The house is sold and the packing begins

After much discussion, we finally decided to sell the house rather than keep it and rent it out during the time we were going to be away. Part of the decision was that given the way that luck works, we could almost guarantee that we would get a call from the real estate saying that the house had fallen down or something similar while we were at the most remote spot in Australia, and there would not be anything we could do about it, or there would simply be constant issues from a painful tenant on a weekly basis that would drive us mad. Plus, after nearly 19 years in the one spot, it is about time for a change anyway - who knows where we might come back to, if in Sydney at all. Gives us a big opportunity to start a new pahse in our lives when we return.

So the fun job of finding a real estate agents begins, and we finally settle on someone, thinking that we have done enough research and feel right about him, only to find out that they are all the bloody same, and they are just used car salespeople in better shirts. First he argues when I tell him the house is on the websites in the wrong price range (no wonder we were not getting many to our open houses), and then the discussions about the softening of the market in the last few weeks, meaning we might not get anywhere near what he initially quoted - what a surprise.

So after about 8 open houses over the weekends and mid week, we finally get to auction night, and of the 3 properties for sale, we are right in the middle at no. 2. The 1st one sells, so that is a good sign. Now it is time for us, and knowing how the whole auction process works, I knew all the fun and games were just about to begin. But poor Di had never been to an auction before and she was stressing something shocking. After a very long and drawn-out process of continuous $500 bids, it finally gets close to the reserve and stops - not the agent swings into "push-push" mode and he is trying to get us to reduce the reserve and put it on the market. ut we had already decided to sell on the night anyway, so after a bit of umming and arring, it gets sold for just slightly under the reserve, but we are still happy enough (but it is still a fair way from what he initially said we might be able to get, but that is real estate agents for you).

The new owners come back to our place to take some measurements and to find out what they will spend the next 25 years paying off to the bank. They are young and about to get married - poor fools.

So the next step is to start the packing - my god, what a job this is going to be. We had already started to "de-clutter" when we decided to sell, so a large amount of the stuff was gone, but it is amazing that after all these years, you are able to hang onto so much stuff when you have a 4 bedroom house. So it was time to go through everything yet again, this time with a serious and focused mentality of "do we need it - or do we chuck it". Aside form the things we are taking on our trip, it either needs to be stored for when we come back, or sold / thrown out / given away - there has already been quite a bit of all 3 options here.

 

So with settlement happening on Friday 22nd March, we will hand the keys in on Thursday 21st and start our trip. We now have an actual date that we are leaving, and it is starting to get a bit closer - still 4 weeks away yet. And the list of things to do is slowly having things crossed off, but we seem to be adding items at the bottom as quick as they are getting crossed off - there has to come a time when nothing more gets added, and the list starts to shrink!!!

Di will finish work on Thursday 7th March, and it will be very hard for her to say goodbye to her oldies and the staff she works with - she simply loves what she does. They will miss her greatly, and she only hopes that the next person to take on her job will look after them like she does. Hopefully they will be able to view this blog and keep up-to-date on our travels.

Next week I will start moving some of our furniture and packed items into the storage area we have organised, so lots of fun and games still to come. Will keep you posted.......