JUNE 2018     SALE ACCOMPLISHED

Mid-winter is not considered a prime time to sell a house in Melbourne. But we had needed time to prepare it for sale – and probably more time because John wanted to do the work himself rather than hire professionals. I was conscious that the Melbourne market had probably already peaked, and was starting to fall, so we did not want to wait until spring.

Our agent friend and his team went all out, holding some open for inspection events, and scheduling a number of private inspections.

After the experience we had at an inspection in Bendigo, back in March, when the owner was present, we had determined we would not be such an inhibiting presence, so took ourselves – and Couey – off to the Lilydale Lake every time, sometimes at short notice! Couey had never had so many walks in such a short period.

We had to keep the home constantly ready for visitations, which meant being much tidier than came naturally. I vacuum cleaned the carpets every morning – definitely not normal…

Ready for inspection…

We had asked our agent to try to get us a sale settlement period of at least 60 days, thinking that this would give us time to find and purchase our new home, without too much pressure. Way back, we had purchased this house before we married, and before we both sold our existing houses, and then been caught with an extended period of very costly bridging finance in a falling market. This was not going to happen again!

After only three weeks on the market, we accepted a purchase offer. Even better, the couple was going overseas that same week, for three months and so did not want to settle on the sale until mid October. That would give us lots of time to visit Bendigo and find a really suitable new home, without being under pressure, we thought.

October 19 was set as the sale finalization date.