Asbestos

We have been looking at houses for purchase for the past few months. Although we have been at it on and off for a few years since 2018, this time we are more hopeful of landing a sale.

A reason for this sudden interest is RBA’s assault on house prices by increasing interest rates. Policy and interest rate changes directed towards increasing CRR have shown their effects of late.

As of today, banks offer, roughly, 4.75% on variable interest plans. I notice new houses coming into the market on a daily basis. I had not seen this steady stream of new houses (both stand-alone and townhouses) this year until now.

We have inspected roughly 23 houses in the past month alone. During these visits, we encountered different structural designs, both in old and very old houses. Most houses are old (some were ancient), and built entirely out of timber and some other materials.

As I looked at materials, I came across a government directive regarding asbestos – its inspection, safe disposal, etc. More digging told me that loose-filled asbestos is what we had to be careful about. This is because loose-filled asbestos – is usually built into the structure at many locations in a house. Loose-filled asbestos is easily airborne and is highly carcinogenic.

I read a lot of horror stories involving people working with asbestos that gets airborne. Health issues and their symptoms showed up, sometimes even after 4 decades in some cases. Apparently, of all types of asbestos, the loose-filled and fibro are the most dangerous for both the inhabitants of the home as well as workers who might be working in the home for renovation, etc.

The issue we faced with finalizing the purchase of any one of the houses this month was this new discovery of possible asbestos. We realized that it may be impossible to know for certain if asbestos has been removed from a home in its entirety, even with the help of professionals.

We have been warned against being overenthusiastic about the presence of asbestos. “That it was ok to move into a house that may potentially have asbestos. Just make sure you don’t drill holes in walls!”

Therefore, we moved away from inspecting houses and are looking at townhouses. The headache of finding out when a home was built (asbestos was banned as construction material around 1992 – 1997) was proving to be too much. Townhouses appear to be relatively safe. As long as we know when townhouses were built, we hope to avoid asbestos altogether.

I prefer a house, with its privacy, land ownership, etc., and inherent appreciation of land value over time. However, in the short term, I think townhouses are a good compromise. In any case, prices appear to be much more competitive, across the board, since June this year.