We pressed on. We plotted and charted and planned and executed, with military precision. We retreated, took copious notes and conducted follow up research. We worked the phones, updated our strategies and plans and relaunched wave after wave of assault. We pressed on. The battle has not abated.
The search for a home is tiring and tedious and is about as exciting as listening to Red Simmons on ABC FM. It is boring but feels like war. At every turn from all those prospective homes open for the public to soil their floors, the damned crowds snake out of their front doors. Near every tacky real estate sign with “Open for Inspection” emblazoned across it, there are cars galore, reducing wide leafy streets to an ugly football-crowd like hooligans. I exaggerate, of course. The crowds, while much bigger than they used to be, were actually pleasant, and given the importance of the decisions about to be made, were commendably light hearted. I imagined them however, as ugly ogres out to drive prices up and spoil my day.
Take for example, this beautiful home we saw in Forrest Hill. It had everything we were looking for, save location. We thought we could work around the location bit (or overlook it, which was stupid) so stayed back to see how the auction went. The listed price was between $470K – $540K. Within 20-25 minutes the auction just shot through the roof and closed at $612K. You’d think that was the sort of price wild Hans from south of the Great Wall would throw about for places where their kinsmen have taken roots, places such as Glen Waverley or Box Hill. Maybe even Mount Waverely as it is only a short rickshaw ride away. This here was Forest Hill. It’s the suburb more associated with men and women dressed in long white robes to spend their days either on the bowling greens or the push a walker in a nursing home.
The experts may go on and on about what has fuelled the housing price boom and how circumstances have changed, about how the US sub-prime mortgage market is being ripped apart and taking the world down the gurgler with it, about how interest rates and the US effect would have bring the run-away housing prices to come to a screeching halt. For now at least, they cannot be more wrong. The demand has obviously remained robust and unshakable. That auction in Forest Hill attracted at least 150 persons. It has 4 active bidders and closed in excess of 21% of the asking price. Maybe the real estate agents were playing games and deliberately priced properties lower to attract attention and when the levels of interest are sufficiently heated up, they whip it up and push it to obscenely high closings. But they cant do this if there isn’t sufficient demand. The demand is fuelling the price escalation and whatever tricks these agents use were simply further elements if anything.
So we plough on and hope to fight another day. Come this weekend, we’d have to venture out to the battlefields to play out the familiar scenes. We have to press on. We will press on.
Ante 