The housing drama appears to be over for the next 12-18 months. We were successful in our application for the Peruvale home. That particular home is one that we saw about a month ago, went to the open house, got temporarily distracted by our dream house, and eventually applied for it only to discover that it had been leased. The lease fell through and we were the first to apply for it and we were successful. However, it wasn't without it's own drama.
When I called the realtor yesterday I was told that she was sick, didn't come into work and therefore wasn't able to process our application yet. As a result, the open house scheduled for 5pm that day was going to go ahead. That meant that, suddenly, instead of being the only applicants, we would have competition and likely quite a lot of it. Needless to say I was stunned that yet one more thing could go wrong with this whole process. The consequence of this was that we needed to make a decision. Our current temporary accommodation runs out on Thursday. The only other one we could find wasn't available until Sunday which meant that we'd have to stay in a hotel Thursday, Friday and Saturday. However, if we didn't confirm the booking Monday night we would lose it. So, we had to make a decision.
As I was on my way to meet Nadia after work I got a call from the realtor informing me that we got the property. I just about evaporated with relief. We go in on Wednesday to sign all the paperwork and take possession. Then it's just a matter of taking the day off of work on Thursday to move our stuff from storage into the new place.
The house itself is near a park and about 2 km from the kids school. It has a 4 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, double car garage, 2 living spaces, a pool table and a pool! And it's a little bit cheaper than the rent we were paying on the last place. It's a touch older and not within walking distance to the ocean, but it's in a nice neighborhood and it has a little character. We plan to make this house our home until we either move, the kids move out or we decide to buy a house.
There is one small catch though. Right before we saw this home come on the market again we had applied for another property. That property, however, isn't available until Dec.6. On our application we wrote a condition that we wanted it for Nov.17 but we would lease it for 18 months. Some realtors use what's called an option fee, which means that when you put in an application for a home you have to include one weeks rent, in this case $900. If you are successful in your application for the house the option fee is applied to your rent. If you are not successful it is returned to you. However, if you are successful and you decide not to proceed then you forfeit the option fee. So, in a strange twist of fate, we are now hoping that our application for that property is rejected and we get our option fee back. We're not too concerned about it since it was a very nice place, there were many people at the open house and the current tenants were still living there. Someone will make an offer with a more suitable date than ours and we'll be off the hook. It's a weird feeling suddenly hoping that our rental application is rejected.
We're just so relieved that it's over and we have somewhere that we can call home. However, this is Western Australia which means that it will take 5-7 business days for the phone and internet to be hooked up. So, it will likely be another week before we're fully operational again. Now we get to go shopping for a refrigerator and washer/dryer for our new home. Ah, the joys of renting.
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