Anna decided that we had too much spare time on our hands, and not enough stress, so she decided that in addition to studying for her exams, planning and wedding, my studying for the CCIE lab, and my changing to a new job (more on that in another post), we should look for a new house.
We live in a very nice part of the city, with a peep of harbour views, surrounded by houses that start at $1m. Walking distance to the city, plenty of parks around, just off Ponsonby Road, a well-known road in Auckland, lined with restaurants, bars and eclectic stores. Obviously we don’t actually own our house here, I work for a living. But no, we definitely need to move. After all, my new office is walking distance from the house. Can’t have that. So we’re moving.
It turns out that right now is not the best time to be looking for a place to rent in Auckland. Rents have gone up, and there’s a lot of pressure on rental properties. Large numbers of people turning up to look at places, and your references must be up to scratch. That in itself shouldn’t be a big deal for us, as we look presentable enough, we have very good references, and Anna has been in her current property for 5 years. There’s just one problem. A very hairy, 45kg problem, named Samson. We were very close to getting a place in Ellerslie that would have been perfect, but we got turned down because of Samson. Other places wouldn’t even consider a dog, even though dogs do less damage than children.
So we had a few tough weeks trying to find a property. Plenty of places being snapped up as soon as they were listed, plenty that were nasty places you wouldn’t put the dog in, and plenty that just wanted far too much for what they were. You start out with a certain budget, and that creeps up and up as you can’t find anything decent. You start thinking about what the minimum you need is. No more than <x> km from the city, 2 bedrooms plus study…or do we really need a study? What about parking? I want a garage….ok just off street parking…ok on street, as long as there’s space.
It’s hard to say if the Rugby World Cup is having an effect on rentals. What I can say is that I think that it may have helped us in the end to get a property. We have finally been accepted for a place in Sandringham, about 3km away from Eden Park. The open home was an hour before the Fiji-Samoa game kicked off at Eden Park, and it was raining. Because of various road closures, there was a lot of traffic around, and it seems that hardly anyone came to look at the property. It’s not a pretty house, and it is in need of some love, but it’s got the space we need, with a double garage(!). Finally I’ll be able to put the bikes inside, and maybe even the car too. We’ll need to add a small amount of fencing, but it will work well for Samson, giving him more room than he has now, and a few shady spots for him in summer.
For the first time, we’re engaging professional movers. Anna has accumulated a large amount of furniture over the years, and I really don’t fancy moving it myself. Apparently I will be installed in the study, and told to, well, study. CCIE study has been taking a bit recently, with various other things going on. Down to 2 months to go, time to seriously knuckle down.
I’ll post some stuff about the new job soon – so far it looks like it’s going to be very, very interesting.