It is all coming along nicely, touch wood, it all appears to be falling into place. I can finally tell you all, I will do it in two parts. Two sections we were considering on purchasing. 133 Dunback Road, Palmerston. The properties have two old school rooms that were located in the late 90s. These were put on the land, consent granted but they never got past the piles being dug. We hoped to save the buildings and we played a bit of cat and mouse to get them under contract. After we viewed the properties we attempted to get them under contract before the deadline sale. We offered $165k, which we hoped would entice them to take it. It ended up being a mistake as we gave the vendors high price expectations. When they didn’t take the offer we took it off the table and stayed quiet for a week.

The day before the deadline sale we got a call from the agent to see if we were still interested. I was very noncommittal and stayed very vague, a proud moment because that is not a strong point of mine. I overshare when I shouldn’t haha. This is the same day we did the phone bidding for the Waimate auction. That was in the morning and we stayed around Oamaru area to complete some errands. Once all our jobs were done, we headed south. We stayed near Shag Point waiting for the agent to call us. Those who blink first loose. We finally get a call about 3.30pm and we go to meet her at the property. We find there is one other offer, it is conditional on a lot of things including lending. Let’s face it, it is not worth the price of fish and it will never get over the line. As the only offer on the table we went in at $150k. Which we expected would be a bit of a blow to them. From there we headed to Dunedin for a much needed day off from property. The agent asked us to go up in price, we said no take it or leave it. They took it but wanted a 5 day sunset clause if an unconditional offer came to the table. I thought rather silly since we only did a 10 day due diligence but I texted back and said we are okay with that. 

We enjoyed the day off and op shopped all of Dunedin. We had a cool Atomic coffee machine to pick up. On our way back to Kakanui we dropped into Palmerston to sign the changes on the contract. Much to our despair the added clause was completely different to what the agent told us it was. They put 2 days instead of 5 and the wording meant any offer could invoke the clause. Rowan put his foot down and said it is 5 days or nothing. The agent tried to tell us we can’t pull the contract. Well lady until we agree and sign it there is no contract in place. After a bit of back and fourth we finally had an agreement signed. Now to start our due diligence. 

Here are some photos of the project. Our builder said we could save the two buildings but it will cost a lot of money. These are not exactly an architectural gem.

Just as our i’s got dotted and our t’s got crossed we came across a private sale on Facebook that changed our direction.