Its been around for a while on the listings page of realestate.com.au. We had only recently shifted our focus to this part of the western suburbs. It pans well for our other parameters such as distance to school, crime stats, etc.

We got an asbestos inspection done on the property before making a deposit. It came out clean inside as it had been recently updated. However, there were some places outside the home and under it where non-friable asbestos was found. We made an offer on the property subsequent to this.

We have since contacted the same agency that performed the inspection and tests to quote a price for the cleanup. If everything goes ok, we are good to pursue this further and close the sale if all goes well.

We plan to ask for a 10 working day cooling period and enough time for us to thoroughly do a structural inspection of the property. This property is more than 40 years old and is built on piers, as are most properties from that time.

For us, the sale was more or less down to the fact that the house was remodeled recently. It was highly likely (although not certain) that any asbestos discovered during the remodeling process might have been removed. It turned out to be true as the inspection showed.

The location is very nice and we like that vicinity is super quiet. My kids are noisy; I guess they will stand out pretty quickly in that place after we move in. The constant bickering is loud enough to wake the dead!

The land slopes down to the back of the property. The courtyard is quite spacious with the house occupying one of the corners of the land. This works best for us as we want the maximum space available for the courtyard. Even the deck is very close to the house and is in one corner leaving a large part of the courtyard free for use by children.

Hoping everything goes well in the coming weeks and we secure the deal !

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I can see prices are dropping, a little at a time. Some of the properties I have been finding that slashed their prices in larger chunks were those bought during market highs – Dec last year (Dec 2021). Others are investment properties that were bought in 2020 or thereabouts.

According to some reports, even if the market falls by, a whopping 30%, it is only going to be back at 2020 levels. That shows how high prices have been over the last couple of years!

Auction rates have slowly increased, I think probably due to seasonal purchases. Only in Australia have I heard of property-buying seasons! It’s like everyone decides, “hey, it’s spring, let’s shop some properties…. ” ?

As a first-time home buyer, this market is a little puzzling to us. I have not heard of houses selling in auctions this frequently, as if they were original masterpieces of Van Gogh or Monet found accidentally in someone’s attic! These are pretty ordinary houses, why are they so much in demand that they have to be auctioned? It’s not like there is a low supply or anything. Or is there?

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The site is https://microburbs.com.au. It’s free to use and awesome!

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It starts to show up on the real estate websites about a week before the rate increase by RBA is set to be announced. Not sure why this is happening.

Although it appears now there are more houses this month than there were about a month ago. I think if there wasn’t a glut before, it will show up now.

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Until we got hold of the structural inspection report. This house is close to a storm drain. Not only was there a termite and borer problem, but it also had its piers shifted at an almost 60-degree angle. This might be because of soil erosion due to rainwater rushing towards the storm drain from the road.

It was the strangest thing I ever saw. I am shocked a house could shift in that way. If I were to look for positives, at least the inspection was done very well!

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Although the house is an early 1980s build, asbestos is found behind the switchboard, splash back tiles in the kitchen, and wet areas in the bathrooms.

I liked this house. I was hoping that this test came out clear. Very disappointed today :(.

Search begins in earnest again tomorrow morning…

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This is our first home, one where we hope to see our kids grow up. We have a few requirements, at least 3 bedrooms, an ok-ok kitchen, a large courtyard, at least 2 bathrooms/toilets, a great suburb, not very far from my kids’ schools.

I like to dabble in gardening, so a large enough garden area will be welcome as well. Although not a necessity; I have plans of purchasing a rural plot sometime in the next couple of years. My husband concurs and my kids are excited about this plan. So that’s sorted from a direction and money point of view.

So our options are:

1. A knockdown rebuild house. This would have to be an older house (asbestos-ridden, that’s why a knockdown). We buy the house just for the land value. Based on how much we want to spend on the house, we either build a granny flat home (as primary home). Later on, we extend this house with additional rooms. Knocked down house area will serve our new courtyard.
2. A new house – already constructed – built in the last 23 years. From 2022, it would mean the house is no asbestos as the date of construction would be in the late nineties. Asbestos was banned in 1982, although it was used to some extent in construction until 1980s ended. It was entirely stopped in the early 1990s. Asbestos was formally banned from export in the late 1990s. So, this magic number of 23 years is not actually a magic number.
3. A townhouse or villa. These buildings are relatively new and were built in the early 2000s or late 1990s. We always ask for date of construction before we set out for a house inspection.

With the slow decline in house prices this year (4th rate increase took place a few days ago this week), we hope to have a good subset to choose from. Although we feel the pain of those who may have invested their hard-earned money buying these houses not so long ago in March 2022 during the peak of house prices. It feels ghoulish not to

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Asbestos isn’t an issue in the rest of the world it would appear. Especially in construction. It was rightly banned( or was stopped from active use) in the 1980s in many countries. Europe in 1983, America in 1989, and many Asian countries in the 2000s. However, it would appear that only Australia made rampant use of this metal in construction.

From what I hear, the use of asbestos was first introduced in construction soon after the second world war. It was used in all parts of a new home – in the wall, floor, roof, ewes, garage, fence, behind ceramic tiles, and meter boards.

When we first started looking for homes, we were blissfully unaware of this issue. I was aware of how highly carcinogenic asbestos is. We learned about it in our high school textbooks.

Horrific images of carcinoma tumors of the lungs of terminal patients adorned many of these books. Enough was done to kill any condescension on the part of the reader. We know better than to ignore how dangerous asbestos can be.

What was surprising in the last few months was how widely used this metal is in older houses. Most houses are older – mostly built in the 1960s and 1970s. We also came to know that there is a belt of suburbs, known as the asbestos belt, in the west of Parramatta comprising Black Town, Seven Hills, Toongabbie, and possibly a few more.

These houses were apparently built for returning soldiers and poorer Australians. This created a surge of fibro houses, and the new miracle ingredient – asbestos in these western suburbs.

Recently I have come to know that although these houses were more frequent in the west, they were not entirely absent from the Eastern suburbs.

https://www.airsafe.net.au/asbestos-hazardous-material/asbestos/common-locations/

These houses can be inspected by licensed asbestos inspectors. They usually do a visual inspection. Especially during the cooling period or even before you make a deposit to put a house under offer. We recently did so.

We spent 3 sleepless nights trying to find out if this inspection would suffice. Also where we might find such an expert. We found a good expert and he appears to know his stuff.

What we are not sure about is how far a visual inspection would go. Should this step pass and we receive a thumbs up, we will go ahead and buy this property. But what after that?

Should we do a more thorough inspection? Should we take samples and get them tested in labs?

We have two young kids, and we don’t feel confident we can move into a home that we might even mildly suspect is asbestos ridden. These things show their poisonous effects after 35-40 years. This stuff scares us, to be honest.

The post More on Asbestos… appeared first on Oz property Journey.

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.

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