Oops, we did it again

For the 11th, and hopefully final, time, we just bought a house.

It’s about 40 minutes north of our current place. Still technically Auckland, but you gotta drive through some sheep farms to get there.

As much as we like our current house, this new one seems even better for us… the views, walk down to the beach, a garage, fewer stairs. It has the potential for a tenant or Airbnb on the lower level. There’s even a butler’s pantry! The upstairs was renovated a couple years ago by… wait for it… one of my swimming buddies! When I called him to ask for advice, he said hang on what’s the exact address? And sure enough, what a wonderful coincidence.

We’ll be able to walk to all the shops we need in two directions and, with some adjustments, continue all our current activities (pétanque, swimming, Lee’s volunteering) up in the new community. The gym has a location close by.

Altogether, it feels like it was meant to be. It was sold at auction, quite common here, but as it turned out we were the only bidders. We probably paid a few thousand too much, but we weren’t off by much I don’t think.

Now comes a few furious weeks of moving and prepping our house for sale. But that will pass quickly, and from that point forward it’s (virgin) margaritas on the deck, listening to the birds and watching the sailboats in the bay.