Rental Search Part Deux

So, we're back from our trip to Newcastle. The weather has been great and the drive down on thursday morning was nice. Roads here are so easy to drive on and there were stretches of highway more than a hundred kilometers long where the satnav had no directions to give. The car is good on the more open roads, great for overtaking on the hilly bits and not once did I have to put my foot all the way down.

We saw three places yesterday. The first one was in Warners Bay. That suburb wasn't really even on our radar until recently, but it was recommended and we're glad it was. It's on Lake Macquarie and a really nice setting. There's a path around the lake, lots of shade, picnic  benches. Great. The house was on a road just down from the lake and has all the rooms we need and extra storage space. The lounge is fairly small, as is the kitchen, but they're both functional. There are three bedrooms, the master has an en suite and walk-in wardrobe. There's another bathroom too. I was put off at first because the decorating is a bit shoddy (made me feel great about the stuff we did in York). It has a garden which is a good size but not in great condition. It's got a double garage too, so loads of car room.

We then saw a place in Bar Beach, which is a suburb just off one of the beaches. It was a no-no almost as soon as we walked in the door. Much smaller than the pictures had appeared and very dated.

Then later in the afternoon we saw another one in Warners Bay. On a road just down from the lake again, but further round. This one was in decent condition, but not particularly big. Didn't have a second bathroom though and the toilet was in the laundry, which was also where the back door was. Weird.

We stayed in a hotel overnight and were back out today. We had another walk around Warners Bay and sat just by the lake for a couple of hours which was really nice. We're very keen on the area. This afternoon we saw a house in Dudley. This one was more modern, a fairly recently built townhouse. Had a big living room, three decent bedrooms, two nicely fitted bathrooms and a good sized kitchen. A private balcony at the back and a very small yard at the front but no actual garden.  The area is totally different in terms of it being more residential and close to the beach rather than the lake.

At the moment we're torn between the first one in Warners Bay and the one in Dudley.  We like them both for different reasons.  We like Warners Bay for the space and the very nice area (lake, walks, shops etc), but we like the house at Dudley.  We think we're going to apply for both and see what happens.

We found a couple of others that we wanted to look round too, but we called the estate agent twice and both times they didn't call us back!  They also operate on a "inspection day" system rather than "by appointment" which has meant we've missed out on seeing more as if you can't go to the inspection, then tough!  We'll se what happens with those and we might make another trip next week.

This is all very frustrating, but exciting at the same time!