It's one of the biggest decisions you'll make, probably the most money you'll ever pay for anything (unless you have a weakness for Lamborghinis). And it's up there among the top 10 most stressful things you can do other than to get sacked, divorced or die.

Why anyone in their right mind would do it, knowing all that, remains one of life's great mysteries (up there with alien abductions and whatever happened to Baby Spice?). The loneliness of the long-distance home buyer - it should be a documented mental state.

In order to get inside the mind of the long-haul househunter, the Herald followed the fortunes of one Yolanda Astuy, a 37-year-old single woman who works for the Department of Employment, Education and Training. She began looking for a place of her own in December last year.

Speaking at her parents' house in Napier Street, Paddington, in early May this year, Astuy laughed: "Well, I'm looking for a really, really big house for very little money!"

At that time, she had been looking for about five months, spending Saturdays and Sundays driving around Sydney and poking around - at that point - about 40 properties.

With no idea of how to go about buying a property, Astuy sought advice from friends. What surprised her was how easy it was to get a loan approved.

"My maximum is $250,000, which is right at the bottom of the barrel in Sydney. I'm after a two-bedroom with a sunroom or a three-bedroom, because I need that study," she said in May.

Astuy started her journey talking to a host of "lending companies and banks". Then began her search of the inner west, buoyed by the story of a friend who bought a four-bedroom house in Tempe eight years previous for $155,000: "She said she had real estate agents literally laugh in her face, but she ended up getting what she wanted. Her advice was to be thick-skinned."

One thing Astuy learned early on was to keep a diary of every house she inspected, all with "badly drawn maps of the layout".

"Real estate agents do try to bamboozle you," Astuy says. "One rang me and said they had this really good house. I said, 'It's not the one in Alison Road, is it?'. They insisted it wasn't and drove me there - and it was the same house I'd seen before."

One part of the buying process Astuy had decided to avoid was the auction. Paying for a building and pest inspection each time - about $300 - with no guarantee of getting your hands on the house at the end of it was, she said, "a real waste of money".

"I think real estate agents should provide that service. Why don't they do that inspection and then charge people $20 to see it? It's going to save people money and they might get more people taking up the auction option."

A fortnight after she spoke to Domain, Astuy e-mailed this (on May 19): "I have to admit I'm getting bored and tired of the process and if one more person asks me if I would consider a flat, I'll scream. OK, so I'm fussy. I don't want to live in the cosy cottage in St Peters that's strategically placed in a light industrial area, just off the Princes Highway and right under the flight path.

"I am also sick of walking through little houses trying to find the second bedroom that was in the advertisement but somehow doesn't exist ... It was all starting to get me down when I saw 'It'.

"It was there in a nice, wide Marrickville street - my house. I was inspired! I started the renovations in my head. I had moved in. Like a jealous lover I silently growled at all the other prospective buyers. This is my house. But as with all great love stories there is a hitch - it's a deceased estate going to auction.

"So here I am revisiting my earlier statement - I refuse to buy at auction but I'm preparing myself for the task of going to auction. It is on May 29."

On May 28, the auction was cancelled - problems with the title. Astuy was deflated: "This is just a nightmare. I am over it. I just don't look forward to Saturday mornings any more."

By June 24, the house-hunting was "getting depressing", though real estate agents were getting "more amusing": "One called me 'babe'.

September 21: "Well I've had a busy couple of weeks. I found a house in St Peters - a good two bedroom with a study and a backyard, really lovely. I offered $245,000 and they said 'yes'. Then I got the building inspection report - it would have needed $100,000-worth of repairs.

"The foundations were good, but it was falling apart at the seams. I then spent a day looking with friends. We saw many houses, including one that had a river running underneath it - though they called it rising damp. They also called it semi-detached, but I couldn't see the 'semi detach'."

October 5: "Saw a house in Addison Road and until just five minutes ago I had a good chance of getting it. We had initially settled on getting the house for $280, but as time lagged the owners got greedy and said another party had offered $290 ... I lost that one."

Finally, on October 11: "I signed a contract and gave away my money this morning. My solicitor has just contacted me that he is organising settlement for tomorrow around lunchtime. You'd think I'd be relieved but I have to admit it's more mild trepidation at the moment."

On Tuesday, October 12, Astuy became the exhausted owner of a three-bedroom, detached, brick cottage in Tempe for which she paid $285,000 (loaned by St George).

"It was," she says now of the almost year-long hunt, "probably the worst experience of my life.

It was a year of being thrust into an environment where all that counts is money and greed. I certainly didn't get through it with grace and dignity."

October 14: "The lawyers exchanged as we were having lunch. Hooray!"

Apart from the $285,000 for the house, the whole process has cost Astuy an added $900 for three building and pest inspections and $180 for a valuation that went nowhere after she was gazumped.

"Of course," she says, "if you consider I've spent every Saturday (and sometimes weekdays) driving around looking at houses and multiply that by 12 months - that's a lot of petrol!

"And then there are all the other costs I have to deal with before I walk in the door of my new home - mortgage set-up costs, building insurance, legal fees ... probably about $26,000 all up."

Welcome Home. There's no place like it.

Home hunters

Paul Giezekamp and Jo Nesbitt, directors of Sun Security Services, bought their three-bedroom home on James Street, Leichhardt, on October 22. They started looking in August.

When we first spoke to the couple they were living in a one-bedroom place on Norton Street, from where they also ran their business. Giezekamp says: "We were looking for somewhere in Leichhardt; we wanted to be near Norton Street, but we didn't want to hear traffic. As the business expanded, we needed more space and, although it was fun in the beginning, being on Norton Street was really noisy."

They went to Callagher First National and Sarah Lorden Real Estate. "The first property we looked at was with Sarah Lorden, it was sold before auction and our finance wasn't approved in time. We were upset we missed that one," Giezekamp says.

They missed a few more until they came across the house in James Street. "We had our finances ready and made an offer of $420,000. It wasn't accepted; we made a second offer of $440,000, and it wasn't accepted. The agent said if we made an offer of $450,000 they would sign with us immediately. And they did. Someone came in after us with $455,000, but we had come in first.

"I've bought two properties before so I knew what I was doing. Even so, it was still a bit of a roller-coaster ride. But people can be too picky when it comes to buying. In this place we've got a smaller backyard, which isn't perfect for our dog Poppy, but you have to sacrifice something to get into the market."

When we spoke to Nicole Hayward and John Woodhill, both 26, in May, their search for a home had just begun. Their plan was to find a house and move in before their wedding, set for later this month.

Hayward, a medical rep for a pharmaceutical company, said at the time that they were "sick of renting - paying off someone else's place".

She said then: "So far we've talked generally about locations and where we would like to live - Gladesville, Leichhardt, Annandale, Lilyfield, places like that. We drive through places and say 'we'd like to live there, like to live there, wonder how much that is'." With help from Mortgage Choice, they reckoned they could afford to look at places up to $350,000. "Personally, I wouldn't like to go to any more than that, Hayward said. "We want to get an unrenovated place, a small free-standing cottage, preferably two-bedroom. We're on a steep learning curve, but we're flexible. We're not desperate. It's six months before we get married. Ideally, we'll have a place by September or October."

But that was then. We spoke to the couple some 10 weeks after their search began, and their minds had changed. By October, they were decided: "The wedding's getting nearer and nearer so instead of rushing in and buying we're going to rent for six months, possibly a year, and take our time."