Moving to Australia & Finding Our Dream Home? Part 1

Just keep viewing… Just keep viewing… Just keep viewing, viewing, viewing!

Oh, hey beautiful people, welcome back to the Jalloh family blog. Take a pew and stay a while, we have some things to tell you.

Today, we take you through a tour of the Casa Del Jalloh. If you have enjoyed this family blog, click on another one and don’t forget to like, leave a comment and follow us for more Jalloh family content.

If you have been following us on Instagram, you might have picked up on the hints that we have bought our first ever home.

Imagine!

Us… little old us… A year in Oz and we are home owners.

Someone pinch me, it must be a… actually, don’t pinch me, because the dream has come true. It has been an interesting process, to say the least, and one that has taught us a lot.

We went through the house buying process during the Covid-19 pandemic; things were a little spicy for sure. This blog is all about our new home, we will write separate blogs detailing the house buying process in Oz (Canberra) and the additional costs outside of the actual price of the house.

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We‘ve been viewing houses on and off for the last 12 months, both in Brisbane and in Canberra. We did this so we could establish what we liked, what we didn’t like, what we were prepared to compromise on and what was essential. It also proved super useful for us to get to grips and become familiar with the suburbs within Canberra. It was fun going to see the different houses. I would say, we probably saw over 70 houses during this time; old houses; new houses; small houses; large houses, one storey; two storeys – $400,000 – £1.2 million houses and dilapidated to Bran new state of the art houses. There were loads that were super beautiful and others that were just not for our family (nice way to put it).

I remember the day we came to see our dream home like it was yesterday. We had decided to come and see the house in the morning, the website said the house was open for viewing at 10am. We were really just going to see the house to ‘have a look’. It was a little further out than we wanted, but not super far that would be out of reach for work, gym and our sons extra curricula activities. We knew that there were a few houses we could see as it was a new build with a number of houses available.

As we drove into Holt, we acknowledged how beautiful and open it was. It was reminiscent of Brisbane, so we felt it straight away. We looked at each other an knew something was about to happen! We had not been to Holt before and enjoyed the ride over here; which was about 20 minutes from where we were living prior.

Upon arrival at the property, the real estate agent was running late; he was delayed as his children had a sleep over the night before and having a lot of kids in your house, as all you parents reading will know, makes it pretty near impossible to get out of the house on time. So, he was a little bit flustered when we arrived, but this gave us a little more time to have a look around the first house on our own and to start forming our own ‘uninfluenced’ opinion.

We got as far as the family room, living room and master bedroom which were all on the ground floor. Brent (the real estate agent) then joined us as we were making our way upstairs to see the other three bedrooms and the main family bathroom. The house was beautiful. It was very well built and the finish was to a very high standard.

The only two things that didn’t sit right for us with house 1 was the layout of the upstairs; it felt a little cramped and it didn’t flow very well. The bedrooms were a great size, so much so that there really was no landing or hallway upstairs. There was also a little study desk upstairs on the tiny landing. While that was a great addition to the upstairs, it also meant that Ahmed would be locked away upstairs for a lot of time as he edits our blogs and vlogs.As most of you know, he is a primary school teacher, so there is a lot of planning and marking that would keep him out of the family spaces. I didn’t like the idea of that, not only would he be away from the main family areas (fun zones), it also meant that I would be spending a lot of time on the floor, upstairs on the landing, because wherever Ahmed is, that’s where I want to be.

House one’s garden was also backing onto another house. That in itself was not too much of an issue because the house was not super close and was private with fences etc. The thing that put me off that house was the fact that it only had sun in the afternoon due to the positioning of the homes next door. For those of you that know me, you know I love to be outside. So much so that when we were planning our wedding, the only thing… I mean, the main thing I “requested” was the ability to go outside (which of course Ahmed made sure we had).

The second house we saw was the exact same as the first house (just unfurnished), it was just next door, so had a slightly different lookout of the front windows. We had the same reservations of that property as we did the first. However, as I write this blog and reflect with Ahmed on that day, we both recall that we were thinking of putting an offer in for the first house we saw as it was still meeting most of our requirements, despite the sticking points I have mentioned in this blog.

The real estate agent then informed us that there was one more property that we could view today. He was kind of talking it down, so we were not really expecting much. As we walked in the front door I heard it… I heard my husband say those words… ‘This is it!’ My heart skipped a beat…

We had found it… We had arrived home!

Please, stay tuned for Finding Our Dream Home? Part 2 which will include vlogs from our new YouTube Channel.

Thank you for keeping up with the Jalloh family and for your continued support.

Thank you for your generous and thoughtful gift of time. You could be anywhere else at this moment but you chose to be here reading our blog and for that, we are grateful.

Peace, Love and Happiness.

The Jalloh family.