How To Sell Houses and Make Friends

Recently my small family unit and I moved house. Originally we were going to keep our first house as an investment property and rent it out. This plan relied on me returning to work sooner rather than later - and the plan missed out on one very important factor: Baby James and his serious attachment issues. I know that most babies have attachment issues at six months old. It's normal. Try to remember that my oldest came out of the womb with a cunning plan for world domination that basically entailed achieving independence as soon as possible - which meant that her parents were recognised as convenient, but largely disposable in the long run. At ten months old when she started daycare, I instantly became invisible. And while I sobbed all the way to my first day at work - my little one plonked herself down with her brand new best friends and got into the serious business of playing.

So I was not quite prepared for a baby who follows me everywhere I go with his eyes, frets when I leave the room and screams inconsolably when I pop him down on the floor to make his lunch. Crisis talks were held while we were moving because our normally happy little man screamed the whole time I was gone and he was in the care of his Aunt Pippa - much to her chagrin because he would only shut it while she walked up and down jiggling him. And he's not exactly the smallest baby. The upshot of these talks was the realisation that Baby James is probably not going to handle daycare as well as his big sister and consequently we decided that perhaps I wouldn't go back to work for a while. Which meant we had to sell the old house.

Selling a house, and selling it quickly, means that you need to prepare yourself in several ways.

1.) Maximise the appeal of the house. It should be as good as you can get it. Paint, mulch, clean, the works.

2.) If you want a fast sale, consider selling your house for a little bit less than market value.

Our house was built in 1973. Between then and when we bought it, the only thing that was done to it was that it received a new bathroom and kitchen, somewhere around the time I was entering high school. Fortunately it was a rather good kitchen with Tasmanian Oak benchtops and a brillo stainless steel cooktop. Unfortunately the bathroom was not especially well done and the tiles had cracked - letting the water in to totally rot the floor. Speaking of rot, the tenants that were occupying the house had had a leak in their washing machine for three years and by the time my in-laws ripped it up to replace it as a house warming present, you could push your finger straight through the sodden floor. If it hadn't been for a couple of well-placed noggans banged in between the joists for security, I am quite certain that a vigorous spin cycle would have landed their washing machine on the ground under the house.

The whole shebang was painted in thrilling plantation white and mission brown both inside and out, including the exposed beams for the flat roof. Oh yes, and every door in the place was a deep forest green in high gloss. The garden had 30 years of gum tree debris supporting a veritable ecosystem of insects and in case that wasn't bad enough, the previous tenants had allowed their children to lose about seven years' worth of McDonalds toys and chip packets in the garden. Basic maths performed on the amount of crap we removed indicated to us that they'd been eating one of each of these once a week for the whole seven years.

Needless to say it was one of the four cheapest houses on the market the weekend we looked at it and it was listed as a "renovator's delight". We might have been renovators, but we weren't overly delighted. But we did get it for a song and then we began clawing it back from the wilderness - a good thing really because two more years of habitation and the Huntsmen would have owned it under Squatter's Rights. So now that we were looking down the barrel of a sale, things are not looking too bad apart from some touch-up painting, a new bathroom and a tidy of the garden. How easy that sounds on paper! The reality was about a month or more of hard work for yours truly and then it was ready for sale.

Which brings me to the subject of real estate agents. I have had mixed experiences with real estate agents. They're your best friend when you're selling but when you're buying, it's a different story. When we bought our 70s house we had the worst ever experience with a real estate agent who, amongst other things;

1.) Would not talk to me and actually said, "If your husband's available, I'd prefer to speak to him".

2.) Served the existing tenants plus their four children with an eviction notice indicating they were to clear out two weeks before Christmas, even though we'd said we wanted them to stay on.

3.) Gave the final few weeks' rent that belonged to us to the previous owners and then claimed it wasn’t his problem.

4.) Refused to answer the phone to deal with any of the above issues until we asked to speak to his boss - whereby he suddenly "just became available".

So we were a little bit wary when it came to using a real estate agent. We asked for quotes on how much the house was worth and an indication of commission - which, we learned, is based on a percentage of the sale price of the house. Once we worked out what their commission would be on the sale of the property and factored in the fact that they expected us to pay for all our advertising we figured that if we sold the house ourselves we could lower the asking price, thereby giving our buyer a "good deal" and still we'd come out with more cash than if we'd used an agent. A few things were in our favour here. Mainly it was that for around $1000 you can list your property on www.allhomes.com.au which is basically the one stop shop for anyone looking to buy property in the ACT. But there was also the fact that I'm on maternity leave and was able to basically show people through the place any time, day or night (theoretically. In practice I needed about two hours' notice to organise the kids and myself to drive two minutes down the road).

Enter our potential buyers and there were quite a lot of them and I quickly learned that there are two types of buyer. There are the realistic ones who know what they can afford. They're looking for a house in their price range and they don't mind paying for what they want if the price is fair. Charles and I fall into this category. We prefer not to haggle, we can either afford what you're asking or not and if there's anything we feel is serious enough to have an impact on the price, we'll raise it, ask whether there's wiggle room and leave it at that.

Then there are the bargain hunters. Bargain hunters never, ever look for a property in their price range because everything out there is negotiable and they figure that if they criticise a property enough, maybe you'll be dumb enough to sell it for a stupid amount and then they'll have their bargain. We had a lot of people through our house and most of them were the reasonable sort. We had a couple of bargain hunters but none were quite as bad as Daniel and Amanda*. Daniel and Amanda had two children between them and were getting married in six weeks. They needed a house fast and, hunky-do, our house was vacant and ready for the moving.

As soon as they're in the door Daniel starts criticising absolutely everything. Despite this I can sense that they are super keen. They are whispering furtively in low, excited tones between themselves and then he's booming things at me like, "The cork tiles look a bit rough, don't they?"

Other choice lines include, "Well we saw a four bedroom place with an ensuite up the hill and it was only $440,000". (Not renovated at all and, I'm told, with a significant pest problem).

And "Well we saw that you bought this place for only $295,000 and that was only four years ago. Did you know that we could see that on allhomes?" His tone when he delivers this one is almost accusatory.

I have a smart mouth on me which is one of the many and varied reasons for why I don’t ever do customer service anything. This smart mouth kicks into gear when I’m annoyed and Daniel and his accusatory tone have found my limit. The smart mouth has a range of answers to choose from because they’re zinging through my brain, jockeying for pole position;

Um, yes actually, I did know that. Did you happen to see the photos from four years ago?

Whoops – boy is my face red! You've caught me out there trying to make a massive unearned profit and of course I'm buying another house for the price it would have been four years ago too so how's about I cut a hundred grand off this one for you? Would that be fairer?

Perhaps you’d prefer a cheaper four bedroom house, oh that’s right, there aren’t any!!!

Don't get me wrong - I can tolerate criticism of my house. If you're going to sell your house yourself, you have to face up to its flaws and be prepared for people to point them out to you. After all, it's almost forty years old and far from perfect. But I've also done a lot of work to it and even though it’s priced as one of the cheapest four bedroom homes in Canberra, it is no longer one of the worst four bedroom homes in Canberra by far and away. It takes a lot out of me to swallow this, grit my teeth and remain pleasant, but I do manage it. I continue to answer questions and dodge the negative statements and privately I promise myself a healthy scream when it's over. And when it is finally over I feel like I've run a marathon and I get the distinct impression that they'll be making an offer. A stupidly low offer if the whole situation is anything to judge by.

A couple of days later I do get a phone call from Daniel. True to the form I've witnessed so far, he spends almost two minutes telling me all the reasons why my house is crap and I should accept his offer. And then he delivers it and it is, of course, stupidly low. It is so low that I laugh. I'm honest and tell him that yes, there is room for negotiation, but not that much room. If they're willing to move quickly, I'll drop $12,000 from the price but not $32,000. He tells me there's no way they can even come close to that so I thank him politely for his time and hang up.

The thing about bargain hunters is that all of their negativity crawls inside your head and starts to mess with your resolve. This is probably right about the time a real estate agent comes in handy. What I'm thinking is... Maybe the price is too high... Maybe no one else will be interested... Maybe I can afford to sell it for that price... After I discuss it with Charles, we do drop the price from $457,000 to $449,000. Charles thinks we should be asking for a number closer to what we actually want. Realistically the house has only been on the market for three days. An offer this soon is a good thing and we've had a lot of people look at the house. So we agree to review the price again in two weeks if there's no movement by then.

Lucky for us, before I can dwell on those thoughts for too long, in come Paul and Mel. Paul and Mel live in Sydney and are fresh from being jerked around by the people they were trying to buy a house from. Their vendors strung them along for two months and then pulled out right before exchange. They have already given up their Sydney house and job, enrolled their daughter in a Canberra school and now they have no house to move into. Over the phone, sight unseen, they tell us how fabulous our house is and offer us a little bit more than we're asking for our place with a catch - they want to exchange in two days and settle ASAP. Well fine by me.

Lucky for us, our more-expensive-than-usual solicitors are like a team of well trained greyhounds. In 24 hours they hammer out the contract, throw in a clause that will allow Paul and Mel to move in before settlement if they wish, and deliver it to the other solicitors. When Paul and Mel see the house for the first time, it is one hour before their appointment with their solicitors to exchange. They are freaks for all things 60s and 70s and they adore the house even more in person than they did in the photos. Mel is completely in love with everything Daniel hated about the property and Paul, while a little more laid back, is clearly a bit excited too.

Mel keeps saying things like, "I can't believe we're going to get this house for only $450,000!" while Paul says things like, "Shut up, Mel" in a low voice. I assure him that the house is his and there will be no revision of the price. He visibly relaxes. I explain the clause allowing them to move in as soon as we exchange and they give us proof of finance. I think Mel is going to cry. They can now move on their original schedule. We seem to have landed in the happy situation where everyone gets what they want and thinks they got a good deal (well, almost everyone – I don’t know how Daniel and Amanda feel about all this but I do spend a fair amount of time fantasising about it!)

The thing about buying and selling houses is that most people know what they want for their house before it hits the market and there is only a certain amount of negotiating room before you hit the limit. In our case, we thought we'd been more than fair with the price and we thought it was a good deal. So did almost everyone else we spoke to. Unfortunately it just wasn't a good enough deal for Daniel and Amanda. Incidentally, they called us back the same day that we sold the house to Paul and Mel to tell us that they wanted to offer $432,000 and we should take it because we were unlikely to get any more than that from anyone. They were exceptionally lucky that Charles answered the phone because all they got was, “Sorry, we’ve already accepted an offer of $450,000.” I would have been more creative. In fact, a month on and I’m still fantasising about potential responses to that offer.

The upshot of it all is that I don’t think you have to be ruthless when you’re buying or selling a house. If you’re buying then you’ll get the right house for the right price. The trick is to not be overly ambitious, particularly in a rising market and don’t count your chickens before they hatch. And if you’re selling, you might consider sparing a thought to your buyers. They’re about to hand you a massive amount of money that will probably cost them most of their salary for their foreseeable future. It won’t kill you to let them move in a little bit early, drop the price a little or negotiate terms that will suit their requirements.

I’m thrilled with the way things have turned out. I feel like we got a great price for our house and it’s nice to see someone who loves the place move in. It was the first house we owned together and it was our home while our children were babies. The value the house held for me wasn’t purely a monetary value and I feel like the sale we eventually negotiated incorporated all of the other intangible assets I felt were attached to the house. Letting the house go to Paul and Mel hasn’t been anywhere near as traumatic as I thought it would be because they feel like friends and I know they’re going to love that house as much as I did. And there’s no way you can put a price on that.

* Names changed to protect the greedy.