Two months is not a good amount of time to buy a house.

I don't know how it works over in Oz, but if it's anything like here in the UK, everyone in the chain has to move on the same day, solicitors are slow & things will go wrong.

When I moved to my current home, I had a nightmare time selling my house. I had a buyer, but massive fuck-ups on my solicitors side (thanks morley mitchell) meant that a house I accepted an offer for in June didn't actually complete until October/November.

So - be prepared.
If I were you, I'd move my stuff into short term storage, and put into place a short term plan to have somewhere to live in case it goes a bit wrong. If this means renting for a while, so be it.

Other than that... Chill. Make a list of things you need to do and do them as soon as you can. Don't sweat the small stuff. Start packing 1 month before you move out. You have more stuff than you realise. Because you're on a deadline, don't buy anything that needs a lot of work doing to it. Finally, don't buy a house unless you love it; You're gonna be living there a while so it has to be nice.

They don't have chains in Australia, seanyboy.

I've never done it, and I imagine it could be done in two months if the market is okay and assuming you find a place you like, but it is a very short timeframe. Start reading up on the property market in the newspaper, and is there a website like moneysavingexpert.com for Australia? If so, read it.

It's very likely going to be stressful, so maybe plan ahead and identify some destressors you enjoy, and even schedule them if you can. A list of all the tasks you need to do should help you focus too. It will be over eventually!

It's not a bad time to be buying in Australia - prices are a bit high, but lots of people are worried about interest rates, so be prepared to bargain hard.

As in all things, the Web is your friend here. There are literally thousands of houses in your area for sale and you can look at all of them without getting off your arse (realestate.com.au is a good start). This means you can get a great idea of prices etc in a relatively short time. Get the free magazines from real estate agent offices, look in their windows, talk to them about what you want and how much you can afford. Go to auctions, if only to be familiar with the process in case you end up buying that way.

Get some people lined up that can do building and pest inspections etc so you can get them in a hurry if you see a house you like. If you come across that dream buy, you won't have time to stuff around with the yellow pages, because it will vanish. If you have a two-month window, you have at best three weeks to find a house, assuming you end up with a standard 30-day contract. I don't think you will make that, so be prepared to move into short-term accommodation for some time. Better to do that than buy a house you don't like. Don't buy a house you don't like, but be prepared to make a quick decision when you find one you do.

Most of all, enjoy the process. It's like an adventure.

It was 17 days from the time we saw our house to the day we got the keys, so it can be done. Of course, we'd already been looking, and had the loan pre-approval. And we took another two weeks or so to actually get moved in. Good luck!

One of the best things I did was sort out the financing before I went looking. That gave me a very good idea of what my ranges were. I knew that I could buy the houses I was looking at, and could wave off the agent if he tried to push my price limit.

The only other thing I'd say is to keep your chin up. I was bargain hunting and saw an awful lot of crap before I found my nest. It's important not to get discouraged. Deals exist but they take some finding.

1) get pre-approval on a loan so you know what range to look in.
2) look at *everything* in that range over the internet or in the paper or wherever you get the most information so that you quickly learn the market, also this will help you figure out what you want. If this means house-reading stuff for three hours a day in a week, so be it.
3) soon as the showings start, go to them. We gete them every Sunday and Monday here and an apartment sells in a week. The first two are three that you look at might be duds even if you've narrowed down the hood/style/size that you fancy and thought the ad made it sound perfect. That's Ok, you're just getting warmed up.

4) when you see what you like, bid on it. Good luck.

When we bought we looked for a year because we were doing it all wrong. Looked first, try to get loan second (that took five weeks due to summer holiday) and so on. I lost patience and took SO on a few showings in Sweden instead. We saw four apartments. Two first ones were not right, third was perfect and I began bidding - lost it when it went too high. Bid on our "second choice" that we had seen on Monday after loosing the first bid on Tuesday, and by Thursday we had our second choice (and a loan which I got with my bank over the phone that same day). SO got a little wigged out that it went so fast but there ya go.

(ps - second choice was bigger and cheaper but needed renovation, which is why it was second choice. It's a lovely apartment it was just bad timing to do all the work ourselves. Though now that it's coming together I'm glad we have this one.)

Buying our first home was the most stressful period in our lives- moreso than pregnancy, losing jobs, etc. There is such a finality when turning in notice on a rental, and everything has to line up right to get it done on time. And so many of those things are out of your control. Just be as dilligent as you can be with your own stuff; follow up enough with the mortgage people to make sure they do there stuff, and likewise with the sellers and title people and the rest. Just because all those people know what they're doing doesn't mean they will do it for you in a timely manner, so follow up. A lot.

I'm organising the bank meetings about the loan now. My husband is really keen on a house which is up for auction next Saturday so I guess I can't fault him for being slow about stuff. I'm trying to organise various parents-in-law as well, because of course they want to stick their oars in.

I think I should make a trip for groceries today, get a carboot of alcohol on the way home and spend the rest of the week happily shitfaced. Dear god, when this is over, they're going to have to carry me out of the house and plop me in the removals van with the furniture and books. Oh, god! The books!!!!

*cries*