Moving House...

We finally find a house we like. We have used a buyers agent to find us a suitable home which meets all of our requirements and do the price negotiations on our behalf. Whilst the fees to use a buyers agent were significantly higher than what we had feared, now that we have 'done the deal' I believe that they have more than made that amount back for us in price negotiation. As ex real estate agents they are good negotiators, have relationships with the selling agents which means they get 'inside information' about properties, and are also able to provide an independent valuation of what they would value a property at so that we can buy with confidence. Also, the guy searching for our home grew up in the area we are moving to, great as we don't know the area much ourselves! Not to forget that they also saved us months of searching (it was difficult spending every Saturday driving from house to house with Milo & Jude in the car most of the day).

I bought the house (via our agent) without Mitch having seen it, but Mitch managed to get a look last week and luckily he likes it, although he was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of work needing doing - the first job involves demolishing the extension on the back of the house and excavating tonnes of concrete so that we can create a back garden!

Packing has started, van booked, surplus furniture sold on eBay, cable TV installation arranged at new house (priorities!) - so with 4 weeks to go I'm feeling pretty organised. Mitch & I have very different approaches to packing - I meticulously sort through everything then either pack it, give it to charity, or throw it. Mitch just jumbles everything into a box.

Here's a couple of photo's of the new place. One of the things I love is the bush setting to the back of the pool.