Wednesday 27 May 2009

[PropertyInfo.036] Property Market booming after FHOB extended?

Before the announcement of the budget, there were lots of rumor about property market crashing after the "First Home Owner Boost (FHOB)" finished in end of June. Now that the FHOB been extended (see reports here and here, everything seems to change!

Not sure about your area, in Epping the best example would be this old unrenovated cottage, with 695 sqr meter of land --- perfect candidate for a knock down and rebuild. As it's quite wide it might be qualified for a duplex too (subject to council approval).

In the past 2 open houses it was always packed with interested buyers, most of them intended to knock it down as it's been vacant for almost 2 years and not in a very good condition.

When I was there last Saturday, I saw this old Apple II from 197? (same as the one in the photo below from Internet, with 2 huge floppy drives) sitting on the floor in the corner of a bedroom. I probably spent more time on this little cutie than the old house and if there weren't so many people around, I would be seriously thinking of ..... Sorry, back to the house...

The asking price was $620K, we think it should be somewhere in the high $600K area. Last Saturday we heard that there were already a few offers around $680K, which is pretty good. Wife called the agent this afternoon and was told the highest offer is in the $710K range and might even go higher, wow!

As it's not for Auction, there's really no deadline and would be interested to see how much it would be sold for in the end...

Is your area going well after the FHOB extended as well? Share your story with us!

Thursday 21 May 2009

[Others.041] Execellent tool to control kid's TV/Computer/Game time

If you are like us, having problem controlling kid's TV/game time after school, there's a solution!

According to this report on "Oh Gizmo!", there's this little "tamper-proof" timer device which you can set the timer and completely lock the power point of the TV/Computer/Game Console, not bad isn't it?


Further details can be found in Digital Innovation, it's currently US$29.99 each and comes with 1 year warranty.

It's a very simple 3 step setup as below:

It can be programmed to repeat every 24 hours, and 4-digit pass code to prevent unauthorized timer changes.

Would be good to know when this becomes available in Australia!

Friday 1 May 2009

[Progress.155] 2nd update on the leaf guard problem

After arrived home, wife told me tomorrow morning's appointment has been canceled but she forgot to tell me and didn't revoke the meeting invite she sent to me, so looks like we have to wait for a bit longer...Sorry about that.

At least there's a good news. This time the subcontractor is a company called Allcoast Gutterguard. Their web site provides lots of information and certainly looks a lot more professional then the "under construction" web site from UltraMesh.

There's also a "Installation Procedure" which has this most important step for us:

"Step 6: securing around hips and gables. The final step in the installation process is securing the guttermesh around the hips and gables. high quality roof and gutter silicon is used to fasten the mesh to the ridge capping so that no leaves can get in anywhere."

And from their Photo Gallery, I can see these 2 quite impressive photos with nice finishes at the corner.


Will wait and see how it goes.

If the quality of work is as good as the photos, I will certainly let everyone know!