Nice People Thread Part 9 - and so it continues

Spirit_2

Generali wrote: »

Well we looked at 3 places today. One is out of our league for now, but it's good to know what you could get if you spent a little more, one was a dump but the third was well within budget and a very nice little place:

The photos don't do it justice actually but it's really nice. There's a sort of open plan kitchen, diner, sitting room downstairs with a laundry room and a biggish double garage and a bedroom with a en-suite.

Upstairs are 3 bedrooms (one with a big walk in wardrobe) and a bathroom plus a 'rumpus room', an upstairs sitting room really.

There's beggur all garden but at the top of the street is a gigantic park. It's got a cricket pitch, 2 rugby pitches, an AFL Oval and a soccer pitch. Plus a kids play park and 2 swimming pools which are open 6am - 7pm and are free for residents to use!

It'll sell for about $600k I reckon.

Thoughts.....?

I liked this house for the spacious airy look, but have no concept of what other properties would be like in that price bracket.

I looked at one other with the same agent and loved it....may be a fortune or terrible location????

http://www.domain.com.au/Property/For-Sale/House/NSW/Stanwell-Park/?adid=2010765479

Doozergirl

Generali wrote: »

Well we looked at 3 places today. One is out of our league for now, but it's good to know what you could get if you spent a little more, one was a dump but the third was well within budget and a very nice little place:

The photos don't do it justice actually but it's really nice. There's a sort of open plan kitchen, diner, sitting room downstairs with a laundry room and a biggish double garage and a bedroom with a en-suite.

Upstairs are 3 bedrooms (one with a big walk in wardrobe) and a bathroom plus a 'rumpus room', an upstairs sitting room really.

There's beggur all garden but at the top of the street is a gigantic park. It's got a cricket pitch, 2 rugby pitches, an AFL Oval and a soccer pitch. Plus a kids play park and 2 swimming pools which are open 6am - 7pm and are free for residents to use!

It'll sell for about $600k I reckon.

Thoughts.....?

Like

The photos look great. Australian houses always seem to be really practical. Proper laundry rooms and big garages

I don't think having a smaller garden is an issue, especially with your weather. When I was younger, I spent most of my time in the street. As kids get older, they can't get a good ride on a bicycle or have a good ball game in even a large garden - not unless you're able to refer to it as 'land'. Friends are the most important, even ones you've just met in the park. The park sounds amazing! Child heaven

neverdespairgirl

Generali wrote: »

It'll sell for about $600k I reckon.

Thoughts.....?

It's absolutely massive! I don't know how useful the upstairs space is, though - that large living room, with bedrooms leading off it, not much use if anyone's sleeping?

Generali

Spirit wrote: »

I liked this house for the spacious airy look, but have no concept of what other properties would be like in that price bracket.

I looked at one other with the same agent and loved it....may be a fortune or terrible location????

http://www.domain.com.au/Property/For-Sale/House/NSW/Stanwell-Park/?adid=2010765479

Stanwell Park is a beach suburb rather than a 5 minute drive so is considerably more expensive. That will go for something slightly under a million.

Doozergirl wrote: »

Like

The photos look great. Australian houses always seem to be really practical. Proper laundry rooms and big garages

I don't think having a smaller garden is an issue, especially with your weather. When I was younger, I spent most of my time in the street. As kids get older, they can't get a good ride on a bicycle or have a good ball game in even a large garden - not unless you're able to refer to it as 'land'. Friends are the most important, even ones you've just met in the park. The park sounds amazing! Child heaven

The house is quite small by Aussie standards! A separate laundry is very practical and useful. Especially one that's large enough to be a sewing room too.

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

It's absolutely massive! I don't know how useful the upstairs space is, though - that large living room, with bedrooms leading off it, not much use if anyone's sleeping?

The upstairs room would be used as a study/library. Perhaps also a play room although we'd most likely use the garage for that.

silvercar

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Ouch - scalding sounds painful! Hope he's OK.



Where's your home in Israel?

I've only come across the older sort - OH's grandparents' flat was built in the 1960s, in west Jerusalem, and had a basement shelter for the whole block of flats. OH's cousins also seem to have basement or groups-of-houses shelters, rather than an adapted room in the house / flat itself.

One of OH's cousins lives in Sderot, with her husband and 8 or 9 children (at the last count I made) and they make regular use of their street's air-raid shelter - Sderot is very close to the border with Gaza (less than a mile, I think) and has been the subject of regular rocket attacks for the last decade or so.

You disappeared for a time, and in that time we bought a holiday flat.

For about the last 10-20 years new builds have had to incorporate a safe room.

PasturesNew

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

It's absolutely massive! I don't know how useful the upstairs space is, though - that large living room, with bedrooms leading off it, not much use if anyone's sleeping?

IT depends on your lifestyle. If you're not noisy people and mostly the bedrooms are either empty (for guests), or most people have a lot of outside activities and are adults, then noise isn't an issue.

It's only an issue if there's an annoying screamer/laugher whose voice booms and bellows all the time and other people are not family (e.g. sharers/lodgers, etc).

michaels

Spirit wrote: »

...

Don't forget the don't quote.

Gen by UK standards you seem to be spending a very small amount on a home for someone in your family circumstances - would you not be better off renting for another year whilst rebuilding a deposit and then buying something more commensurate with your income rather than potentially moving again?

PasturesNew

Generali wrote: »

....

I like the layout there as it's flexible. I could see either keeping the ground floor bedroom for guests or a lodger, or using it myself and getting two lodgers upstairs with the "rumpus" being a 2nd living area for lodgers only.

There's plenty of space for separation

I think it's a shame the laundry and kitchen are at opposite corners though. Where laundry = utility there's all sorts of other use that could be made of the space for kitchen stuff.

At £350k it'd be way out of my budget though

In the UK the laundry would be turned into bedroom 2, the top/bottom would be separated into flats.... then two flats would be put on the market.

PasturesNew

Doozergirl wrote: »

I know I was away a while but have you guys seen this? I thought a few people might like it.
http://www.ukdataexplorer.com/census/eastofengland/

I set it to include Herts

I live in an area of virtually no ethnic diversity. I was surprised that over 70% of people in my area put their nationality as 'English' only. I put English and British with about 10% of my fellow townsfolk.

My passport says British on it, why would I not class myself as British? Being English only makes me shudder a bit. Is it just me?

I've only ever lived in areas that were 99.999% white. I think we had one person in 1000 who wasn't white when I was at school.

English/British - I don't know what I'd say, depends which word fell most easily off the tongue in a conversation - I am not aware of the differences between the two. To me, being British or English = the same thing. I've never given it a thought; don't care. Not racist, so not bothered which word I pick.

Generali

michaels wrote: »

Don't forget the don't quote.

Gen by UK standards you seem to be spending a very small amount on a home for someone in your family circumstances - would you not be better off renting for another year whilst rebuilding a deposit and then buying something more commensurate with your income rather than potentially moving again?

The plan is to buy this place, live there for something like 5 years whilst building the family finances up and then buy a piece of land and build something nice. The odd really good plot comes up in the area like this for example:

http://www.domain.com.au/Property/For-Sale/Vacant-land/NSW/Otford/?adid=2010640763

An acre is about 4,000m^2.

We'd then either rent out or sell the currently owned place depending on yield/price considerations at the time.

We're going to have to start finding school fees in 3 years time so I don't want to overextend things. Also, there's a lot of pressure building to get rid of stamp duty over here which will make the process of buying and selling much cheaper.