Buying house

[Jessica Berry]

Another thing to take into account is the interest rates. At the moment they are the lowest they have been for a long time. Our current rate is 4.95% which is the lowest it has been in the almost 7 years we have had the mortgage, back in June 2008 our rate was as high as 9.14% which makes a massive difference in the payments.

[dudleycat]

Hi Smithers, sorry for the late reply, haven't been on here for a while.

We are staying in Marino at the moment. its a lovely suburb a couple of train stops south of Brighton. We haven't actually made it from here into the city yet, (keep stopping at the beachside suburbs on the way in!) so couldn't tell you how long it takes, but my estimation is about 30 mins. It's 10 mins from here to Brighton (on the Seaford line) and a train and bus combination to get to Glenelg in around 30 mins.

We plan to drive up to Henley beach one of these days to check out suburbs from there down along the coast as far as where we are now. I think that might be our search criteria, but we might throw in a wildcard by venturing up to the hills and seeing what that's like as well. we are here until mid jan, so plenty of time to suss out the areas.

We are housesitting so unfortunately cant comment on rent costs I'm afraid.