This week the WordPress photo challenge was a phoneography one. We had to take our phones and explore our neighbourhood. Tough one for me. This means I have to take the photos and not my talented brother with his high-quality camera.

When I first moved to Port Macquarie I searched for a house that I would be happy to live in until, well probably death, given Mr Shambles hatred of change/moving/altering anything. Moving him from Brisbane to Port took an enormous amount of persuasion, compromise, threats.

In the end I failed to find anything to suit my this is the “ever after” house list of requirements. So we made the decision to build our own home.

There’s different areas to choose for your neighbourhood, you could go coastal and be within walking distance to the beach, you could go acreage and have a massive land mass to mow each weekend, you could go “CBD” and be close to the town centre or you could go high-end and buy into the most upmarket of beachside areas.

In the end we ended up in a new sub-division heading to the outskirts of town. It’s not far from the girls school. We don’t have an acreage but until the development begins behind us we do get to enjoy someone else’s green space (well looking at it anyway). Cows moo, kangaroos hop by and you get the occasional wild deer wandering through as well.

Mr Shambles particularly enjoys the visits from the lorikeets each day. They are getting very friendly (and demanding).

Taking the camera to the top of the street, you can see our half-finished wanna-be McMansion on the left.

We have one shopping centre, with a lot of empty shops, they don’t get a lot of foot traffic.

Soon, we’ll have a university campus on our doorstep which will certainly change the dynamic of the neighbourhood (and help those shopkeepers get some customers through the doors).

Wherever you buy or build it is a gamble isn’t it? Thinking of some of the folk in Queensland who have experienced multiple floods in the past couple of years, now with houses worth far less than when they brought them. Given it’s the biggest financial investment most of us will make it can be a rollercoaster ride.

How do you choose where you live? Do you do it all based just on cost, or do you factor in convenience (close to schools, work etc?). Did you just fall in love with a spot, or are you making do? Sometimes I regret not buying within walking distance of the ocean (it’s a 10 minute car ride away), but I do enjoy the faux-rural appeal of our little space. Beach, bush or inner-city what’s your neighbourhood of choice?