The Joy of Real Estate Part 4

A couple of milestones have been achieved in the last few days:
  • We have settled on the place on Bunda St in Civic, so now own it; and
  • Today was the last day of open inspections for our place in Carwoola.

Bunda St.

There were of course some small excitement in the settlement event!  The first of these arose when we did our final inspection and found that a sliding drawer - which contained the recycling and garbage bins - didn't close fully and there appeared to be some doubt about the fans working properly in a few places.

The guy from the agency accompanying us thought these should be fixed but on the lawyers exchanging correspondence the legal position was more or less "that's now your problem".   So we settled and rocked around with a few items so that we can camp in the apartment if we wish.  The sliding cupboard worked properly every time: GOOD!   There was an enormous amount of lint in the fans' grills and on top of the drier.
I can't imagine where it came from, but removed it from the grills and the top of the drier and found that the extraction fans then worked OK.  Obviously something to look out for.

These mini-dramas caused me to recall selling our place in Bruce in 2006.
  • Settlement was supposed to happen some little time after we had left Australia and gone to New York. 
  • Shortly before it was due, I got an email from our lawyer saying that the other side had lost a document which was crucial to the process and they had to have the original.  GRRRRR!  
  • I was able to download a fresh copy, complete it (including getting it witnessed by a co-worker) and arrange with DHL - for $US55 - to courier it across to Australia, with delivery guaranteed in 4 days.
  • This included a tracking facility which I used and found it had left NYC on time.  Then the system showed that the document had ground to a halt as Homeland Security had pulled the whole container off-line for in depth inspection.  GRRRRRRR -RRRR!!!  DHL said that was nothing to do with them and I couldn't have a refund of my $55!
  • After a week's delay it finally made it to Canberra.

So anyway here is a shot from the apartment with SP2 and SIL1 looking out towards Mount Ainslie.
Another view, towards Black Mountain.
And our least favourite part of the scenery: the rooftop car park of the Canberra Centre.
Taking a glass half-full view: we found our way into the car park easily (and our park is close to the lifts); the small dog seemed to adjust to the apartment well; and we basically like the place.

Whiskers Creek

The first SNAFU was that the big FOR SALE sign had blown over in the gale of two days before.  We reported this to the agents who removed the sign completely!  They must have needed some shop-work on the sign because it reappeared before the open house.

We both found it hard to get motivated to tidy the place up for the final open house.  However we did what was needed and bolted.

Our agent rang afterwards and reported that 7 groups had visited including one repeater.  Overall he was still encouraged.  I think we have had over 40 groups visit at least once, which was a good outcome.  The agent reckons that when EOIs close on Wednesday there will be at least one solid offer and perhaps more.  We shall see.

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