Project New Home: 2nd Inspection Time!

So, after our chat with Dad and Mum yesterday and last night, a second inspection has now been arranged for my folks to check out the third property - the villa from Saturday's inspections.

Dad and Mum went to have a look at the property on their own yesterday, and we had dinner with them last night to receive the verdict.

Dad rightly gave us all the "flaws" first - we needed them to pick apart the property for us, so we didn't mind that they had a small list of "flaws" to tell us.

First and foremost, this property is on a main road. This fact has been niggling Jonathan and I too, and while the villa is gorgeous, it will always be on a main road.

Because it is on a main road, we may have a lot of issues going in and coming out of our driveway. And when we have guests, they will have to park on the side streets and walk a short walk to our front door. If Jonathan and I were to have my family over for lunch or dinner or something, which will involve 3 families coming from 3 different locations in 3 cars, at least 2 of the cars will have to park on the side street. There is only room for 1 other car to park in the complex, which will be reserved for Dad and Mum.

Other small issues that Dad and Mum saw included flimsy windows and the air conditioning being in the main living room only. Being very security conscious, and with the property being on a main road, Dad and Mum were wary of how flimsy the windows were. And with summer approaching, and the Speedy bump increasing in size, Dad and Mum were worried that the single air conditioning unit might not be able to stave away the heat.

After all the concerns were noted, Dad and Mum said if we could deal with everything - and mainly if we could deal with the property being on a very busy main road, then it would be worthwhile to make an offer. They liked the property for a lot of things too, such as the space and the size of the rooms, and that it was quite new and in a good area. With everything in mind, Jonathan and I talked about it some more after dinner, and decided to make an offer today.

We called the agent first thing in the morning and made an offer. The agent told us that we were the 6th party to make an offer, and our initial offer was the lowest of the 6. As we had never made an offer on a property before, we asked the agent to give us an indication of the range we hope to be playing in. The agent was quite cagey - around this point, I started to feel uncomfortable about dealing with him - and told us that we should make a much higher offer if we want to be in the game. Quickly, Jonathan and I decided to substantially increase our offer, which was still in our price range, but was now at the higher end of what we want to pay for this property.

The agent continued to make me feel uncomfortable, by asking if we would be willing to make an offer even higher than our revised offer. I asked if he could tell me why, and he told us that we were now at the higher end of the offers he'd received, but not the best offer by any means. He kept saying things like "You're around the 2nd highest offer", "I won't be taking your offer to the vendor because it's not the highest offer", and asking "Are you sure this is your final and best offer?", which I felt was him being extremely aggressive and pushy. So I became defensive and told him that our revised offer was all we are offering, for now, since we have no way of knowing if he was telling the truth about there being 5 other offers.

The agent at this point back-pedalled a bit and told us that we were definitely the 2nd highest offer. Then he did something which made me think even less of him - he said that he knew we were stretching and implied that he didn't think we would be able to make a higher offer. How patronising! At that point, with Jonathan's total support, I dug my heels in and told him that our revised offer was our best and final offer, and that I would email him that figure to confirm our offer.

Even via email, the agent was still trying to get us to up our offer. Since he was so pushy, and I was now tired of dealing with him, we confirmed it was our best and final offer.

Let's see how this one pans out!

Updated on September 10

Jonathan and I have heard nothing from the agent. The property has been taken off Domain. We can only assume we missed out. Oh well. We weren't totally enamoured with the property. Ultimately, the villa IS on a main road, it will always be on a main road, and the main road will never be anything less than a main road. Truth be told, the main road is just going to get busier in the future.

We've found 2 properties to inspect this coming weekend, so our search continues!