Thankfully, that mistake is being rectified as of now. And my aim, this week? The Darwin Housing Market.
The Man and I have been looking at building a new home over the past few weeks - probably a more sensible use of our time would have been investigating the value of internal organs on the black market.
Darwin property is at a peak, right now. To be honest we were lucky to have been able to buy a house when we did, back in 2010. Since then, the cost of property has skyrocketed. Why? Because of the Itchy Project! Well, it's actually the ICHTHYS Project, but calling it the Itchy Project makes me feel better.
It's all about gas mining and other boring stuff. Well there's more to it, but I'm just not that interested. Darwin was expensive enough without this sudden influx of interest - and while I'm sure local business, and not forgetting local developers, are loving the boom - the rest of us aren't!
Well, not me, anyway.
I also blame the state and local Governments for being so greedy that they release land in pissy amounts, driving up the price as people compete to be the newest owner of a fucking postage stamp.
I'm sorry, but when land is costing the same amount as the home we want to build, I kinda lose my shit.
And when I say kinda, I mean I morph into a wolverine and rip the head off of any unsuspecting realtor/developer who might enquire as to whether we are interested in purchasing this block before anyone else does. Even though we'd be lucky to fit a garden shed on it!
Trust me when I say that those who are renting are being shafted left, right and centre, too. People/investors/greedy fucking bastards know they can make money from the influx of new employees of Itchy who need a home for their families. So what do they do? Up the rent to a bonkers level, dump the current tenants who can no longer afford it, and happily give it to a mining exec and their family who can afford $800+ a week because they're not paying for it. Gina Reinhardt is!
Well, maybe not Gina - but you get the idea.
Of course, just to really rub salt into the wound, I'm dumb enough to go onto realestate.com and look at the cost of building new in our hometown, in SA. Cue complete fucking meltdown as I ask the gods to strike down every single person in the NT who is contributing to the demented costing factor of a home.
I feel like for the prices we're looking at, we should be living in Sydney or Melbourne. Next door to Hugh Jackman. With Nicole, Keith, Sunday Roast and...and...the other ones on the other side. We're not looking for sea views, we're not looking for 3 hectares and some livestock. It's Darwin, people! You know, the place where mangoes cost $4 each and are brought in from Queensland, even though there are mango farms down the road. Where diesel is 20-50 cents a litre more than anywhere else...everything takes twice as long and is twice the price because of 'shipping', and then when the Ghan derails (again) it means the shops start advising us that stock will be low and we will have to make our own deodorant and toilet paper until the train can get here again.
IT'S DARWIN! We don't have a single department store. Even Freedom Furniture abandoned us!
We only have 1 power and water supplier which is Government owned. But our power systems haven't been maintained properly so now the prices are increasing by 15% so the Government can afford to upgrade and bring Darwin out of the middle ages so the power won't drop out when a gerbil on a treadmill gets struck by lightening.
The Darwin City Council slogs you $40 parking fines for being over your time limit in street parking - for the privilege of parking under a fucking frangipani tree where the flowers glue themselves to your car when it rains and secrete this disgusting white milky stuff everywhere. And then, of course, the bats shit all over your car. And then the rain clouds part and bake it all into the paint of your car so it needs to be re-done every 2 years.
The housing situation is just one more tooth in the cog of 'what the fuck, Darwin!?'.
It's all so painfully typical, I have no idea why I even get shitty anymore.
I'd say it was hope that makes me think things will change - but really, it's denial. And it get's me through, until we want to move on with our lives.
So overall, screw you Itchy, screw you Government and, today, screw you Darwin.
You are all on my shit list until further notice, Or I win the lottery.
Then I'm gonna move in next to Hugh.
