As most people know, we moved house last week.  When we moved in (August 2008), we hoped that in 18 months or so we’d be in a position to buy rather than rent.  Unfortunately, amongst the other badness of 2009, it was not good financially, and we’re certainly not in that position now.  Failing that, we had planned to be there at least until summer of 2010/2011.  However, in January our landlord told us that he planned to sell the house, so sooner-or-later we would need to move.  Although there wasn’t any rush, we started looking for somewhere new fairly quickly – living in a rental property that’s for sale is no fun, and nor is having only 6 weeks to find somewhere new to live (if it had sold).

It took a couple of months – the pickings are slim when you have a cat, a dog, a 3-year-old, need decent Internet access, and want to be fairly rural – and we failed to get the first place we applied for, but after a couple of months we did find somewhere new to live, and have spent the last few weeks packing in earnest, then moving, then unpacking (nearly finished now).

Our time at 327 Point Wells was somewhat odd.  The last 18 months – essentially the entire time we were there – have been extremely bad for us, with few exceptions.  However, that’s mostly coincidental – it was generally quite a nice place to live.  We did have some nice times there (particularly in the early days), and there were certainly nice aspects of the property (the spa, the kitchen, the back yard, the large rooms).  However, it’s nice in some ways to have a fresh start as well.

Our new place is extremely different.  It’s ‘small town’ rather than rural.  There are only three bedrooms, and all the rooms are considerably smaller.  It’s modern (the kitchen and bathroom at 327 had been recently redone, but otherwise it was a very old house in fairly poor condition).  You can see the neighbour’s houses from most of the windows.  We’re renting via a real estate agent rather than an individual.  It’s fairly priced rather than cheap. And so on – these aren’t all negatives, but it’s certainly a huge change.  Some things will take a bit of getting used to (less privacy, the noise from the road, less space), but a year goes by pretty quickly, and I’m sure we’ll manage that easily enough.

In many ways the plan after this hasn’t really changed.  We have a bit under a year and a half before Samuel starts school.  Once that happens, we really want to stay in the same area (close enough that he doesn’t have to change school) for a long time.  That means that in about a year’s time, we may need to move again, but we’ll have to be very careful about the area that we choose (whether it’s renting or buying).  Olyvia’s quite keen on Ahuroa at the moment, although that might not be the case at that time.

Hopefully photos soon, but I do have a backlog of about 3k, so they might be a while.