Part 1: The Tale Of A First Home Seller - The Process Begins....

Date: 16/08/2019

It’s a rainy Melbourne Thursday morning. I look left and watch the rain drizzle down over my street. I look right into our cute suburban backyard. It has just dawned on me that this is it – our last full day in this, our first home. Tomorrow, chaos will begin to rain down as the removalists come to move anything and everything, including a lot of stuff we have accumulated unnecessarily over the past 7 years. After a weekend of painting a patching, the cleaners arrive Monday along with the roof repairers. Tuesday will see our stylist weave her magic. The photographer enters Wednesday, photos go on the real estate app Thursday and its then up to our agent to do his thing. Fair to say there is a bit going on in our world over the next week! All in all, our patch of dirt goes from being our home to simply a house.

Whilst reflecting on our time here, I realise that it is impossible not to be somewhat emotional. As I sit here with Billie next to me, it dawns on me that our fur child was simply a ball of fluff when my then partner and now wife Jane, brought him home. Our daughter Mila is 16 months old now, with a full-blown personality, the ability to walk and the newly found ability to use the words ‘no dad’ – hmmmm…. She spent her first nights here and we have watched her wonderful personality develop in our home. My initial thoughts were that as a financial person, this would be a purely business transaction with no emotional involvement. However, as I reflect sitting here, I think it is impossible for this to be reality for anyone. I think one of the keys to this process though is to enjoy the emotional side of things and the memories that come with this before refocusing and then moving onto the job at hand.

Part I is now complete; the boxes are all packed and tomorrow will see us moving out. I am glad I have taken the time to reflect on things and remember all the happy memories our first home has given us. It also dawns on me that tomorrow will be a long, hectic day…

Tips:

• Have your pennies saved. The bills roll in from the moment you decide the for sale sign is going up. If it isn’t maintenance and repairs, it’s conveyancing or marketing costs. We also made the call to professionally clean and fully style/stage our home, things I personally believe are a necessity in this day and age. You want the buyers to become emotionally attached to the place, just like you did, and these elements make the chances of this happening so much higher.
• Allow yourself to be emotional. Use this as a chance to reflect but also a chance to re-focus. The next steps become critically important in maximising the value of your home as this will ultimately allow you the ability to take your next step – and the memories that come with it.
• Pick an agent that you can trust. We were lucky enough to come across two agents who had great sale strategies and ideas for our home. Whilst they were both exceptional people, we ultimately made our decision based on trust. Our home is going to auction in 4 weeks’ time and at the end of the day, we decided we need to have full trust in the person standing on the front step when the day rolls around. On top of this, we focused on personality – someone who people can relate to and not one who treats potential buyers with an element of superiority, an unfortunate trait of a lot of agents these days. Fingers crossed we made the right call.