real estate. a real state.

righto, i'm not going to bark on about it. oh, ok. i am going to bark on about it. real estate. is anyone else looking at property right now? it's friggin ridiculous out there. hoards of people are squeezing past each other during inspections of tiny one bedroom shacks that are lucky to be alive and are so close to the train line they could actually double as a platform. it's madness. complete. utter. madness.

ben and i, as you may or may not have gathered, have started the search. the lord of the rings didn't take this long. we have waded through print outs of possible hopefuls only to arrive at the home either disappointed by the fact that it is attached to nineteen other villas or that the price has suddenly jumped right out of our range.

what bothers me is that i am sure every other person out there is feeling just like us. desperate. hungry. perhaps even a little mad. we would jump up and down and throw caution to the wind and probably pay more for a place than our good sense should let us. and if we're all doing the same thing? complete kaos my good friends. complete kaos.

to add salt to the wound we actually love the area we are living in now. it's a highly sought after area, especially by one religion in particular, and as such the prices on a 2 bedroom mess is closer to half a million than it is to SOLD!

i'm feeling very despondent. very let down. i thought australia was the lucky country? where you could have a big old pool out the back and parsley growing in your garden. where your kids could play on the street without having to wear an etag and dogs can run free all day long. Are we going to end up like San Fransisco? A town with such a terrible real estate crisis that people will actually write a letter to the owner stating their plight in order to win the bid? (i've already tried it!)

we just want a house. just a small one. nothing fancy. something with little windows and a busted up kitchen in need of love. something to rest in and laugh in. a small lawn for my maggie and a garage for my ben. it seems in this town, those small wants are too much to ask.