How we bought a house

Want to buy a house?
No problem. Look around, find one, buy one and move in.
Simple.
Well, maybe for some, yes.
But definitely not for us
First problem was finding the right place.
That started about 10 years ago.
Both boys had moved out and my wife Corinna and I were rattling round in a two storey house with large yard, big rumpus room and huge pool.
Great for when the kids were home but way to much for just the two of us.
Have you ever enjoyed the fun of cleaning gutters or cleaning windows balanced on a rickety ladder, especially when you have a great fear of heights?
Not one of my favourite chores and just one of the problems of living in a large house perfect for a young family but not so good for us now.
What we  were looking for was the opposite. Low set, no pool and a small yard.
Where to look?
We started looking in McDowall, where our old house is, and Ferny Hills, then Chermside West, Albany Creek and Bridgeman Downs.
We looked in those suburbs because they were reasonably close, we knew and liked them and didn’t want to move too far out of town.
Then two issues arose.
First, second son came home with a lovely young lady who is now his wife.
They set up home in the huge rumpus room while they started to save money for their house.
That put the search on hold for a while.
The second issue was that after looking at a number of houses we knew we had a problem.
We had lived in our old house for more than 15 years with two very active boys and pets.
After looking at those houses we realised the normal wear and tear had made our house and yard desperately in need of a freshen up.
So the search for a new place had to be put on hold.
As soon as younger son and future wife moved out again it was time to act.
We called in  the painters, bought new carpets and and had our handyman, Manor Menders, on speed dial to fix all the little problems that had developed as well as some improvements to the yard, garden and inside the house.
We also had to bring in some gardeners to tame the jungle that had been allowed to develop while we were busy doing family and fun stuff.
It had also became wild because I am definitely not a gardener, have no interest in gardening, dislike gardening intensely and avoid gardening at all costs until my wife firmly puts her foot down.
After handling two boys, handling a husband is no problem.
All that took a couple of years then the the search resumed.
These days house hunting is quite easy with the internet as efficient as it is.
Searching was simple.
Check the houses for sale on the internet, (Realestate.com) go and have a look and if interested go to an open day or book an inspection.
But for an amazing long time every house we looked at had something we didn’t like.
There would be drainage problems when it rained, cheap products used for improvements that would become a problem in the future.
Or we didn’t like the layout; the bedrooms were too small, the lounge room was in the wrong place, the kitchen was too small. In other cases we simply didn’t like the location. of the house.
I must admit we were spoilt with the old house only bout a block away from a bush area, walking tracks and a large dog park.
Then  at last it happened.
Corinna was flicking through the internet and saw this house at Albany Creek.
I had a look. It looked good. We both had the next day off work so organised an inspection.
It only took one good look around to realise one thing.
To us the house was perfect. Perfect location, extremely well finished, small yard, good drainage, low set.
Yep absolutely perfect.
Buy that afternoon we had a contract on it and our house on the market.

Thanks to Dennis Connors for sharing his journey with us.  We look forward to more stories from Dennis in the future.