A year ago the hubs and myself made the monumental (and now often regretted) decision to move to our nearby big town.
We love where we live, but the daily schlepp in two vehicles (we work different hours) into town and back home became a bit much after 3 years.

The woes of looking for a new home is really a journey that is difficult to explain. As with everything, we started off bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, enthusiastic about taking our Sunday afternoon to browse show houses and meet friendly real estate agents. Sunday afternoon show houses became mid-week views, and odd hour phone calls from estate agents telling us we have to come immediately – the house is very sought-after, and a quick written offer would secure our dream home.

We’ve learnt that there is very litle point in giving a budget to a real estate agent. Your estimated budget that you can afford is pointless. We have seen countless homes that is our “dream home” if we were only prepared to fork out up to double what we can actually afford.

Another harsh reality is that the house is really more often than not much nicer online than in real life. Online photographs don’t show the damp, the sad, sagging cupboards, the broken tiles, the flat roof (consisting of more patches than actual roof, yet still leaking), the really odd smells and the tiny kitchen. You have to love how faults are concealed with using gorgeous language: quaint (really really small); comfortable (really really old); large family home (was inhabited by a small army of children and you can see it); lots of potential (bottomless pit and you are probably going to overcapitalize) … and so on.

We are hopeful that our dream home really is out there, within our reasonable market-related budget, and soon to be inhabited by us. Watch this space for that update!