I AM ending this Blog - with sadness in my heart......

It is with an extremely heavy heart that I have to write this. After much discussion and consideration, David and I will walk away from this Amberlea dream. Believe me, it is awfully tough for me to let go of my cloak room and beautiful kitchen, but I think the mind and not he heart will prevail in this case. With this, I write my closing of this chapter and set our sights on something that’s single storey. Its back to the drawing board guys.

What I really find hard letting go is the fact that we’ve picked everything – from the colours to the powerpoints of every room; and could envision how this will look like. Sigh sigh sigh. Thats’ life, cant have what you want right...

The main factors that we weigh out not to have it are as follow:

1. Base price was not too hard to handle, and we thought we can max this out a little. The sales quote came out to $20k more which thought, hmm, a little steep, but we’ll make do. The crux came when we were presented with a $50k more as a final price – the sales quote wasn’t accurate at all. Most items were underpriced!

2. The bank came back on our land and gave us $10,000 less in lending money than expected – they prefer to undervalue the land and we paid more than that. That threw us out another $10,000 in cash. This was the final straw – if we don’t even have $10,000 of floating cash to but basic stuff for the house, its no point getting something that big.

3. Lower Quality of life - We do have the ability to pay this off; however, we would have absolutely no reserves. If we needed a new car for some reason, we could get one, but with the new house, we cannot. David says he’s done his time on a mortgage and I remember the early mortgage years; they weren’t comfortable, I couldn’t even go out for coffee or have heating for as long as I want. It wasn’t fun.

4. Loss of Income - With the new house, we would struggle when we are on a single income, and if I go on maternity leave for a year or if David has severe neck problems and cannot work for a while, we would be under a lot of stress.

5. Cleaning - In terms of cleaning a 45 squares home, it will be a lot for me to take on by myself if David has this neck problem still and cant help me out – and hasn’t been able to help me out in our current small home already, which is stressful to handle with me working full time and having a kid and 2 dogs in the house.

6. Education – Daniel would struggle to go to a private school and wanting the best for him, I think this $30,000 increase has given us the push to not go ahead with this project. Its only $30,000 but with a +6% increase with interest rates which will probably escalate in future, I prefer to have my son invested in quality education.

Pros:
1. Nice house with cloak room and ample storage
2. Big Kitchen – enough space to put all pots and pans / Big Pantry
3. Personal Space – Plenty!
4. Good Theatre room - away from all the bedrooms - single storey will not provide much of that.
5. No Balcony- I just love the wrought iron in Merinda agst the wooden rail!! Think it something special, haven't seen it anywhere before.

I must say it will not be more 1st choice of homes - and it will kinda sad to think I could have all that and didn’t. House hunting would be more of a chore and standards will be higher.........

Once we have settled on the 2nd best, I’ll post up another blog and of course – rename it. Hmmmm... wonder what i call it? 2nd choice home?