Project New Home: Homes Viewed = 16

With no real hits from either Domain or RealEstate.com.au early on Friday, we thought we would have a weekend's break from house hunting. Luckily, late yesterday afternoon, I checked both websites again, and up came 2 properties for inspection.

The first was in Marsfield, which was on the same street as one of the first properties we ever inspected. In fact, this property and the one we inspected previously were separated by only 1 large complex.

The townhouse was at the very back of complex, and it was on the end of a row of townhouses which meant it shared only 1 common wall with a neighbouring townhouse. On the other side of the townhouse was a small grassy reserve which was common property.

The townhouse had 2 levels, and the downstairs level had a generous sized living / dining room and a decent sized kitchen, which had a nice nook for a laundry attached. The room flowed out to a small but tidy courtyard with a lovely little garden patch. There was also a toilet just inside the entrance to service downstairs.

Upstairs, there were 3 good sized bedrooms, with a nice sized bathroom as well. The master bedroom was the only one with a built in wardrobe. And it had a rusty old air conditioning unit that has seen better days. The walls all looked like they had a new lick of paint, and the carpet felt quite new. The bathroom didn't look that bad either.

Neither Jonathan and I thought very much of this property on paper, but we were impressed with the size and condition of the townhouse once we had inspected it. The agent was very keen to see people interested in the property, and told us that if we were super keen, we should make an offer, and the owner is in such a hurry to sell that we could even offer up to $20K lower than the asking price!

Jonathan and I worked out that we would probably need to spend around $30K to $50K to pretty up the place - get rid of the air conditioning unit, reglaze all the windows, repaint the whole place after all the hooks have been removed from the walls, maybe a new kitchen, and tidy up the laundry. Even then, the townhouse would have been bought at a good price.

We drove to the second property, in Denistone. Although we were a bit early, there was already another family there waiting for the same agent. The thing that struck us first was that the villa was in a small complex, that looked like it could have been a retirement village once upon a time ago. The villas look like they were lifted straight from the set of Blast From The Past!

Once inside, we were transported straight to the modern day. The interior had at one point been gutted and totally renovated by the current owners, with gorgeous floor boards, state of the art kitchen, and a professional paint job. The whole place screamed "class" and "elegance", and everything was well maintained and gorgeous.

There are 3 bedrooms in this villa, all quite spacious. Built in wardrobe in master bedroom only, but you'd expect that from a villa that was over 40 years old. The owners must have put that in in the last decade or so - it looked quite new. The bathroom and the toilet were separated, which was great.

The living space and the dining space were quite adequate, and the open plan kitchen was GORGEOUS! State of the art appliances, huge walk in pantry, loads of bench space - basically, my perfect kitchen!

The backyard was lovely too. The yard wrapped around the back of the villa, with one side paved for entertaining and the rest turfed with low maintenance grass. Just the right amount of grass for the littlies and not so much that Jonathan wouldn't mind having to mow every now and again.

High fences meant that intruding neighbours would find it hard to peep over the fence to spy on the backyard, one side of which shared a fence with the car park of the local Latter Day Saints' church.

We loved it. We really loved it. We loved it so much we spent 20 minutes looking at the property in fine detail, and then spent 10 minutes talking to the agent about the property. We loved it so much that we asked him to send us the contract straight away, and told him that we would be keen to inspect the property again with my parents tomorrow if we are able to tee up a time that would suit them.

After bidding the agent farewell, Jonathan and I drove around the block for a bit to find out what amenities are close by. We found the local Catholic primary school, the bus stops, and a park / reserve area not far from the villa. We paid a trip to Top Ryde Shopping Centre as well, which really wasn't that far away from the villa.

We spent most of the afternoon talking about both properties, neither of which we held much hope for at the beginning of the day. Yet here we were, impressed with both and debating which one we liked better! In the end, the villa at Denistone won the day - because it was a "move in straight away with nothing to fix", as opposed to "there are a few things we must fix before we move in" at Marsfield.

Once home, we looked at the My School website to see if Denistone was within the catchment area for the high schools we wanted to send the kids to. And Denistone was definitely in the catchment area. With this information, we rang my parents and arranged a time for them to come with us for another inspection. The last piece of the puzzle fell into place with the agent also available at the time we wanted.

Super super super excited now! We are so close!!! Stay tuned!