Selling the Australian Dream

So approximately 3 years ago we decided to start our adventure of living the ‘Australian Dream.’

Finding the block was probably easier than I anticipated.  We found something close to where we both grew up for an OK price with awesome views and the only neighbours being Kookaburras, Koalas and snakes.  Russ being a builder knew exactly what vision he had for the block and off we went planning, building and paying .. and paying and paying..

Owning your own home is great but whoever named it the Australian Dream must have had enough money not to worry about the paying bit!  What made it worse for us is that we planned the home as a money maker only to end up buiding something that we could probably spend the rest of our lives in…  We always have bigger, smaller, and different visions for our next home but in all honesty we are living in the Australian Dream but it’s time to sell it and start again.. my mother always did tell me that when you marry a builder you become a gypsy, constantly moving homes.  I like the idea of constantly looking forward to the next project but let me tell you getting from project 1 to 2 has been far more difficult than anticipated.

Firstly the bank decided to randomly value our house at the third stage and then withhold some of our final payment.  As it turns out they are not allowed to do this but I found out the hard way that when you are fighting a bank you are fighting a losing battle!  I am a financial fighter and am bitter that it is the only financial battle to date I have lost but I sleep at night knowing we now appear to have far more equity sitting in the bank because we had to find the remaining funds elsewhere.  Without boring you with the details we somehow came out on top.

Then we finished the house – brilliant. Everything is exactly as we wanted it but we can’t afford to deck it out as we would like but that’s ok – it’s all superficial anyway right?

So the time comes to sell and as getting the for sale sign up nears and the buying market slows you do start to wonder how long this will take.

My first recommendation for a house in our price range is NOT to go with a DIY online home sales portal.  It took me 4 months to get a refund for a deposit that I cancelled within 2 minutes of the transaction, for some reason online businesses seem to have missed the customer service boat!

So with selling a house for the first time comes the ride of a massive learning curve.  Negotiation is oh so tough when an offer is on the table.

• Do you take a substantially lower offer than you know you want because the money is on the table and hey it’s still a profit.
• Do you or your husband make the final call?
• What do you include as extras to sweeten the deal?

Oh negotiations are so hard when their’s a profit involved and the current market is not that great.

We did accept an offer that was slightly under what we planned on and it was an awful experience full of tears and frusteration.  Lucky for us the buyer pulled out in the cooling off period which meant we got all the learnings without sacrificing our profit margin.  As it turns out the buyer is now refusing to pay the cancellation fee but hey just another financial battle to add to my repitoire.

We are back on the market and the constant open houses will be the death of me I’m sure.  Each weekend the cleaning process gets quicker and quicker and that’s not because I’m getting better at it!

So now we wait and live in a terribly clean house… most of the time.