Monday, October 01, 2007

on the hunt again

So I am actively house hunting again.. I'm not sure if that one bid I put in for the apartment in January counts but I contacted a real estate agent and arranged to view a townhouse today. The price was nice and it was (perfectly) located in a quiet gated complex on the outskirts of New Kingston.

One thing I can say is that real estate agents seem to be shiesty individuals, before going I asked whats the size of the place and he couldn't give me an exact figure but said around 1000 square feet. Upon reaching the place I asked him again how large it was and it magically moved up to around 1600 sq ft. I had to laugh. I asked him how old it is and he claimed 12 years 16 at most, this man either knows nothing of the place he is selling or is trying to pull a fast one on me. Upon looking at the dated place my estimate was at least 30 years old, I then took out my tape measure and calculated the place to be 950 sq ft... the place was looking less attractive by the second.

The "young first time home buyer" paint must have still been wet on my forehead as he also told me to hurry up and put in my offer as the place will be gone before the end of the day... oh well my or his loss cause I would definitely not put in any offer or deposit based off the string of lies he tried to feed me. I hope it was really his loss as the last time I was hunting for an apartment to rent I found the perfect place and lost it cause I still had a couple more weeks left on my lease and figured I would find somewhere before it expired, oh well you live and you learn.

One thing of interest was that Usain Bolt and his brother was currently renting the place, I didn't recognise him downstairs but when I was looking at the bedrooms I noticed all of their trophies in their rooms. It's a good thing I'm not a fanatic cause I am sure all the people who passed through before harassed them to no end. My mother told me about a newish (< 5years) townhouse up on the auction block due to foreclosure.. at 1700 sq ft in Mona seems to be out of the reach of my pocket but lets see what the auction brings... lots of wishful thinking.

ps.. I think this is my 100th post, break out the bubbly!

18 comments:

Unknown said...

Its too bad you can't use www.trulia.com in jamaica. Maybe we should work together on that :)

Anonymous said...

Hope you get the right place that will suit you. That agent sounds really shady.

Anonymous said...

Real estate agent, insurance broker, stock broker..
Cya too trust them.

Adrian said...

That trulia looks sweet.. thanks for reminding me how in the dark we are :(

lol you left car dealers off that list jamsprint

Dee said...

smart move bringing out the tape measure. They can be a sheisty lot when the desperation sets in.

Jessica said...

G'luck.

Anonymous said...

lol...i can just imagine the look on his face when he saw th etape measure.....whatever did he say to that????? Good luck on the house hunting though....and take your time.....
and that shady list usually invoves ALL/MOST sales people!

Anonymous said...

good luck with the search. I avoided agents when I was looking -work of mouth worked well. Another friend drove around and asked security guards at places she was interested in if anythign was for sale and that route worked for her...

One Man’s Opinion said...

I found and bought my house without the aid of a real estate agent. They have their own agendas and I don't have time.

Unknown said...

Plus, biting on what One Man said, they try to catch a little attitude when you don't like any of the crap they show you. Well, at least I thought they did. (Don't get a Townhome, Brother).

SimplEnigma said...

Jamsprint:I don't think you can paint financial folks wid the same brush. I'm juss sayin.

You think it's hard buyin property in JA? Try buying it when you live in NY and only have internet pics to go by. *sigh*

Check out Jamaican Woman and Kingston Girl blogs. I think they both blogged a lot about their househunting experiences and may be able to give you some advice. And I know it is always our tendency to try to go these things alone, but this is one area where the parents can be extremely helpful since they've been through it and will know what to ask. Take 'em along next time.

Unknown said...

All the best with the house hunting, its a rough, cold world in the real estate market.

Anonymous said...

Good luck with that. I'm trying to decide whether to sell the newly constructed place (not yet handed over) or rent it or live in it.

Unknown said...

I just signed my second real estate contract, the first one I changed my mind on, lets see what happens with this one.

Unknown said...

And I used a real estate agent, but she seems to be hard at work getting me 10k off and trying to get money for closing costs, we'll see how that ends up.

Adrian said...

you seem to be right on track alex.. at least one of is :p

I went to the auction this morning, it was quite interesting. When the auction started someone made a bid then I made a bid then the auctioneer said that he would make a bid. I am assuming his bid would have pushed it up to the reserved price but what was funny was that it was double what was on the table. The whole room seemed like they were looking for a bargain cause nobody else made a peep after he put up his offer so nobody will get that forclosed property for now.

Unknown said...

What was it like? Was it a really nice property? At 1700 sq ft it seems quite spacious

Adrian said...

never got to go to the property, the auction was held at the Cortleigh hotel. Talk about buying puss-in-bag lol