Searching for a place to call Home

This week’s installment is about an adventure that took Jane and I across Sydney and to a final place that we didn’t expect to find ourselves…and this adventure was looking for a place to live. We had already decided to rent initially, so we were not looking for a family home for the next fifty years, but rather a reasonable place for a shorter period of time. We both work in the city so our criteria included close proximity to a train station and a price that would allow us to save a good amount for a future home purchase.

I live in the Inner West of Sydney while Jane has spent her whole life in Southern Sydney so we planned to look at some units between those areas. We compiled our list of destinations and inspection times the day before and were ready at the first place 10am Saturday armed with pen, paper and camera. This first unit was a modern one bedroom but we only had to be there a minute before knowing it wasn’t for us. We had toyed with the idea of a one bedroom unit and we probably could fit everything into a unit that size but we wanted to leave ourselves some space to move about. Also this particular place was more expensive than some other two bedroom units we had listed so we got back into the car and Jane navigated us to our next destination.

We inspected a couple of units in the inner south west suburb of Belmore and found some better value there. We looked at a very well priced unit which was not too bad. It had the two bedrooms as well as an internal laundry which is a must for me. (I have lived in places with external or shared laundries and it makes washing a lot less fun. Instead of being able to do the washing in my pajamas – at any time – one first must look somewhat presentable before going out to see if the machines are empty and then make sure ones clothes are in and out before the neighbour comes along and pulls out the clean items onto a dirty bench to make room for their own washing…no thank you). But I digress. We took an application form for that place before heading up the road to a unit which cost a bit more but really was very nice. It was clean with plenty of light and air, and on the ground floor of a well maintained small apartment block. This one also had an internal laundry and was a pleasant 800 metre walk from the station. Although we looked at a few others across the course of the day this one became the winner for the day.

So the next day Jane and I sat down to fill in the application forms for that second place we visited in Belmore. We also wrote a very gracious cover letter to soften up the agent and get him subliminally thinking that we were the best couple for that unit. And it worked surprisingly fast because by Tuesday afternoon we got an email to inform us that our application had been approved.

Now usually such news would be greeted with great joy but for a few reasons, including that we would need to be renting the unit for almost six weeks before we would be even moving into it, we began to wonder if we should sign up for the property. Part of the reason for us looking so early is that I am about to going away to run a work related course for young adults for a month so we have been trying to wrap up most of the planning and related decisions. All of a sudden what should have been very exciting became very stressful for both of us. We did not want to lose what was an excellent unit but nor did we want to make a hasty decision. In the end we added up the cost of holding the unit until we actually needed it and decided to let the place go and on top of that stop looking for places until we returned from our honeymoon in January. Both our parents are very happy to accommodate us for a few weeks, so in an instant a definite peace descended upon us both.