Blessings of Home...

I'm not really sure where to begin... we've tried searching for a house, and even made some offers, but as we told our LifeGroup (a.k.a. cell group), our prayer is that if it is not meant for us, by all means, shut the door. So, as doors shut around us, we continued our search for a home, content to know that all that isn't meant for us wouldn't land on our laps... ok, fine, we were not that great... although we did feel peaceful and content deep down, up on the surface we were, as all humans are, getting annoyed, frustrated, and completely confused to the point that we couldn't really figure out what we wanted anymore. haha... so, when Joey asked what I wanted for my birthday, I instinctively replied, "a house?" =D

we've been to a couple of 'inspections' as they call it, where you go to the house, look at it, and if you're happy, make an offer which the agent will present to the seller to see if they accept/counter offer etc. While I'm on this topic, let me also explain that a lot of things here are 'area based' and I can't think of a better way to phrase it. Before choosing a house, you first need to choose a suburb, or a range of surrounding suburbs - because real estate agents are assigned to different areas - they only sell/rent properties in that area (which consists of a few suburbs close to each other) - unlike in KL, where you can have an agent seeing to your property in Bangi and Subang Jaya at the same time, it doesn't work that way here. Same thing with schools - you choose the one near to your home, or around that area... and that is one driving factor for house prices too. if your're in an area with better schools, the houses cost more. if you get a cheap beautiful house further away that is not in the 'area', you cant take your children to school there. One more thing to consider were the freeways. From our office, if we are headed north or west, we would end up driving through towns or really jam packed 'main' roads with only 2 lanes... which will increase driving time, compared to heading east (coz our office is near the eastern freeway), where even if you live further out, you can drive at 100kmh along the eastern freeway, and if you need to stay further east, they have the eastlink(toll) that connects to the eastern freeway too. so, getting to a house 30km east is way faster than getting to somewhere 30km west.

So first, we needed to properly choose a suburb - coz when we called to enquire about prices, the real estate agents will ask, which area do you want to live in? and if you say 'anywhere in Melbourne, north, south, east or west...' its a pretty bad idea - no one takes you seriously. And we found that out the hard way =) we replied that we're looking at anywhere from Deer Park in the west to Bayswater North in the north east area... so, after much thought and school searching, we decided to either live in the Manningham area (north east, 20-30km from the city), which had relatively good schools, and the prices weren't insanely high compared to Balywn North and Glen Waverley where the most popular schools were. The other option was to remain in Heidelberg Heights where we live now, which is actually nearer to the city (about 15km northwards, slightly east) - the schools weren't as 'good' but the prices were about 70k less in prices. Eventually we decided on Manningham, which covered the suburbs of Bulleen, Templestowe, Lower Templestowe, Doncaster, Doncaster East, Donvale and parts of Mitcham and Ringwood etc... Our church is in Lower Templestowe, and there are some nice schools in Doncaster and Doncaster East, so we decided to focus on these 3 suburbs...

The first house we fell in love with was in Doncaster East - a townhouse with 3 rooms, 2 bathrooms (one of which is an 'ensuite' meaning the master bedroom has its own bathroom) and 2-car remote controlled garage. It wasn't very near to the eastern freeway exit, but there was a direct road to it, and it was with a bunch of houses that were all newly built, so it was pleasant to come home to. The houses in Doncaster east ranged from 500k to about 700k onwards depending on the size, new or old, how many rooms, land size etc... this one was going for 549k. we made an offer, but it was nowhere near good enough and it got rejected. To be honest, it was good of our agent, John, to actually put together our offer, because it was apparently not reasonable, and we could see it on the face of his colleague as John was helping us out with the offer anyway.

We also saw another townhouse in Doncaster East that had an awesome location - really close to a primary school, with a playground and bus stop in front of the house, it was relatively new and also had 3room, 2bath and 2 car remote garage - but the the rooms and living areas were really small and cramped. So, although it was asking for 509k, we decided to pass on this one.

The 2nd townhouse we really liked was in Lower Templestowe - near to church, and nearer to work than Doncaster East, it was brand new and had 4 rooms, 2bath - but no ensuite, (master bedroom has no connecting bathroom - the 2nd bath was in the hall downstairs), smaller hall and smaller 'usable' backyard space because of the way it was designed, but there was alot of premium add ins to the house... one other problem was that it had only 1 car space in the garage - meaning one car had to be parked on the driveway right outside the garage door (its the only space to put the 2nd car), so we have to keep reshuffling the cars to get one in and one out. So, not very practical, but the house was gorgeous, and it was in an area with nice houses all around. This one was going for 520k and we offered just under $500. They wanted us to add in extra cash on top of the sale price, and we offered an extra 10k, but it still wasn't good enough for them. They asked for another 8k more, and this was the one that we told our LifeGroup that if it isn't meant for us, we are happy not to get it. Anyway, it was sold to someone else within the next 2-3 days.

Next, there was a piece of land for sale in Doncaster East - actually, someone with a large land was selling off their backyard. It was going for 270k and to build a house on it would cost about 250k (without blinds, oven, stovetop, dishwasher etc etc) depending on how much the ground slopes etc - anyway, we made an offer subject to the plan that we want fitting on it. well, the land was too small. called a couple of builders, but they could not fit in the plans we wanted. also, one said that because the house was at the back half of the land, they were not willing to build there at all - something about increased costs of moving the materials to the back etc. so, that didn't work out either.

anyway, dad skyped us to wish me happy birthday on Wednesday, and I told him about the house hunting and stuff, and he simply said to just get something we were happy to come home to. My reply was, "err... Dad? there's that price factor....", to which he said 'Don't worry...'
'yeah, very funny', I thought... However, as I look back now, I believe something happened in the atmosphere...

I hung up the skype call shortly after and Joey and I sat down chatting about the all the real estate agents we had been dealing with, and we both agreed we liked one in particular - John. He was always courteous and professional, made us feel like he was doing his best for us and had actually called me earlier that day to let me know that there was another house for sale. We did look at it, but it wasn't something we liked. As Joey and I continued talking, our house phone rang - which was strange, coz we don't usually give out our house line number (simply coz we don't use it - we use our mobile phones)... I picked up the phone, anticipating either a wrong number or Marjorie, and to my utmost surprise, it was John. I was trying to tell him that we didn't like the other house he told me to look at, but he said he was actually calling to see if we wanted to re-present the offer that was rejected earlier. We said sure! The next day, sometime in the evening, he called to say congratulations...! Somehow the seller had a miraculous change of heart all of a sudden, not to mention that John's colleague that we mentioned gave us a look that seemed to show 'unreasonable!', ended up also having a change of heart that night we were skyping with dad, and he was the one to re-present out offer to the seller the next day. We rushed over to pay a partial deposit after work and I called Debbie and Marjorie to tell them the news! We were so excited, we wanted to go see the house again, and John kindly took us there, which is really kind of him, because he could have just said it was after his working hours. His work was done and everything was signed, but he still looked after us. that is one great agent. Marjorie came along to look at the house too! Up til now, I still can't believe it, but it seems like we've got a home, and its nothing short of a miracle. All I can say is that it is God's blessing, and I believe He will also bless the seller of the house and the agents involved in making all this come true.

With God, all things are possible, and he truly looks after us even more than he provides for the sparrows in the fields =)

p.s. Dad, if you read this, I must say I personally believe that when you gave us your blessings, our heavenly Father did likewise. Thank you!