Home-Hunting

Whoop! What a mission!!! And thank goodness it's all over and we move into our new apartment on the 1st of October :D For a wee while there I was starting to think we'd never get one...

German's are very particular about letting people rent off them (probably a good thing, considering some of the trouble people I know have gone through with tenants they've had) and a self-employed, freelancer working for a company in New Zealand, with his foreign, unemployed girl friend aren't exactly what you'd call 'risk free' so again YAY!!! That we have a new home!!! :D

Also we had a very restricting list of "must haves" and "would-be-great-if-it-has haves"

• would be great if it has a balcony or garden (or both!)
• would be great if it's in one of 4 select areas
• must be close to transport (U-bahn and/or S-bahn stops)
• must have at least 2 rooms
• must be bigger then the last (those that know it know why)
• must be not too big (we own NO things and don't want to buy in excess)
• must have heating
• must be within our price range
• must not have a stupid "pay me just cause" provision fee
• must have a kitchen

So yeah... not too fussy ;) Our final home ticks 8 of the 10 boxes plus it came with a cabinet, couch and some curtains, so we're doing pretty well.
Here's a quick squizz at what it looks like before we take over:

The couch in the middle is ours now :)

Another thing I wasn't prepared for is the kitchen... homes in Germany don't always come with kitchens! Crazy huh?! So your house is kitted out with a nice spanky kitchen, everything fits and works well, couple of years down the track you decide to move. What do you do? Take the kitchen with you! that's right! and then get to your new place and try and figure out how the kitchen that worked so well in one place is going to work in another :/ As a tenant, same thing! So our 'must have a kitchen' list item was a lot harder then normal! In the end we bought the kitchen off the previous tenants, just a small simple IKEA thing. We are now proud owners of a stainless steel bench top with sink and taps, 2 cupboards underneath, 2 high wall hung cupboards and an oven!!!

You would think that now I would be all relaxed and happy since we have a home... Nope! Now that I can no longer put off the job search in favour of the home hunt it's all come crashing down! Arrrrhhh! Wish me luck!!