Buying and Selling

*UPDATE* The buyers just dropped out, one day before the cooling-off period ended. Which means we need to drop out of our purchase. Stress: increased. *UPDATE*

They, whoever they are, often say that moving house is one of the most stressful things you’ll do. Big Samoan men tend to make the moving part easy. It’s the buying and selling part that’s stressful. We’re currently going through the process of buying our third house, and selling our second. I can’t remember the previous times being this much work.

Back in January, Kylie and I found ourselves spending the odd Saturday morning looking at open houses. It’s something we’ve done on and off for a couple of years, without giving serious consideration to actually buying and selling. This time, we agreed that we would take the plunge and put our place on the market. A few grand and a fresh coat of paint later and we were ready to list.

The first couple of months were a bit of a disaster. We made the mistake of listing with the agent who sold us the house eight years ago. She ridiculously overstated the price and sales potential to get the contract and, almost as soon as we signed, began telling us all the reasons the place wouldn’t sell. It was the neighbours, and the location, and the market, and interest rates. The house sat there for weeks with open house after open house with nobody showing up. Meanwhile, the house across the road sold within a week. Turns out it wasn’t so much the location, or the neighbours, or the market. It was the unrealistic price set by the incompetent real estate agent.

After seeing that contract through, we listed with Arthur Conias Real Estate. They sold the house across the road, and came highly recommended. We’ve also been really happy with them so far. Four weeks later and we’ve had, and accepted, an offer. You’d think the stress would ease at that point, but no, it’s only increased.

The buyers did some searches and found that our deck didn’t receive the final council approval when it was built. It seems that our conveyancer didn’t pick that up when we bought the house in 2002. Call us naive (and you’d probably be right) but we assumed that all the necessary checks would be made. It turns out that ‘Council Searches’ was an added extra, which we didn’t pick up on at the time.

So, the last few days have been a little crazy with speaking to council, arranging for copies of plans and sorting out building surveyors. We’re hoping everything will go through smoothly (and quickly), but since neither of us are that way inclined, we have no idea if the deck is up to spec. It was built in 1996 and hasn’t fallen down yet, which I’m taking as a good sign.

On February 2, Kylie sent me an email with the subject ‘Fantasy House’. We thought it would be one that got away, but we’ve watched it linger for a few months hoping it would stick around long enough for us to be in a position to make an offer. We have, and despite putting a lot of conditions (e.g. sale and settlement of our house), the sellers have taken on that risk and signed a contract. And assuming everything goes to plan, we’ll hopefully be living in this house by early August.

Photo by Sharpshots Photographics for Southwest Property

Stressful? Sure. But we’ve also learned some lessons. Not least of which is “do your research”. Research the market yourself, instead of relying on the so-called expertise of real estate agents. Speaking of real estate agents, research them too. Research the history of your house to make sure there are no show stoppers when it comes time to sell. It will still be a stressful experience, but maybe a little less than it has been for us.