I've been keeping an eye on properties I might like to buy. One of my saves searches brought me a house in Kelston with the caption "Heaps of potential -character plus".

Since I've been living at home, I've had access to Sky. Mostly, I've been watching the Living Channel & Food TV, with a little bit of CI & Discovery thrown in. One common Living Channel style program is to help out someone who is trying to sell a house but hasn't been able to.

The house pictures I posted yesterday showed a house that was very cluttered and a bit untidy, but otherwise clean and in apparently a good state of repair. It's not how I'd present a house if I wanted someone to fork over $300k+ but hey, it's not too bad. By contrast, this listing that arrived in my email this morning is a shocker.

Seriously, this was the headline under which this house was first listed on Trademe. Not exactly a headline to interest potential buyers. I guess at least they were honest:

Most people who list their houses for sale try to put up a range of photos to show the house. Trademe listings allow up to 20 photos. Those with enough savvy try to show off the best features. Most of the rest at least try to show all the main rooms and outside areas. This West Harbour house apparently has "three bedroom, separate lounge, dining, good sized kitchen, garage and sleepout". I guess we'll have to take their word for it, because they only put two photos on their listing.

Everyone says money doesn’t buy happiness, but it clearly has something to do with it. You can’t be very happy if you’re deeply in debt and about to lose your house because you don’t have enough money to make the mortgage payments, for instance. So some money is necessary, but it does have diminishing returns. Once you have all your basic needs met, and have enough to make yourself comfortable and do the things you enjoy, getting more money doesn’t really help an awful lot.