Old houses
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
I know it's not much to look at. But I used to live about 100 metres from this house and everyday I would walk past it and think "I want this house".

Everyone I know thinks I love modern architectural designed homes. And I do. I love minimalism and sleek lines. But I love these older villas more. This villa was built around 1900, has two original ornate fireplaces, a Matai curved staircase and a clawfoot bath tub. (If you want to know how I know this, I got it from the real estate website LOL) Sure, it needs a lot of work done, but it has really good bones and structure. It's a grand old dame!

My current flat has the same feel to it too - it is also a villa built around 1900s LOL. I seem to like those.

Unfortunately, I can't afford this one - rateable value is NZ$500,000! So I imagine asking price would be a higher than that. Bit steep for this single girl (unless of course, I met a rich old man... or won lotto!). It would cost that much again to restore it. Wonder if I should check out the open home on the weekend... dreaming here... LOL


Tart at 4:43 PM |

5 Comments:
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At 5:20 PM, Blogger Jo said........
I don't know how much NZ$500,000 is but i'm ganna look it up and just assume its a lot.... :-) I like little villas too....
 


At 5:24 PM, Blogger Jo said........
just for people's knowledge... according to yahoo finance NZ$500,000 is US$312,224.8352....... Depending on where you want a house... its about par..... Still way too much for me.... I think my mothers house is prolly about that much but its huge and in a dinky little nothing town of about 1700.... if you drive to minneapolis or st.paul or the suburbs that would probably buy about the same as that house.
 


At 12:55 PM, Blogger Serendipity said........
Wow...that's about how much my house cost...except that I could probably buy a much bigger one in a less expensive city than Dallas.

In fact, I wanted to go house-shopping just in case we want to trade it the buzzy city and move like 10 minutes out of the city.
 


At 2:28 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said........
I love older houses. I just don't have the patience or talent to make the most of them. Tart, You should just go for it and buy this house. Then you can invite the "Mom From Hell" over for tea. lol

KC, thanks for the conversion. $312,000! In some area's of US you can get a huge house for that. It's amazing how the cost of living can change from one town to the next.
 


At 3:59 PM, Blogger Tart said........
House prices are so different to compare internationally - you have to take into consideration the market, interest rates, differences in salaries etc. My parents bought a house in the UK for 400,000 pounds - in NZ dollars that's over NZ$1.1 million! A NZ$1.1 million dollar home is pretty fucking nice home... but the 400,000 home in the UK, while nice, is hardly a million dollar house in NZ terms.

Realistically, I'll never own my own home. It's not economically feasible - I'd rather pay cheaper rent and not have the hassle of home ownership. Plus, with the money I save paying rent, I can put into my investments and then when I'm an old lady, I'll be set up! I will be one of those old ladies who travels abroad every year, drives a new car and is always out for lunch LOL.