makes it look very dark and cramped even though the space is not small.

 

[wylie]

Anyway, mini movers...they supply the boxes and you pack them and they load and unload, right? And obviously you unpack. We got a quote from them too, but we were put off by having to pack everything up ourselves, and they said if WE packed them, we would not be covered by insurance. If THEY packed it and thus it was covered by insurance, it was going to be over $4,000. So we didn't go with them. We wanted to get them to pick up our boxes afterwards actually, but obviously they only take back (and pay for) their own boxes.

We got our boxes for free from bottle shops, supermarkets, taped them up, packed them up and sat them in our house until we were done. We loaded our own cars (I know you don't have a car, but you might have a friend with a car). You will have to get from the old to the new house somehow to be there when they arrive.

Insurance for what? Anything really valuable, take yourself. What could be broken that would warrant that cost?

If you are serious about needing to save money, this is one way to save at least $2K. It means hard work and days spent packing. The time you spend doing this is money down the drain if you pay someone else to do it. I did this with three little kids in order to save a few thousand.

My thoughts are that you need to pack up everything that you don't use on a daily basis, store the boxes neatly in your garage or sweet talk a friend so you can store them off-site. Put you place on the market with as little "stuff" as you can. Dress the second bedroom with a bed (milk crates, old bit of ply and dress it like it is a bed - or buy a bed for $20 off gumtree). It can be as crappy as anything, but once you hide it with a doona and pillows, voila! it looks like an inviting second bedroom. Side table and lamp. I'm assuming this is the "music room" where you have said previously that you have a LOT of stuff. That all needs to go and you need to present it as a bedroom.

Sell up, put your money safely away, rent somewhere cheap as chips whilst you sit and pounce on something you can put a "cash unconditional" contract on. If you are as unhappy as you say in your current place, how much worse can it be to live in a rented place while you shop for the new place?

That way, you might just score something you really like for a good price.

One more thought. You have said before that you are very restricted by the fact that you don't drive or have a vehicle. Wouldn't it be sensible to imagine where else you could be happy if you did have a car or moped. That would open a whole raft of areas that are out of your "possible" areas now that you are restricted by having to be reliant totally on public transport. You might save money enough to buy two mopeds, or a small car and your lives will change again.

 

[stevie_sloth]

Yeah, we have considered buying a car. Thing is, we moved to the Gold Coast to live a sort of Gold Coast lifestyle, and that does not mean living out in the suburbs which could be anywhere in any state. And hey, what you say makes sense, but for me, nah. It’s not what I want.

Ah, so you need your own car for Mini Movers? I thought they transported it…what do they actually DO then? If you acquire the boxes yourself, pack then yourself, move them in a car yourself…then get to the new property and unpack them yourself, what are THEY doing?? Lol. Oh wait, they must move the furniture separate, right? The heavy stuff that you can’t possibly move yourself, or fit in a car? That must be it, yep.

We don’t know any friends with a car, believe it or not! And definitely no friends who would be willing to make the several hundred trips back and forth between properties to transport all the boxes. I think last time we had about 400+ boxes. Made it a HELL of a lot of fun having them all packed up the day before we moved too. We literally had a narrow walkway around our apartment and could barely see anything apart from boxes!

Insurance…we have a very valuable collection of records (LPs) and music memorabilia, as well as many pieces of antique furniture. Last time 2 lamps were broken and we were able to claim for them, which was good. It wasn’t worth the $1,000 insurance cost, mind you! I’d be happy without insurance I think, but my partner wouldn’t be. She would freak out that some boxes might go missing or the antique couch would be damaged and these things can’t be replaced…so at least with insurance, we’d get paid out, but…meh. It’s not a huge priority for me. The likelihood of these things happening is so low.

Anyway, in terms of us selling and putting things in storage, we don’t have a garage and none of our friends have either, or have any room to store anything (they are also in apartments they can’t fit into!), so we’d have to just pay to have storage off site at one of those places, Storage King, etc.

I agree that it’d be best to present the music room as a bedroom. We do have a spare bed (it’s currently in the tiny storage shed we have down in the car park, which is full of other things we can’t fit in the apartment), so we could use that. A proper bed! Lol. Problem is…what do we do about a computer and internet access then? I know it’s a luxury to have our “music room”, but we do need a computer and access to the internet for banking, emails, keeping up with the world! There is no room anywhere else in our place to put a computer desk / computer, etc.

My partner would freak out if she lost her music though. This is the problem. I am SO needing to move out and get into somewhere I am actually happy with, but she is REALLY needing to maintain some level of comfort while we are selling. Which I understand, but…it just makes it more difficult to sell, having bookshelves, guitars and a computer desk in what is supposed to be the spare bedroom.

Although maybe a compromise would be to set it up as a spare bedroom but put a much smaller computer desk (we do have one already, also downstairs in the tiny shed) in there so we can still have our basic computer and internet needs, if not all our music recording equipment. Eh? It would still look like a spare bedroom predominantly.

Also obviously once we sold, if we weren’t buying elsewhere at the same time, and thus renting, we would probably still need to keep the stuff we had in off site storage there while we rented, since renting a place large enough for ALL our stuff may waste money if it’s only temporary. Although…if it costs us $50 a week to have our stuff stored off site, maybe that $50 a week may as well be used to rent somewhere that IS big enough for us, so we could at least live more comfortably while renting?

We got our boxes for free from bottle shops, supermarkets, taped them up, packed them up and sat them in our house until we were done. We loaded our own cars (I know you don't have a car, but you might have a friend with a car). You will have to get from the old to the new house somehow to be there when they arrive.

Insurance for what? Anything really valuable, take yourself. What could be broken that would warrant that cost?

If you are serious about needing to save money, this is one way to save at least $2K. It means hard work and days spent packing. The time you spend doing this is money down the drain if you pay someone else to do it. I did this with three little kids in order to save a few thousand.

My thoughts are that you need to pack up everything that you don't use on a daily basis, store the boxes neatly in your garage or sweet talk a friend so you can store them off-site. Put you place on the market with as little "stuff" as you can. Dress the second bedroom with a bed (milk crates, old bit of ply and dress it like it is a bed - or buy a bed for $20 off gumtree). It can be as crappy as anything, but once you hide it with a doona and pillows, voila! it looks like an inviting second bedroom. Side table and lamp. I'm assuming this is the "music room" where you have said previously that you have a LOT of stuff. That all needs to go and you need to present it as a bedroom.

Sell up, put your money safely away, rent somewhere cheap as chips whilst you sit and pounce on something you can put a "cash unconditional" contract on. If you are as unhappy as you say in your current place, how much worse can it be to live in a rented place while you shop for the new place?

That way, you might just score something you really like for a good price.

One more thought. You have said before that you are very restricted by the fact that you don't drive or have a vehicle. Wouldn't it be sensible to imagine where else you could be happy if you did have a car or moped. That would open a whole raft of areas that are out of your "possible" areas now that you are restricted by having to be reliant totally on public transport. You might save money enough to buy two mopeds, or a small car and your lives will change again.

 

[stevie_sloth]

Oh, I forgot to mention, my partner doesn’t have a license and hasn’t had one since she was 22 and doesn’t want to drive. So…lol.

Shockingly, I am actually the more amenable one to changes and compromises here, and out of OUR stuff, MY stuff is about a 20th of her stuff. Yep!

 

[wylie]

Ah, so you need your own car for Mini Movers? I thought they transported it…what do they actually DO then?

No, you do NOT need a car. They will move everything for you but you cannot drive in their truck from one house to another so you need to be there to take delivery, so you will either get a taxi or a friend's vehicle. If you get a friend with a car to take you to the new place, you put valuables in the car with you.

You sound like you both want something better or different to make you each happy, but seriously, you don't sound like you will compromise on anything to make that happen.

You don't need recording equipment, surely, while trying to sell. What about hiring a laptop for a month so you can ditch the desk altogether. It is only a month (hopefully) while you are selling.

You have to compromise somewhere or you'll be still there in another twelve months. Does your partner WANT to move, or is this something driven by you?

 

[stevie_sloth]

Ahh yes, I see what you mean re the Mini Movers car thing. Yep. We'd be fine to jump in a cab to get there. It's not that far away from the 2 places.

In terms of the time taken to sell our place, if it was a month or even 2 months, we'd be ok to be without a lot of our stuff for that time. But we are wary because many similar places in this area take upwards of 9 months to sell. We would have issues living with not much stuff for that long obviously.

But yes, you're right - this move IS mostly being driven by me. My partner is very much wanting to move now too though. But it was me who was never happy and me who is MOST unhappy where we are. And as I said, it is also me who is more open to more compromises.

We have taken care of one other thing that was a bit of a worry to us when trying to sell and having open house inspections or private inspections - our cats. This is also a fear with having to rent. SO many ads for rentals say "sorry, no pets". We hope there are SOME that will allow our 2 indoor cats.

Anyway, for open homes and inspections, we would not be able to have the cats there at the apartment. They are strictly indoor only and cannot be let out. Obviously aside from people wandering around who may not want to see cats and litter trays and stuff around, the doors would all be open for light, air and ease of access to the people, so the cats would have to be shut in a room, and that's ok except there would need to be a litter box in that room and whenever anyone looked in it, they could escape.

So anyway, we have organised that when we sell, we will borrow from our regular cattery a large wire enclosure to put on our back balcony for the cats to be in. So at least that's something. We are difficult people in terms of what we want vs what we are comfortable doing and how much money we have, but we are trying (well, I am trying more).