House Hunting

I've just started browsing the real estate websites in our suburb for houses/townhouses to look at whether we're ready to buy in the near future and things are still pretty expensive (or anything we could possibly afford is pretty crappy) but apparently prices are starting to drop because people are having to lower their prices due to people being able to afford less. Interest rates!! Of course, if people would stop living on credit so much then our economy might be very different...

We'd been dreaming of buying a house in our suburb but it looks like we might only be able to afford a townhouse for now. At least it's a foot in the door, and it's in the suburb we want - better than living somewhere we don't want to live. I’m not really earning all that much at the moment and have only just started saving this year after our trip to Europe last year so I don’t have a lot to contribute to a mortgage. Azreal earns more than twice as much as I do. He owns a townhouse in our suburb and a house out of town as investment properties but at this point in time has no intention of getting rid of these as they are part of his investment strategy. His plan is that if we were to buy a place, it would be on top of these. Of course if it really came down to it he might sell one in order to pay for our place.

We’ve looked at apartments in the city and just over the river, but would rather live in a more house-type place than in a box. And really our townhouse is perfect because it is a separate townhouse (ie. It’s not joined to anything else) so it’s like living in a house, but it’s small enough to not be so high maintenance as a house – and of course more affordable than a house in our suburb.

Our landlord got our place valuated last week so we're wondering if it meant they are considering selling due to the increasing interest rates, or simply reassessing how much rent they will be charging us! Either way, it has made us think about how long we will be living here.