Now, I've never bought a house in Australia before, mostly because I never had any money. Well, I still don't have any money but you know, this is a country which operates on the principle where there is a will there is a way.
They do say that buying a house, getting divorced, and not having the souffle rise, are life's three most stressful moments - that's for sure.
I last bought a house in France and that wasn't too hard. I just handed over a bag of gold florins to a farmer and he gave me a house with no roof. I think there was a solicitor involved somewhere in the process but then again he could just have been that swarthy fellow who arrived on a bike and had a bottle of chablis at the house-warming or as the French call it, le ouse-warming.
In Britain when I bought a house it went like clockwork, as did the flow of money out of my bank account, but at least you knew what was happening.
In Australia, buying a house is like betting on a horse-race. You may be lucky, the solicitor who sometimes sends emails from his home email (on account on the fact that he is never in his office) has the email moniker Toughguy, and he may well be working his proverbials off on your behalf. Of course, alternatively there may be a new extension of the M2 planned to go through your ensuite, but I imagine you'll find that out when you're on the toilet and the pantechnicon driver toots his horn because he can't get past.
The people advancing the money were heavily involved in the sub-prime debacle in the US and were recently sold to one of the four big Aussie banks, for tuppence. The same people involved in the poor lending decisions are still working there, which means they will give you $2million, no questions asked, skipper.
The people who do the building reports (the lenders don't ask you to get these done now, why bother when they own your life for ever onwards anyway, even if your new house subsides into a giant wombat warren) are from a company called I M A Ripoff. They charge more than the national debt of Sudan and report that the house is full brick (it's not, it's a cedar house on a sandstone base, that it is five years old (it is not, it is 17 years old) and that they can't inspect the roof because they don't have a ladder. Lord knows I'm paying them enough to warrant buying a gold plated one.
The 98-page pest report says there is no evidence of termites but warns in apocalyptic tones that they could come calling any day now and eat the house "with the gnashing of teeth and the digesting of your full brickwork in a manner the like of which has not been visited on the land since the pestilence struck Egypt and cast the jews into the desert with Moses"). Of course, being a pest company themselves they offer to come and give you the 'treatment', which means they apply a hose to your bank account and suck it dry so that nothing can possibly happen ever again.
Now, the real estate agent deserves a special mention. She went to the Real Estate School and got an advanced diploma in lying. When she says, "my what a lovely morning", I ask her to excuse me, and go outside for a look at the sky.
18/08/08 @ 23:04