On The Move
It's been a while, partly because I've been looking to move. Sydney's rental situation is a bit apeshit to put it kindly so we decided to go buy something inexpensive instead, and that has turned into an epic journey through the underbelly of Sydney Real Estate.
After months of looking and negotiating and things falling through and looking again and finding out terrible things, and pulling out of deals and all kinds of other weird misadventures, we're finally moving next weekend. The months-long process has had me thinking about the plight of people who can't secure a home in Australia. the back of the envelope numbers are a little nuts. Australis is one of th least densely populated places on the planet and yet our real estate value is sky high. It makes no sense for this country to be in a housing crisis, but we are. Interspersed in the news items about how some regular people with 100k p.a. jobs are finding it hard to rent, are the stories of overseas money laundering through real estate, and you get the picture that the market has been blown up by global interest in Australian real estate which has priced out the locals.
It's getting to be a world where you can't take for granted that you have a place to live, even in the first world. I know I lucked out in the circumstance stakes that I could opt to buy instead of rent, but I am struck by how dire the news is every day when it comes to housing in this country. It's not right, it's not who we are, and yet there doesn't seem to be a cogent political response.
Anyway, I'm sure I'll blog more when I get the move done and we've settled in to the new place. There's a lot to be said, so I'll be saying them!