For everything there is a season
Well, it looks like the credit crunch has bitten and it's time to sell the house.
We *could* remain here for another six months or so by dint of some *very* fancy financial footwork, but in the end there wouldn't be a lot of point to it. It certainly wouldn't be particularly profitable, which was kind of the original reason for buying this place.
So it's going on the market, probably next week.
Said market itself is not overly great for sellers at the moment, even in this particular little real estate hotbed, and winter particularly isn't the best time to be selling what is a very summer-based house (lots of large windows etc). Still, the banks are getting antsy so it's time to consolidate things, pay the tab, and walk away with the winnings until interest rates calm down a little.
However, there are compensations.
One of these is that even in the current very tight accommodation situation here in Perth, it's still quite possible to find good places if you have the dosh, like for example if you've just sold a house. And there are advantages to living on the actual same side of the continent to the town you're trying to find a new place in, as wasn't the case last time.
I've decided that the central city itself is a good place to start, especially if the next year or three are going to involve going back to work at white-collar jobs. Being within walking distance of work, shopping, food halls, cinemas, restaurants, the State library, a TAFE campus, and a whole bunch of specialty shops and service providers (including some of the largest bookshops for a thousand miles) is not only going to save on fuel costs, it's going to be a massive jump in lifestyle convenience. The current house and suburb might be fairly 'nice', but they're situated in a near-total cultural wasteland with minimal infrastructure.
I've still got boxes of books I never got around to unpacking after the last move :)
We *could* remain here for another six months or so by dint of some *very* fancy financial footwork, but in the end there wouldn't be a lot of point to it. It certainly wouldn't be particularly profitable, which was kind of the original reason for buying this place.
So it's going on the market, probably next week.
Said market itself is not overly great for sellers at the moment, even in this particular little real estate hotbed, and winter particularly isn't the best time to be selling what is a very summer-based house (lots of large windows etc). Still, the banks are getting antsy so it's time to consolidate things, pay the tab, and walk away with the winnings until interest rates calm down a little.
However, there are compensations.
One of these is that even in the current very tight accommodation situation here in Perth, it's still quite possible to find good places if you have the dosh, like for example if you've just sold a house. And there are advantages to living on the actual same side of the continent to the town you're trying to find a new place in, as wasn't the case last time.
I've decided that the central city itself is a good place to start, especially if the next year or three are going to involve going back to work at white-collar jobs. Being within walking distance of work, shopping, food halls, cinemas, restaurants, the State library, a TAFE campus, and a whole bunch of specialty shops and service providers (including some of the largest bookshops for a thousand miles) is not only going to save on fuel costs, it's going to be a massive jump in lifestyle convenience. The current house and suburb might be fairly 'nice', but they're situated in a near-total cultural wasteland with minimal infrastructure.
I've still got boxes of books I never got around to unpacking after the last move :)