For those of you that have seen our shoebox, you'll know that we currently live in a house the size of a...... shoebox. I think it is the classic definition of "cottage", which is Gaelic for "unable to swing a cat in any room in the house". I know people that having lounge rooms larger than our entire "cottage". The youngster will be able to say, "When I was young, we lived in nowt but a shoebox lad, collecting dried seagull dung for fuel and cooking rats over a backyard fire" etc etc etc.
A similar house just up the road just sold at auction for a tad over $700,000. We dropped in on the auction, which was about as boring as watching an OH&S subcommittee debate ammendments to committee procedures. 59 people stood around (I counted them) variously hugging each other tightly (the winning bidders), picking their fingernails, picking their nose, parking in the middle of the street or watching the birds crapping on the cars parked on the side of the road. The auctioneer tried to inject a little life and humour into the occasion, but he was an utter dud. Some people can front a crowd and be funny or moving or engaging, and others think they are all that and more but are just plain embarrassing. This guy needs to get another job.
When we arrived, bidding had slunk up to $695,000, and seemed to be stuck there. The auctioneer did his "going once, going twice" thing about 10 times as the price inched up $1,000 at a time. Each bid was a few minutes apart, and required much arm twisting from various real estate agents and other sharks that were circling the bidders. I gave up and went home.
The thing is, the block is not that big, there is no garage, it has three small bedrooms and clearly the only medium term proposition is to go up another floor. The poor owners have just spent a million bucks in reality - a bit over $700k for the property, plus stamp duty and all the other transaction costs, then the bucket of money to add the extra floor.
Good luck to them.
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