Housing Hopportunities

If the topic wasn't boring enough to begin with, it managed to drag me in, and bring me down. $975,000 was how much is sold for. $975 THOUSAND dollars. That’s $240,000 over the asking price. Is that cheap change? ‘The floor boards are rotting anyway’ scoffed my mother as we walked away. 'You would have to re-stump the whole thing, it would cost an extra 100 K on top of what they just paid.’ 'Plus those commission flats in Collingwood. Have you seen the scruff that walks out of that place? Junkies! All of them. You’d get stabbed!'

Stop buying smashed avocado, the tabloids read. Smashed fucking avocado. I didn't even like avocado and I still couldn't see myself acquiring a house in the next 500 years. Maybe it was the Herald Sun reporting.

Real estate agents. Wolf dressed in sheep's clothing. The scummiest of the lot. Lying, skeezy salespeople. Under quoting by $300,000 to draw the attention of hopeful millennials on the auction day. ‘You can afford this! The reserve is in that price range!’ You won’t find another house in Fitzroy North for that price!'

That price was a million dollars. That was a bargain around this area. A bargain I couldn't afford.

Daniel was of a short, slim stature. He was wearing a fitted blue suit and his blond greying hair was slicked back. He wore spectacles that sat just above his nose and his voice was highly pitched. I asked Daniel, the shifty real estate agent who had taken me through 130 Gold street earlier this week what the plan was if the liberals won the state election again. They had poured over a billion dollars into the East West link and it had been shut down due to public outroar not that long ago. All the housing in this area was acquired by the state government and was now being sold. The East West link was still on the cards. If they won the state election, would there be another housing acquisition? He looked at me as if I might have been deranged. Did he know what the East West link was? I thought to myself. Shouldn't he have SOME general knowledge on the suburb he is selling a million dollar house in?  I thought that was his job. A rush of blood to the head. I was furious, frustrated and dealing with a fucking idiot.

Gore street? SKA-TA! Pou pou pou. My yaya scoffed at the thought of Fitzroy. 'You couldn't PAY me to live in that area.' She muttered in Greek.  Mum replied swiftly. ‘You couldn't afford to even if you wanted to mum! It’s changed since you lived there. No one can afford it.’ Mum was driving with her knees. She had one hand on the phone and the other was twirling her hair, a casual 20 kilometres over the limit down the freeway. It’s called multitasking and that’s how she taught me how to drive.

Coburg, Cheltenham, Chelsea, Depreston. Consider it. I could have a backyard! I could have a solid brick house that isn’t rotting from the inside. I may be isolated from society and be growing up in the 'burbs but the cute family next door will let me play with their dog and ask me to babysit their kids. I contemplated the option of moving to Tasmania and pro creating with a relative. 

‘Why don’t you just buy shares. That's what I’m doing’, Jack made suggestions and threw the stick for the dog as I complained. 'But I don’t know anything about the stock market. Maybe i’ll ask my boss - Or just move to Italy. I've been considering that for a while now.'  'What about your new job! Where’s the new office again? 'Collins street.' 'Paris or Afghanistan?' 'Paris, it’s the good end. Only 4.2 kilometres away from here.' It’s a pretty good deal, I guess.

I decided to shut up for a while. Stop going to auctions. Stop researching. Stop looking at the paper.  Put my time and effort into entering competitions and winning the lottery.