Looking for a home…

(A.k.a The Great Brisbane Treasure hunt!!)

For those of you who are not entirely “with it” on the latest excitement in my life – allow me to update you – we are currently in the midst of active house-hunting in Brisbane suburbs. And before you quirk an eyebrow in gentle confusion, let me also give you the rationale. While we do have a perfectly convenient apartment in the city, minutes from everything – we have suddenly started to find it cramped and hopelessly inadequate. Reasoning that we were now nearly six months old in Brisbane – we were self-certified as confident with the layout and public transport of the river city. So it was time to look for a larger albeit further house (note to readers: house in my parlance equates quaint cottage with three bedrooms, a bright kitchen and a patch of verde!)

Well wishers warned us of the impending housing crisis in Brisbane and educated us on the benefits of starting early. So, with a lease scheduled to expire in early February, we embarked on a hunt for “The House”! Since I am undeniably the most street savvy (all self – proclaimed, I tell ya!) of the three of us, I donned the mantle of short-listing. But I soon found that the other two had numerous criteria like distance (measured in terms of train stations) and budget ($$!!) which I was evidently not catering to! Sharing a house is the best form of democracy ever – having learnt this lesson early in life – I bowed out of the hunt – and awaited my flatmates’ results.

It soon dawned on us though, that unless we relaxed some of our criteria, it might be easier to find a suitable groom for each of the three of us, rather than a home in Brisbane! Somewhat mollified, we resumed the adventure with modified parameters.

The next step involved inspecting these houses…wherein started the excitement. We missed the first one and landed up an hour early for the next. (That the agent himself never turned up for the second inspection was like some sort of divine intervention, but nevertheless!) For the third one, we were late, and managed to catch sight of the retreating back of the agent and rescued him back to the house. The fourth went off smoothly, without incident. Rental agents were like demi-gods, summoning you for inspections at their whims – I received one such call on a train and dutifully noted the details with an eye pencil on the back of a greeting card!

And the houses we’ve seen! There was the little unit in Toowong – I got the distinct impression that the current residents of which were stocking all their belongings from their grandparents’ era! A lovely house by the river, with polished wood floors, a parakeet and enough furniture for two more homes….a sunny apartment in Windsor, which started with the toilet first (its layout was like walking in a mirror-image of the actual house!) Some claimed to be within walking distance of the train station (if you routinely walked the marathon), others were supposedly furnished (I would not touch that stuff with a barge pole!!)

So have we found the perfect house yet? Well, I’m afraid the hunt continues… but I can deliver an hour long lecture on the geography of Brisbane, or the number of built in cupboards a house must have, or the ideal coverage that one air conditioner has, the best positioning of a laundry, et al. without batting an eyelid! As the sun sets over yet another day of tenancy forms, self righteous agents and references, I sink into merry oblivion on my comfy couch.

Home is where the heart is!!