How to not buy a house.

As most of you will know we have been trying hard to buy a house here in Napier (we've got to have somewhere to put all our impending house guests...) and so far it has just been so full of hilarious mishaps that i thought i'd share it with you as a comic tale of woo.

I'll start from the beginning -you might want to get a cuppa or something this could take a while....

8 weeks ago we found a house that we loved- 34 Morris street . It has some'issues' - namely that it was a corner plot and needed it's outside space sorted , it was only half renovated, oh and it was next door (literally) to Mclean Park stadium which is where a lot of international cricket games are played (AJ seemed to think this was a great plus no surprise) but it had a great feel to to it - a 1910 villa with high ceilings and huge living spaces. It was a tender offer auction so we duely put in our bid and waited for the outcome.

Outwardly we were very pragmatic - it was a project, a good investment but it didn't really matter if we didn't get it we told oursleves. Inwardly i'd already decided where the Christmas tree was going.

We got outbid - it was very disappointing, but we got over it.

Then about a month ago we went to an open home of a house on Mcdonald street -great old villa, that was going to auction. We walked in and just loved it - like the other one it was sort of half renovated, but it was on one of the best streets in Napier and had a much better garden and wasn't next door to a sports stadium. Anyway,on the estate agents leaflet the GV (goverment value) on the house was listed as a good $100k above our budget. So, knowing we couldn't afford it we sort of walked around for a bit, filled out our info and then left discussing how that would be just the sort of house we would buy as a second project when we had made some money. We forgot all about 37 mcdonald street .

Until last Saturday morning. The agent called AJ and asked him if he was going to the auction that afternoon, he said no, explained that it was way over our budget etc, but she said that she thought he should come anyway as the vendors had said they had to sell no matter what price they got and that she thought it could sell well under GV. We figured she was just trying to get people in the room, but AJ went along anyway to see what it went for (I was at work).

There was a phone bidder and one other in the room. After a few opening bids A.J made his bid, and the phone bidder and other bidder both shook their heads. The auctioneer pointed at Aj and said - 'highest bidder'. AJ just about soiled his pants at this point.

The house hadn't made reserve so wasn't sold, but AJ got ushered into a little glass room out the back where he was asked to put in his best price. He did that and then waited. And waited some more. He could see the vendors in another little glass room across the hall. They were clearly having an argument. By this stage i'd almost had a panic attack at work (he had called me during the auction). After a while the (in AJ's words "physho witch') estate agent came back and said the vendors were very upset and insulted by such a low offer when the house was clearly worth much more. AJ sat there in disbelief - he had only gone to the auction because she had told him to!

Anyway, eventually our offer was formally rejected and AJ went home in a fairly traumatised state.


Now by coincidence on that same day, we received an email from the solictors of the vendors of 34 Morris Street (the cricket stadium one we really liked but got outbid on) saying that the house had not been sold and that new offers were to be in by 4pm on Tuesday. So we forgot about the nasty auction experience and were very excited about the first house again.

Then on Monday the Mcdonald street pyscho witch (PW) agent called again and said that if we were to offer another $10,000 then the vendors would probably sell. Oh. My. God. This was potentially the house of our dreams for 90k less than the GV. I phoned my parents and they agreed that we could borrow the extra. Love you Ma and Pa.

So we checked out the house at the council to make sure it wasn't condemned or anything and put in the offer and waited for the response. By now it was tuesday and we only had until 4pm to make an offer on the other house -Morris street - so we told the PW that if we hadn't heard by 3.45pm then we would pull our offer. She snarled a bit but agreed she would get a quick answer.

At 3.50pm the phone rang. Despite the recommendations of the PW, their own lawyers and the bank , the vendors of mcdonald street changed their minds and had refused to sign such a low offer. Don't blame them really. Booo! What a waste of time.

So now we had 10 minutes to get across town to the other estate agents and put in a new offer on Morris street. We just made it. Two days of nail biting and trying not to think about how great my new cornishware tea set would look in the kitchen later we got the call. There was good news -we were the highest bidder, hoorah! And there was very bad news - one of the vendors (the husband of the divorcing couple) had decided he didn't want to sell. Double boo!

So that was my last 10 days in the real estate world. It's been emotional.

In other news, I was on holiday last week and in between failing to buy a house we managed to head down the coast towards Porangahau (about 1.5hrs south) to check out the beaches down there. Despite the crappy weather (the only time it has rained here in the last 3 weeks) it was ace to expore some new places - we went to 4 different beaches and didn't see a single other soul. Just us, Rusty, a flask of coffee and some sarnies. We saw lots of wildlife at the marine reserve area between aramoana and blackhead beaches and I found three huge, perfect paua shells which isn't as good as a buying a house but look very pretty on my windowsill.


xxx