Sweet home project 1

We bought our little unit in May. It took a while to find that special place for us and we are still not living there, because the tenant has contract until next January. Now we are planning some renovations for the unit though and that is pretty exciting! I'd like to share the excitement with you, but I will start the story about my old apartment.

In 2009, I bought 1 bedroom apartment in St Kilda East. It was before I met Paul and I was thinking "I might be single forever." Is that something all the over 30 single ladies think about? Living in a foreign country alone can feel a bit insecure.  I always worried about becoming sick or losing my job. Being in Australia, it was also unreasonable to expect to rely on my parents. Buying a home was some kind of insurance for me and I thought "At least I'll always have somewhere to sleep."

I loved the big window

I didn't know anything about buying home in Australia, so I got a buyer's agent. He suggested some places to me, according to my criteria and sometimes took me to inspections. He had some good contacts like real estate agents, a mortgage broker and conveyancer. He collected lots of useful information from the real estate agents before auctions and even made a bit for me. It wasn't cheap (I paid 1% of expected purchase price) and now I feel like I could check properties online myself, but I just needed someone to consult and give me some professional advice.

My favourite kitchen

Anyway I got the place in St Kilda East. I really liked that place. It was close to shops, transport, entertainment (like St Kilda beach and Chapel Street) yet also pretty safe. After I got married, Paul just moved in and we had a great time there. But when we found our little man was in my tummy, we had to think about moving somewhere else. The 1 bedroom apartment was a bit too small for three people.

Then we had some options.
1. Buy a new place and sell the apartment
2. Rent out the apartment and rent another place
3. Sell the apartment and rent another place

tiny little bathroom

Option number 1 was a bit risky because we might sell our place, but might not find a place to move, or buy a place but might not be able sell. Working out the timing for this was also tricky. Without selling our place, we didn't have much deposit, so it was a bit financially complicated too. Option number 2 was also difficult, because we couldn't trust that a tenant would look after our place well enough so that we could sell it later on.

Thankfully Paul's parents offered to rent us their investment property, which was vacant at that time, so we decided to sell our place and rent there while looking for something to buy.

So we decided to sell our precious apartment filled with lots of memories! At that stage, I had the experience of buying a home, but not of selling a home. How do we start? It became our new experience.

I will write about selling the apartment next time ;)

With love,
Allie