teeym

Just tell me who to poke and when - although seeing as the estate agent has just been on the phone, poking will come second to pointing merrily at the "Sold Subject To Contract" sign that I have reliably been informed will be rocking up in the next 24hrs or so.

Appreciate that nothing is certain until the wedge is in the bank, but feeling quietly optimistic now (particularly as they have indicated they want a quick move) and may have to go to the pub for a tonight.

Spent last night on t'internet and found what looked to be pretty agreeable jobs with both Transfield Worley up near Whangarei and Ballance in Taranaki. Nothing immediately suitable for SWMBO nearby, but heartening to find that there are proper career jobs in my current-ish area that I'm qualified to apply for becoming available.

Now, where's that stick........

zoexr

Great news all round then! Congrats on the house.
You could use the pointed stick to point to the sign (it would give you extra empasis!)

teeym

Stick has been despatched with - it is no longer required!

Just had an e-mail from a nice lady called Maxine Little informing us that we'd had an e-mail allocating us to her on 6th February! Not entirely sure where it went, but it left her address and didn't get to ours - bloomin' technology!

Anyway, Maxine seems to be a very efficient lady, as rather than waiting for our response, she's despatched my medicyclopedia off to their MA and has just had word back that my standard of health is ACCEPTABLE! One bollock cancer boy comes good at last!!!

Seeing as we thought this would be lobbing a month on the process, to be informed that we're suddenly at the interview stage is a bit nerve wracking to say the least - particularly as we've been told it's not just principal applicant SWMBO who is getting the grilling, yours truly is up for it too! Can anyone assuage some of my fears by telling me Maxine is a really cool lady and interviews with her are pleasant, calming affairs?!? The e-mail was pretty formal, but I guess they have to be and are a reasonably set format?

Either way, today has suddenly turned from being quite a rubbish day at work into the most exciting to date of 2010. This evening is going to be a research-fest (just to back up what we already know really!) accompanied by a healthy dose of .

YEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

shelloid

Congrats - exciting feeling isn't to know things are actually moving at last!

AngelaandJim

Hiya

That's great news so pleased for you. Can't help with the interview but i'm sure you will be fine good luck xx

Reylan

Hello there. Congrats on getting to the interview. We had Maxine as our case officer and she was really helpful and very nice. She emailed us to say that she wanted to speak to my OH (principal Applicant) and me but when she called she only spoke to my OH and didn't ask to speak to me after all. At this point my OH thought he had blown it but we got our AIP within 48 hours. Good luck!

teeym

Cheers Reylan - that's nice to know!

Thanks for the kind words everyone, sadly I'm out of commission this week and SWMBO is booked solid the following, so hopefully interview will be last week of March/first week of April. Been sat at the PC all night with her ladyship barking random things for me to research prices on. Obviously I've done exactly as told* and I now have a comprehensive list of what I expect living costs to be. She's going to have to work flippin' hard and get the overtime in, that's all I can say!

Just out of interest, is there anyone on here who plays rugby in NZ or is involved with a club? Deffo part of the plan is to coax at least one more season out of my badly abused, currently retired body once we get down under and I reckon it would be good for meeting folks!

* apart from looking at cars and the footy

BEVS

Mr BEVS played rugby for a season or two but gave it up to play footie the past 3 years . If there was a vet team around he'd probably have a few run-outs.
Someone really should tell him he is 50 now. Poor old bugger.



I have him insured.

teeym

Nice to know - have to admit, I've been scouring around and a lot of places do seem to take it rather seriously. Then stumbled across Petone rugby club who pledge that their "Hammers" side will never do anything more than a pre-match warm up by way of training. That's MUCH more my kind of thing.

Nice Maxine has confirmed our interviewdle will be on the 29th March, which has sent SWMBO into a right tiz and has prompted me to get well ahead of myself and start scheming exactly how I can convince the powers that be at work to let me have three weeks off in May/June so I can go for a *ahem* holiday. Anyone know of good flight deals at the moment?

ragdolls2

fantastic newswell pleased for you after all the waiting etc.

Persephone

Great news!! Congratulations!
So are you planning on moving over permanently in May or is it just a visit to show employers how fantastic you both are and how much their business will suffer if they don't employ you?

teeym

We'll be going for option b - which is more likely to be in June than May if I'm honest! Once the house has gone *furiously knocks on wood* we'll take a couple of weeks to come over and try to get SWMBO as many job interviews as possible to try and convince North Island in general that they can't get by without her. We're already accepting that I'm going to be the thorn in the side of employment, but if I can grab a chat with any prospective employers and convince them that I could be of some use (or at least not a hinderance) then I'd be more than content with that. Anyone knowing of the oft-talked-about "unadvertised contacts" requiring someone who can turn a hand to engineering, maintenance planning, expediting, writing, van driving, manual labour or just about anything where coffee-fuelled enthusiasm coupled with a sense of humour can compensate for real-world experience should forget putting answers on a postcard and just PM me.

I'm still toying with the concept of self employment, but will need to do a lot more research into the various markets that I am in any way, shape or form qualified to make a contribution to.

Fingers crossed, should someone decide to take SWMBO (or even both of us) on, then they will want her reasonably quickly and we could be setting off for the permanent move not too long afterwards. This would give me a whole summer to get fit* for the rugby season ahead.

Needless to say, all of this depends on us not making a complete moo of the interview.........

*less fat

teeym

Does anyone know of ways to make time to interviews pass more quickly? Monday cannot come soon enough and I am going absolutely spare thinking about how this flippin' conversation with the lovely Maxine is potentially holding the key to the rest of our lives!

Also, since the SSTC sign went up, our "very keen for a quick move" buyers have gone ominously quiet and we've not heard anything about a survey. This is predictably making SWMBO a very stressed person, particularly as there are some very promising looking jobs for her being advertised at moment.

simonsi

Personally I never let an SSTC sign go up as there is nothing at all binding at that stage of the deal and SSTC signs benefit the estate agent but not you - you want prospective buyers falling over each other to compete for your house, not remotely put off by the "Oh well that lovely one has gone, the estate agent must be really good" reaction to the SSTC.

A short call to your agent asking them to remove said sign will be followed by a call to the buyers agent and will serve as a good ole prompt to get a move on...

teeym

We've batted it off for the last two offers which we have on the table, but as these are first time buyers who have been stressing how important it is for them to move PDQ, then I got the feeling this one would be OK.

Already agreed with SWMBO that they've got until Weds to get their finger out before they get a call, as - like you said - we don't want any other potential buyers to be put off.