A house, a house, my kingdom for a house!
...or something to that effect.
I couldn't fight it forever. The gradual tug of growing up. To amass material possessions, incur debt, listen to news radio, have a meaningful selfless relationship, wear my pants high with pride, work nose to the grindstone…and own a house.
These are the dreams of youth…well…dreams is stretching it. These are the expectations of youth. That once you hit a certain age you will begin to accumulate these notches on your belt as if they would signify a coming of age or the getting of wisdom.
Now as you know I’m a big trend bucker…rock the boat…kind of guy. I don’t walk in a straight line if I can zigzag. But the call of the adult world was too strong for me to ignore any longer. A house had to be bought.
Rent. It’s such a sh*t. You pay someone money to live in their property, and in return you can’t fix it, damage it…live in it really! You are confined. So you sit there watching a crack in the wall gradually get bigger over the months. You tell the landlord. The landlord thanks you. And that’s it. You look at the walls. You’d like to hang a picture. But you can’t hammer a nail in the wall. So you don’t. You put blu-tak on a poster and stick it up…like a 15 year old girl and her Leonardo DiCaprio poster. Paint? Forget it. Renovate? Think again! Plus, why would you want to renovate something that you don’t own…it may reduce your rent but still…in the end, it remains someone else’s property. Your blood, sweat and tears will simply pass to the next person who pays the bond.
We live in an economic age. Our lives are governed by money and the state of the economy. Markets. Credit. Loans. Stocks. Contracts. Employment. It was simpler when we were children. It was Astronauts, McDonalds, Ninja Turtles, Sprinklers, Ice Blocks…mathematics was about as technical as it got, and even then it was usually a question of fractions. But this decision seemed to make financial sense. We've spent the last three or more years renting. An apartment and now a terrace. Making both these places into our homes. But there comes a point…no more. We were paying enough money in rent to make loan repayments on a home loan for a home we would actually own. A possession. We could change, knock down, and rebuild…completely f*ck it up…but we would own it. Ultimate responsibility. Adulthood. The buck would stop with us.
So, why not? Why not own a house?
That was a hard decision…well…not that hard…but it was a big decision. And once it was made…we moved on to looking for places.
We initially started months and months before. But due to the ‘market’ (I feel like such a wanker using words like ‘market’ in a sentence…as if I know what I’m talking about…so I put the word in quotations marks…if we were talking face to face I’d do air quotes or make a face that shows I have no effing idea what is coming out of my mouth…like most of the time) and the rising house prices…we waited. Then we thought ‘Screw it – it’s not going to get any better.’ So we jumped in. And it only took a month of solid looking…of course we spread that out over 2 or 3 months, but still. And we bought the first house we looked at more than twice.
It was nice enough. Big enough. We could see the potential in it. And more importantly we could see ourselves in it. So that was that. Rocked up at the auction, outbid the others and managed to come in under our budget and paying a price that we thought was acceptable for the house considering the state of house prices in the ‘market’, so we were winners on various fronts.
And now, as the settlement date approaches, so does the next level of our adulthood. Council rates, blocked gutters, salt damp, vegetable gardens, all the things that adults hold near and dear to their hearts. And I couldn’t be more excited. We finally have a home. Our home. To do with as we please and to live our lives in the blissful knowledge that if I wanted to I could hammer a nail into any friggin’ wall I choose.
...or something to that effect.
I couldn't fight it forever. The gradual tug of growing up. To amass material possessions, incur debt, listen to news radio, have a meaningful selfless relationship, wear my pants high with pride, work nose to the grindstone…and own a house.
These are the dreams of youth…well…dreams is stretching it. These are the expectations of youth. That once you hit a certain age you will begin to accumulate these notches on your belt as if they would signify a coming of age or the getting of wisdom.
Now as you know I’m a big trend bucker…rock the boat…kind of guy. I don’t walk in a straight line if I can zigzag. But the call of the adult world was too strong for me to ignore any longer. A house had to be bought.
Rent. It’s such a sh*t. You pay someone money to live in their property, and in return you can’t fix it, damage it…live in it really! You are confined. So you sit there watching a crack in the wall gradually get bigger over the months. You tell the landlord. The landlord thanks you. And that’s it. You look at the walls. You’d like to hang a picture. But you can’t hammer a nail in the wall. So you don’t. You put blu-tak on a poster and stick it up…like a 15 year old girl and her Leonardo DiCaprio poster. Paint? Forget it. Renovate? Think again! Plus, why would you want to renovate something that you don’t own…it may reduce your rent but still…in the end, it remains someone else’s property. Your blood, sweat and tears will simply pass to the next person who pays the bond.
We live in an economic age. Our lives are governed by money and the state of the economy. Markets. Credit. Loans. Stocks. Contracts. Employment. It was simpler when we were children. It was Astronauts, McDonalds, Ninja Turtles, Sprinklers, Ice Blocks…mathematics was about as technical as it got, and even then it was usually a question of fractions. But this decision seemed to make financial sense. We've spent the last three or more years renting. An apartment and now a terrace. Making both these places into our homes. But there comes a point…no more. We were paying enough money in rent to make loan repayments on a home loan for a home we would actually own. A possession. We could change, knock down, and rebuild…completely f*ck it up…but we would own it. Ultimate responsibility. Adulthood. The buck would stop with us.
So, why not? Why not own a house?
That was a hard decision…well…not that hard…but it was a big decision. And once it was made…we moved on to looking for places.
We initially started months and months before. But due to the ‘market’ (I feel like such a wanker using words like ‘market’ in a sentence…as if I know what I’m talking about…so I put the word in quotations marks…if we were talking face to face I’d do air quotes or make a face that shows I have no effing idea what is coming out of my mouth…like most of the time) and the rising house prices…we waited. Then we thought ‘Screw it – it’s not going to get any better.’ So we jumped in. And it only took a month of solid looking…of course we spread that out over 2 or 3 months, but still. And we bought the first house we looked at more than twice.
It was nice enough. Big enough. We could see the potential in it. And more importantly we could see ourselves in it. So that was that. Rocked up at the auction, outbid the others and managed to come in under our budget and paying a price that we thought was acceptable for the house considering the state of house prices in the ‘market’, so we were winners on various fronts.
And now, as the settlement date approaches, so does the next level of our adulthood. Council rates, blocked gutters, salt damp, vegetable gardens, all the things that adults hold near and dear to their hearts. And I couldn’t be more excited. We finally have a home. Our home. To do with as we please and to live our lives in the blissful knowledge that if I wanted to I could hammer a nail into any friggin’ wall I choose.
