I have a secret!

well to update you on the property hunt, We put another offer in on the Harrogate property about 35k higher than the first offer but they still turned it down. I think that this is not the right house - it feels like we are trying to force it to be the one now and it still isn't happening.

We have looked at a few other properties but Ian felt like they were to far for him to comute.

I thought Iwould let you in on a secret. We have decided to put our house on the market and this will open up the price range we can look at. Well the day after we made that decision I found a property that looked like it could be workable. I rang the agent to find out when they were having an open inspection and we were up there looking at the property 1 1/2hours later.

The house is only 40 minutes from the city, and only about 7-10 years old and has many options for bedrooms. To say it has sheds apleanty is and understatement. I thought Ian was going to roll over and die right there and then in the bliss of the sheds. The water set up is great, It has 13 acres - all usable acres! There is a lovely little sunroom which I could see myself spending a lot of time in. The school is about 2 minutes around the corner by car (I reckon in a year or 2 they could actually walk - there is a track that cuts through!). The town has a Church of Christ which would could look into joining - most of the churches up in the Adelaide hills are Lutherans or Catholic - lovely but not really us! I am going back up tomorrow to take some picies and to show it to the parents. Both Ian and I got in the car after looking at the property and said at the same time - Yep I would sell our house and move here!

We have spoken to our Loan guy and some real estate agents and things look like they could work so on Saturday Ian and I are going to the real estate offices and hopefully we will putting an offer in, The real estate agent has subtely hinted our offer would be accepted. Now we just need to get what we want for this house!

Fingers Crossed, keep you updated!

Still Fustrated!

Just to update you, we are still looking to no avail. I don't think there are words to describe how fustrated I am, I am almost past it. We are constantly looking at the realestate market but there is nothing around that is suitable in our price range. We are now considering selling our exhisting house. But even this is not finding us the right house. We have been to lots of open inspections but even though there have been some that may work at a stretch, nothing feels right, Both Ian and I still feel like the Harrogate place is the only 1 that felt right, like home. We didn't get the same feeling about the first property at Birdwood that we put an offer on like we had/have about the Harrogate place. I am hoping it was just a timing thing. It still has not been sold and Ian is going to talk to the real estate agent again about what sort of offer they would accept. Fingers crossed!

Ahhhhh!

I'm getting very fustrated now, I really thought this property was the one, but our offer has been turned down. We really cant up the offer so its back to the drawing board. We are up against the clock now, Our pre-approval only lasts 2.5 more months and then we will have to reapply. This doesn't sound hard but we scraped our preapproval though before an expense change at the bank, if we have to reapply then the new rules will apply which will drop the amount the bank will lend us by about 20-40 thousand dollars. I know I have to have faith that God will find us the right property for our family but on days like this it is a struggle. Will keep you updated.

Still plodding along!

Just a quick update. We are still ploding along in our hunt for our farm. We got pre-approval from the bank so we now know exactly what we have to spend which is good. We have also put and offer in on a property of 135 acres. Its got a lovely 120-140 year old stone farm house, is a working sheep farm with a lovely old working stone shearing shed, the biggest chook house I think I have ever seen and andother stone shed. It has 4 dams and a winter creek.

It means the kids will all have to change schools, but it is in a discrict of one of the schools on my list that I liked. It is actually closer to work (55mins) for Ian that the Birdwood property. I loved the Birdwood property that we put an offer on but walking around this property, I think, "what was I thinking, This feels like home!"

Well now we just hold our breath and wait on the reply to our offer. I will keep you updated, and if we get it I will put up lots of picies.

Bye for now!

Still hunting!

I assume that you have guessed from the lack of posts that we didn't get the house. Someone else has bought the house and we are still on the hunt. Just about every weekend we got trapsing up to the hills to look at yet another property. We even have been looking at blocks of land to build a house on ourselves. Still to no avail. Patience is a virtue - so I am told. I will keep you posted.

The wait is killing me!

the wait to find out if our offer is accepted or if someone beat us out is driving me nuts. I tried distracting my self by packing for my daugters trip to Perth on saturday. Well that was a disaster, I discovered that she has had a growth spurt mid winter and grown out of all her clothes so then had to go shopping (I hate late night shopping!) - The things that you don't notice when your kids live in school uniforms or sports/swim suits! I tried tv, knitting soaking in the bath (I think that made the clock go backwards?!?) eating nothing is making the time go quicker. well end of whine!

One step closer

Well we have put an offer in on the birdwood place now its just a matter of waiting to see if its accepted. The real estate agent tells us there is possible 2 other offers beside ours that he will be taking to the vendor on friday. The waiting is excrutiating, I just want to know either way.

To distract my self I have been looking for furniture for the girls room. When (notice I say when) we move I will need furniture for one of the girls room as we will be finally seperating them.

I have also been trying to find out info on Golden Retriever dogs. Thats the dog we plan on getting once we move to the farm maybe even 2. They are good farm dogs but they tend to also be very placid which with our kids will be important. well best go will keep you updated.

School Visit

Today I went and checked out Birdwood Primary School. The acting principal was lovely. The school was a georgeous school and was really well layed out, they are getting a new gymnasium and library this year. I was very up front with the acting principal about my little special joys and she sees no problems that we can't work on together. They have other children with Aspergers, Dyslexia and speech problems so our kids weren't anything they haven't dealt with before. I came away feeling good about the school.

If we can find a house and move by term 4, I will have all kids at school - 6 hours a day to myself - na surely not possible. LOL!
catch ya later

Another Property!

We are still plodding along looking for a property. We went and looked at one in Birdwood yesterday - here's a link.
http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?fslm=1&a=o&id=105782558&t=res&s=sa

The property is absolutely georgeous, it has a creek cutting the property in 1/2, 6 good sized paddocks, The vegie garden is over grown but is fenced in which is one less job I need to do. There is a chook pen and another animal enclosure. It also has a small dam and has both mains and rain water to the house. There is good fairly new shed as well as another animal shed and a few little garden sheds. (lots of sheds for the boys). The gardens will need a bit of work - they are a bit bushy and look like the perfect spot for snakes to hide.

The house is smaller than our current house. However my view is I can fix a house but I can't fix a property. There are many options to get the house up to par, just depends on how much we have left to spend on it after we have paid for it (if we do purchase it). Even though the house is smaller it has potential for the 6 bedrooms we need and will still have a family room and lounge room. What I do like though is that the larger room is the lounge/dinning room. This house has the large room as the family/dinning room (it is huge) but when we are sitting down at the dinning table talking with friends (adults) and the kids are finished eating then they are playing in the same room us adults are in and you end up yelling above the noise of the kids. With the formal lounge being with the dinning room and the family room seperate this will be lots better.

The house only has 1 bathroom, which we had ideas how to solve this problem. Now we have seen the house it is a priority to sort out. The bathroom is very tiny (can't swing a cat). The toilet is seperate though so this is good. We could turn the laundry into a second bath room and put the laundry outside the house, if we just added the 2 extra bedrooms by taking part of the family room for them. If we actually build the 2 rooms on then we would include a bathroom in that. It all depends on how much we would have left after purchasing the place.

I am planning to go and talk to both the primary and highschool this week. There is no reason they should be able to handle my special chicklets but I would rather check before we put an offer in on the place. Will keep you updated.

Some Ideas

Well I have calmed down a bit now. DH has been wonderful, worst case senario he says we can sell our current house to move. He has obviously been thinking about it and he has also come up with the idea of buying a working cattle farm and getting a business loan for the property and then employing somebody to run the farm side, he will keep working and also learn how to run the property, I can also set up my side of the farm with the animals/veggies and fruit I want to do. Then further down the track he can leave work and run the property or stay at work and keep the property going at what ever level we want. Well you could have pushed me over with a feather!

It may not be a solution to our problems but it is an idea and shows that DH is thinking about how to achieve our dream property.

Will keep you updated.

Not Happy Jan!!!

The bank man came to see us today to play around with some figures. Well everything has gone feet up.I am a bit confused. The will let us make repayments of $400 a fortnight more if we sell our current house and get a straight homeloan than if we keep this house and rent it out. They will also give us more than enough than we want if we had 2 kids but because we have 5 they will only give us less than 1/2 of what we want. The whole thing is crazy so now we have to go back to the drawing board and decide what we want to do!!!!! Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!

The New Blog begins

Well I have started this blog to record our journey to our own farm. We have made the decision to leave the burbs and move to the country, all be it the Adelaide hills which is still in distance to the burbs. After 15 years we have finally decided that looking and talking about it is not cutting it any more and after a very turmultous year we decided that now is the best time.

After pouring over "realestate.com.au" we chose a few properties to actually look at in person. The first had handfull had 3-5 acres but very rapidly we decided that this was no where near enough land. Ian then went a bit nuts and started looking at about 100 acres. There were a few places that had potential on the web site but were rulled out when we couldn't find suitable schools for the kids in a respectable distance.

Finally there is one that stands up to most of our want list

1. With in 1 1/2hrs drive from Ians work ( He will be commuting for about 4-5 months a year)
2. Acceptable schools close by
3. more than 10 acres
4. not just flat barren land
5. Suitable water for house and animals - Dam, creek, well or bore
and the most important in the price range

The bank is coming to see us on Tues night so we can work out the best way to achieve making an offer on this property. We are planning to keep our current house and rent it out.

The next problem after working out the money is that the current owners will accept our offer. We feel the property is worth less than they are asking as there is a bit of work that we need to do to the place. Part of me thinks that we are living a pipe dream as our price is quiet a lot under the asking price but the other part of me thinks that they will accept it as they have been trying to sell it for a year and they want to move and with the govt homebuyers grant drying up soon many people are rushing to sell before that for fear of the market dropping. Well nothing much to do for now just lots of knee time.

I have been researching chooks, sheep, alpacas, grey water systems and lots more. Will keep you updated. Trying to not get to attached to this property in case it falls through.

Here is a link to the property, but shh its a secret and don't steal it! lol
http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?fslm=1&a=o&id=105176772&t=res&s=sa