用法学习: 1. Pop star Miley Cyrus hit Hollywood Boulevard yesterday with a disguise and an Aussie accent to ask people what they thought of this year's VMAs host – Miley Cyrus. Cyrus went undercover (伪装, 卧底. plain-clothes cops) as an Australian reporter from Perth named Janet and walked up and down the strip for a segment on Jimmy Kimmel Live called I Witness News. "I think she lost her mind in all the Hollywood Madness," said one woman. Cyrus took it all in good fun though, egging on the interviewees. "You have two daughters you say, now if Miley was one of you daughters would you let her out there dressing the way she is, shaking her a--," Cyrus asked one man. "Can I say hell no! I think she's starving for attention and that's why she's acting like that," the man responded. "Exactly, you took the words right out of mouth 正是我要说的," Cyrus agreed.
Sydney, you're so full of it! Paddington pub the Village Inn sparked a social media furore ( [fjuˈrɔ:ri] a lot of anger, excitement, or activity caused by a particular event or situation. Such a major policy reversal is certain to spark a furore among conservatives.) on Wednesday, after owner Leeroy Peterson introduced a new dress code banning high visibility work wear. The only surprise in a Paddington pub barring anyone wearing high-vis gear is that anyone is surprised. A pretentious(爱装逼的. 装清高的, 装高贵的. attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed. behaving in a way that is intended to impress other people but seems false or too deliberate. It's so pretentious of her to greet everyone in French. "a pretentious literary device". a. used about someone's behaviour or attitude. 做作的. 装出来的. a pretentious accent. b. used about books, films, and other things that people create. Most of the songs have such pretentious lyrics.) Sydney bar? Get out of town. Sydney is famed for its snobbery. The first word suggested by Google to follow the phrase "Sydneysiders are" is: "arrogant". The next is "rude". After that should be rich and flashy炫的; from nowhere but Sydney could come the ostentatious 爱炫的, 爱显摆的 groom ( I. intended to impress people or attract their admiration, in a way that you think is extreme and unnecessary. an ostentatious display of wealth. II. characterized by vulgar or pretentious display; designed to impress or attract notice. always trying to impress people with how rich, important, skilful etc you are. Although extremely wealthy, Simon and his family were never ostentatious.) of the year, Auburn deputy mayor, property developer and Lambourghini-lover Salim Mehajer. Sydney has tended to the pretentious ever since Arthur Phillip set up camp at Port Jackson; the governor's mansion was built to the east and the convicts headed to the west. We've had geographic segregation ever since. This is a city where residents worry that new coastal rail lines might bring more westies to the beach. Most big cities show symptoms of snobbery, but Sydney is blatant 肆无忌惮的, 毫不掩饰的, 毫不知耻的 in its display, which extends way past Paddington, as odious ( [ˈəudiəs] extremely unpleasant; repulsive. ) as the Village Inn's form of occupation segregation might be. Owner Leeroy Peterson told the local paper Central Sydney: "There are no tradies any more, we have a no hi-vis policy, it doesn't fit the demographic 人口组成, 人口结构 ([ˌdeməˈɡrafik]) of the area any more." Peterson is hardly alone 并非唯一 in preferring a discriminatory 歧视性的 dress code to admit only whatever is then thought to be the right crowd. But that didn't stop a brief and hypocritical pile-on(to increase something by a large amount, or to do it a lot. pile on the pressure: The U.N. is piling on the pressure and the two sides may both have to withdraw. a team that never fails to pile on the action. pile on (transitive, idiomatic) to gain (weight) quickly. He's been piling on the pounds recently. pile on the pounds (idiomatic) to gain weight quickly. pile up I. (transitive) To form a pile, stack, or heap. The kids piled up their boots and coats by the back door. II. (idiomatic, intransitive) To collect or accumulate, as a backlog. The requests piled up while she was away. pile driver 夯机, 打桩机 I. A machine for forcing a pile桩, a long beam, into the ground as part of the construction of a foundation; usually by raising a weight and then dropping it on the beam. II. A person who hits or attacks forcefully or powerfully. She sure is a pile driver. ) from those prepared to howl outrage at that instance of wankery混球, while ignoring many others. That one bar prefers the custom ( I. [countable/uncountable] something that people do that is traditional or usual. local customs and traditions. the custom of doing something 风俗: the custom of kissing under the mistletoe. a. something that a particular person regularly does. On Wednesday evening, as was his custom, he went down to the village. II. [uncountable] 光顾. 惠顾. 光临. British the practice of buying goods or services from a particular shop or company. Several restaurants compete for tourists' custom.) of lawyers to that of builders, even if the modern builder might be richer than a big-firm solicitor, is no more than extra evidence, if any were needed, that a disturbing proportion of Sydneysiders are desperate to appear better than others. Sydney's snobbery is found in real estate, where supposedly intelligent people suggest renaming places to sound better, like the daft idea a few years ago to hack off part of Redfern and call it "South Dowling". It's in sport, where which code of football you follow is a proxy 象征 for social class, and it's at the airport, where the national carrier offers different tiers of business lounges on top of the Qantas club to avoid its own hi-vis problem. Too many FIFOs, not enough suits. It's seen in the scrap over council mergers. That a city this size has 44 councils is madness. There are sensible arguments about where boundaries should fall, and isolated cases of genuine exceptionalism – like the central City of Sydney, which surely has been gerrymandered ( manipulate the boundaries of (an electoral constituency) so as to favor one party or class. achieve (a result) by manipulating the boundaries of an electoral constituency. "a total freedom to gerrymander the results they want". [ˈdʒeriˌmændərɪŋ] the process of dividing a region in which people vote in a way that gives one political group an unfair advantage. ) enough already. But beneath the resistance 阻力 to council mergers is a large pool of snobbery. Pittwater wants nothing to do with Warringah; Hunters Hill looks down on Ryde; Woollahra is aghast at the thought of being thrown in with( 混为一谈. 混为一体. 相提并论. 搅在一起. throw in with someone 合为一体, 分为一组, 与...为伍 to join with someone; to join someone's enterprise. To commit to something with; to partner with. I will throw in with you and we can all go hunting together. Do you mind if I throw in with you? throw somebody in at the deep end to make someone do something difficult, especially a job, without preparing them for it or giving them any help I had to deal with a strike threat on my first day - talk about being thrown in at the deep end! These days, Atlassian is usually mentioned in the same breath as 同时提起, 相提并论 ( in the same breath If
you say two things in the same breath, you say two things that are so
different that if one is true, the other must be false. used for saying that someone has said two things that cannot both be true. She says the treatment is safe, and then in the same breath says that patients should be warned about possible side-effects.You say he treats you badly but in the same breath you tell me how much you love him! II. if you talk about two people or things in the same breath, you mention them together because they are similar. I don't think you can mention his poetry in the same breath as that of Longfellow. ) Slack, being nurtured by Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield. Some parallels are being drawn比作, 相提并论 with the unrest in Baltimore this weekend and the 1968 riots. Prefab housing should no longer be compared to不可相提并论, 不可同日而语 a mobile home in terms of appearance, but to that of a complex modernist design. Luka likes to compare himself to自比, 把自己比作, 那自己与...相提并论 Satan, Hitler, and Stalin. In fact, he is nothing at all like these extremely dangerous psychopaths. I prefer to do my charitable bit by donating actual money and not being lumped in ( lump to put people or things into the same group, although they do not really belong together. They're lumping together all of these children. Be lumped in with 混在一起, 不分青红皂白的堆叠在一起, 混为一谈, 沦落在一起: Lobbyists don't want to be lumped in with the corrupt,
association tells Charbonneau Commission: The association representing
Quebec's lobbyists says it is concerned its members are being lumped in
with crooks who try to illegally influence government officials. be lumped with: We've all got one - the friend with the impossibly glamorous 耀眼的 name that leaves the Peters, Katherines and Margarets among us feeling somewhat, well, frumpy 土得掉渣, 土死了, 土包子似的. Sometimes life (or in this case parents) isn't fair. But it's not as if the first name you get lumped with (很多人认为这个说法讲不通) at birth actually has an impact on your success in later life. Is it? frumpish = frumpy 不时尚的, 土包子似的 wearing clothes that are not attractive or fashionable. Dowdy, unkempt, or unfashionable. She came to the door in a frumpy housedress and bedroom slippers. grubby I. Dirty; grimy: grubby old work clothes. II. Infested with grubs. III. Contemptible; despicable: has a grubby way of treating others. lump things together 不分青红皂白的堆叠在一起, 混为一谈, 沦落在一起 put in an indiscriminate mass or group. To get/be lumbered with: (informal)
to be given (or left with) a responsibility, etc, that you do not want
and cannot get rid of; (as in this story from The Ipswich Star: "Hospital lumbered with £100,000 debt from foreign patients.") To get/be lumped (together) with: to be combined with, placed together with, put in the same category as; (as in this story from the Goldstream News Gazette: "West Shore could get lumped with Cowichan Valley in new federal riding" = combined with). Get lumped with might also reflect the expression you've got to like it or lump it,
which means that when you face a situation that you can't change you
have the choice of enjoying it or grudgingly making the best of it. Lumpers 统合派 and splitters 分割派
are opposing factions in any discipline which has to place individual
examples into rigorously defined categories. The lumper-splitter problem
occurs when there is the need to create classifications and assign
examples to them, for example schools of literature, biological taxa and
so on. A "lumper" is an individual who takes a gestalt view of a
definition, and assigns examples broadly, assuming that differences are
not as important as signature similarities. A "splitter" is an
individual who takes precise definitions, and creates new categories to
classify samples that differ in key ways. ) with a bunch of people like that. "It's like the 'success club' and I'm not really in that club. I don't think I'm above it all – I'm way below it. But there's something a bit smug about it." ) Waverley or Randwick or, god forbid, Botany Bay. In June, Woollahra councillor Vince Sorrenti said: "The people who live in Rose Bay or Edgecliff don't have the same needs and wants as the people living in Coogee or Randwick." Perhaps the recycling bins, bus shelters and potholes are radically different in Vaucluse and need an entirely separate organisation devoted to them. Or perhaps they're just being snobs. More insidious is the snobbery pervading 无所不在的 education. Sydney's schools are increasingly segregated, both between the wealthy and the poor, and between different races. As reported in the Herald last week, UTS researcher Christina Ho found students from language backgrounds other than English made up 52 per cent of enrolments in Sydney's public high schools, but only 22 per cent in private schools. On the north shore, at public high schools, including selectives, they make up 61 per cent, but private schools had just 13 per cent. Given all the research showing the private system provides little to no academic advantage over the public one, there must be at least some snob factor in families spending the cost of a small car per child per year for education, rather than doing it on the taxpayer for little extra cost. Freedom to choose your child's school is important, but the effect of the flight ( I. [countable] a movement through the air by a bird or object. Pigeons make flights of over 10,000 miles. Several factors control the ball's flight. a. literary a group of birds flying together. We saw a flight of geese heading south. II. [countable/uncountable] the act of running away or of trying to escape from someone or something. The refugees made a desperate flight to freedom. III. [countable] a set of stairs going from one level to another. The restrooms are two flights up. flight of stairs/steps: A flight of stone steps leads down to the courtyard. flight of fancy/imagination 天马行空的 an idea that is unusual and exciting or fun, but silly or not practical. Her act combines strange flights of fancy with extremely down to earth observations. put someone to flight to make someone run away or try to escape. The advancing army put the rebels to flight. take flight to run away, or to try to escape. Suddenly the herd of antelope took flight. ) of the rich and white has on the community is immense. It's entrenching an inter-generational gap between social classes and ethnic groups. The divide should worry anyone who cares about encouraging an inclusive society, rather than exacerbating the worst excesses of a particularly tribal one.
Things I've learned while buying a house in Canberra, ACT： Buying a house is, on the whole, overwhelming. There are a lot of intermediaries ( intermediary [ˌɪntə(r)ˈmiːdiəri] 中间人 中介 someone who talks to each of the people or groups involved in something, usually passing information from one to the other or trying to persuade them to agree with each other. The deal was concluded through an intermediary. a person who acts as a link between people in order to try to bring about an agreement or reconciliation; a mediator. "intermediaries between lenders and borrowers". wiki: An intermediary (or go-between) is a third party that offers intermediation services between two trading parties. The intermediary acts as a conduit 管道, 渠道 for goods or services offered by a supplier to a consumer. Typically the intermediary offers some added value to the transaction that may not be possible by direct trading. Common usage includes the insurance and financial services industry where e.g. mortgage brokers, insurance broker, and financial advisers offer intermediation services in the supply of financial products such as mortgage loans, insurance, and investment products. The Internet is creating a transparent awareness on the threats and opportunities available to automate intermediaries in many industries.) involved--lenders, solicitors, insurers, real estate agents--and it feels like everyone is only giving you a small glimpse of the whole process. That's probably not surprising: to them, it's an everyday, boring process; to you, it's something that only happens a few times in your life. I'm writing this to attempt to summarise the process I went through when buying a house. I bought a house in Canberra (the capital of Australia) in 2010, so my comments reflect the state of things 事情的状态 in that place at that time. I should also emphasise that buying a house is my only claim to expertise, and not a very good claim either. Please take what I say with a grain of salt, as it's the ravings of a rank amateur( ravings 疯话, 疯言疯语. unreasonable or crazy things that someone says. rank 超级的, 非常的, 完全的, 十足的, 彻头彻尾的 I. Strong of its kind or in character; unmitigated; virulent; thorough; utter. rank treason; rank nonsense. II. Strong in growth; growing with vigour or rapidity, hence, coarse or gross. rank grass; rank weeds. III. Suffering from overgrowth or hypertrophy; plethoric. IV. Causing strong growth; producing luxuriantly; rich and fertile. rank land. V. Strong to the senses; offensive; noisome. Having a very strong and bad taste or odor Your gym clothes are rank, bro – when'd you last wash 'em? VI. Complete, used as an intensifier (usually negative, referring to incompetence). I am a rank amateur as a wordsmith. VII. (informal) Gross, disgusting. wordsmith: a skilled user of words.). Any errors are mine (but I'd appreciate corrections!). An overview of the whole process: Conveyancing: the legal process of transferring ownership of property from one party to another; Deposit: the amount (usually 10% of the purchase price) that you pay the seller when exchanging contracts; Exchange of contracts交换合同: the date at which you and the seller enter into a contract for the sale of the property. The contract will contain lots of conditions, but the crux of it(the crux (of something) [krʌks] the most important aspect of something. The police didn't have enough evidence against him. That's the crux of the matter. the heart/crux of the matter the most important aspect of a situation. As usual, money was at the heart of the matter.) is you agree to give them money and they agree to give you the property; Gazumping('Gazumping' ([ɡəˈzʌmp] if you are gazumped, someone who had agreed to sell their house to you sells it to someone else for more money. ) is the term used to refer to when a seller accepts an offer from one potential buyer, but then accepts a higher offer from someone else. The first buyer is left in the lurch, and either has to offer a higher price or accept that they have lost that home and continue looking. Gazumping occurs when a seller (especially of property) accepts an oral offer 口头报价 (a promise to purchase) on the property from one potential buyer, but then accepts a higher offer from someone else. It can also refer to the seller raising the asking price or asking for more money at the last minute, after previously orally agreeing to a lower one. In either case, the original buyer is left in a bad situation, and either has to offer a higher price or lose the purchase. The term gazumping is most commonly used in the UK and Australia, although similar practices can be found in some other jurisdictions.): if another buyer makes a higher offer between the time you make yours and the time contracts are exchanged, the seller may accept their offer and you lose the house--you have been gazumped. A potential issue in ACT and NSW where the time lag between offer and contract exchange can be many days; Mortgage insurance: a discretionary ( 可能有也可能没有的, 视情况而定的 available for use at the discretion of the user. "rules are inevitably less flexible than a discretionary policy". ) fee that your lender might charge you; Private treaty: a buying arrangement in which the seller sets the price of the house in advance. Sort of the opposite of an auction; Settlement: the date at which you take legal ownership of the property (roughly speaking); Stamp duty: a tax aimed at people who buy property; Ingredients: Just one: Money! Specifically, enough to cover: Your deposit (paid to the seller when contracts are exchanged--usually 10% of the purchase price of the property); Stamp duty (based on the purchase price); Building insurance; Legal fees; Mortgage insurance; Property inspection reports; Land rates/taxes; Mortgage setup fees; Moving costs; Miscellanea! Preparation: Decide how much you can afford to spend based on mortgage repayments and your savings. Find a lender and get a letter of pre-approval for finance. They'll want a whole bunch of information from you: evidence of savings, information about your salary, information about any assets or liabilities you have, etc.. .Find a solicitor who is willing to provide conveyancing services for you. House hunting: Find a house you like. Harder than it sounds. At the open house/inspection, ask the seller (or their agent) for a copy of the contract for sale. This will include a draft of the contract, a property inspection report, land title information, and so on. The ACT is (currently) unusual in that it requires the seller to have an inspection on the property performed before it goes onto the market. The buyer still ends up paying for it, but it's nice that you don't have to arrange this yourself... Offer, acceptance and exchanging contracts. Once you've found a place you like, the next step is to make an offer. Exactly how you go about this 如何做 will depend on whether the property is being sold privately or at auction: If the property is being sold by private sale ("private treaty"), you can make your offer right away. If your offer is accepted, you arrange for contracts to be exchanged. In the ACT (and NSW), the time between making your offer and exchanging contracts can be a number of days--one or two weeks isn't unusual. This period is a mixed blessing. On one hand, it gives you some time to carry out the remaining steps leading up to the exchange of contracts: getting building insurance, having your solicitor review the contract for sale, and so on. However, it's important to realise that the property isn't yours until contracts are exchanged. That means the seller is within their rights to sell the property to someone else if they get a better offer. That's known as being gazumped, and there's not much you can do except arrange to get the contracts exchanged as quickly as possible and hope it doesn't happen. If the property is being sold at auction, you need to carry out the steps in this section in advance of the auction day. If your offer is accepted at auction, you'll have to exchange contracts, sign, and pay your 10% deposit on the day of the auction. While that at least means you can't be gazumped, you need to be very prepared. So, the steps you will perform (either during your cooling off period or prior to the auction day): Visit your bank and get a bank cheque (or transfer money) for the full amount of the deposit (10% of the purchase price). This will be held in trust by the agent when the contracts are exchanged, then given to the seller at the time of settlement, along with the net balance of the purchase price 购买价. Arrange for building insurance on the property, starting from the date you expect to exchange contracts (not the date you expect to settle). In the ACT, you're liable for the property as soon as you've exchanged contracts. Ask the insurer for a certificate of currency--a document showing the details of your insurance, how much you're covered for, etc.. You'll need to provide this to your lender in a few steps' time. Have the seller (or their agent) provide a copy of the contract for sale to your solicitor. Once your solicitor has received this, meet with them to review the contract and ensure that everyone is satisfied. If buying through private treaty, you can sign the contract at this point and hand the deposit cheque to your solicitor. Arrange an inspection of the property. The point of this is to make sure you're happy with the condition of everything before committing to buy. If buying at auction, you'll get a chance for a final inspection before the auction starts. Otherwise, you'll make a time 安排时间 with the sellers to see the place. With these pre-exchange steps completed you are ready to exchange contracts. It's now the end of your opportunity 最后的机会 to back out, or auction day. You made an offer, got accepted, panicked briefly. Now it's time to exchange contracts: If buying by private treaty, you will meet your solicitor to sign the contract (if you haven't already), and the seller will do the same. Your solicitor receives a copy of the contract signed by the seller, and the seller's solicitor receives a copy of the contract signed by you. If buying at auction, the process is the same, except you and the seller will be signing on the spot, following the auction. You'll feel cool and confident because you've done your homework: reviewing the contract for sale and studying the building/inspection report. Notify your lender that your offer was accepted. They'll need a copy of the instructions for sale (provided by the seller), and will arrange a valuation of the property and (based on this) will advise how much they're willing to lend you. In some cases, you might also be charged mortgage insurance. This is a discretionary fee that your lender might charge you if you end up borrowing more than a certain percentage of the value of the property (typically, if your deposit is less than 20% of the property's value). Note that this insurance protects the lender, not you. To you it's just a fee. If buying at auction, this is probably the first moment you've had to celebrate. So do that! The agent will probably have given you (and the seller) a nice bottle of bubbly so you can still celebrate without spending any more money! Pre-settlement steps: Your solicitor will be in touch to request that you provide a cheque to cover stamp duty (they'll tell you how much it is). Another visit to your bank for this. Your lender will be in touch to finalise the details of your mortgage. This is where you sign your life away--they'll give you a huge stack of forms that need to be signed in about a hundred different places. You'll also need to provide evidence that you have insured the property, so send along your letter of currency your insurer sent you a few steps ago. At the time of writing, the Government is offering a First Home Owner's Grant (FHOG) for people buying their first home. If you're eligible for this, now is the time to apply. You can either apply yourself, or your finance provider can do it for you. If your finance provider does it for you, they receive the grant on your behalf and can add it to the pool of funds during settlement. Arrange a pre-settlement inspection of the property. This is your last chance to make sure everything has been left in a state that you're happy with and probably the first time you've seen the property completely empty. Just before settlement, contact your solicitor to find out if you need to provide any additional cheques. There will be some miscellaneous amounts (such as the cost of the pest report, any difference between the amount you borrowed and the agreed purchase price of the house, etc.) that you will need to cover in the form of bank cheques. Contact the seller's agent to make arrangements to take possession of the keys after settlement. If you're expecting someone to contact you, such as your lender or your solicitor and you haven't heard, follow it up! It's just possible they've missed something and you don't want to find out on the day of settlement because it's quite possible the settlement won't occur if something is missing and that could end up costing you quite a bit of money. On settlement: Contact your solicitor to double-check that they are ready to go ahead with settlement. Wait anxiously to hear from your solicitor to confirm that settlement went through. Take the keys, celebrate! Things I've learned: Auctions are scary: If the reserve was met, and you're the highest bidder when the hammer falls 落锤, you just bought the place. After that, you've got a 4-12 week settlement period which gives you time to finalise your finance. If your finance falls through, the sellers get to keep your deposit (5-10% of the purchase price). That's bad. Of course that won't happen to you because you arranged pre-approval of finance before the auction for an amount at least as high as your winning bid. If your bid was the highest but the bidding didn't reach the seller's reserve, the house will be passed in(withdrawn from auction). In that case, you have first option to negotiate with the seller after the auction. Many houses that are passed in at auction end up being sold this way so all is not lost. Buying at auction also means no cooling off period. In the ACT (and in NSW), buying by private treaty entitles you (and the seller) to change your mind and withdraw from the sale. You aren't legally entitled to claim the property until contracts are exchanged (even if you paid a small "holding deposit押金"). If you buy at auction you don't get this. On the flip side, the seller is within their rights to sell the property to someone else during the cooling off period if they get a better offer (known as gazumping), so buying at auction removes the risk of this. Mortgages are awkward: But I guess we're stuck with them. They're awkward because you don't actually know how much you can borrow until you've had your offer accepted. Here's how I understand it works: You get pre-approval from your lender to borrow some certain amount. This is just an indicator of how much they're willing to lend you given your financial circumstances; it's not a promise for anything. Imagine a friend drunkenly promising to lend you money--it's about that formal. You find a place you like, figure out how much you're willing to pay, and make an offer (either privately or at auction). Your offer gets accepted, you pay the deposit (10% of the accepted price, usually) and exchange contracts. At this point, your lender arranges a valuation of the property and figures out how much they're willing to lend you based on their valuation. That means that if the lender values the place you just agreed to buy at lower than you were expecting, you're not going to be able to get a loan for as much as your pre-approval. If you can't raise the difference and you bought at auction, you lose your deposit. Ouch. If you're buying at auction, you really need to have arranged finance up to a certain level in advance of the auction and make sure you do not exceed this value when you are bidding! Property valuations might be good: You can get the property you're interested in valued before making an offer or going to auction. The story here seems to be that independent valuers generally won't differ by much, so paying the three to four hundred to get the place valued 估价(appraise 估值) is a good investment. It's not ideal though: the lender's valuation might still come out differently from the one you arranged. The valuation a bank arranges is often less than the price you're paying or in the valuation you arranged privately because the bank is looking at the value of the house if they need to sell it quickly if it turns out you can't pay your mortgage (i.e. they "foreclose" on you and you lose the property). It would be nice to be able to have the property valued by the same firm that your lender will use, but you can't do that either: to help prevent collusion 传统, lenders must use a rotation of valuers and won't know in advance which will be picked to perform the valuation. Good people: I'm still struck by the large number of people who need to be coordinated to see the whole property sale through, so it's little wonder that how smoothly it all goes is largely dependent on how well-organised everyone (including you) is. In that regard, I was lucky: the people I've dealt with have all been well-organised, efficient and helpful people. They've gone out of their way to answer questions and worked quickly to keep things moving along. I have no affiliation 没有任何关系 with any of these people, but since good recommendations are hard to find, here are mine: Vijay Gakhar from Aussie Home Loans is likely the most organised guy in the world, and has tirelessly answered my unrelenting 无穷无尽的 questions. Lindsay Peak and the team at Ray Swift Moutrage & Associates have been great to deal with. They were reassuring 让人放心的, 让人安心的 and worked quickly on their parts of the process without being prompted 催促. Jonathan Charles from Independent was employed as the agent of the seller, but took my interests to heart anyway. He gave clear guidance through the whole process and invited me to ring him any time of the day or night with questions. Many thanks to Jon R. for his extensive feedback and improvements to this article. Jon greatly helped to clarify the differences between buying at auction and buying at private treaty. All remaining errors are mine, however!
