Saturday 30 July 2011

House inspections

The sale of our house is going slow.  We had two weeks with no inspections but today and last Saturday we've had people looking.

Last Saturday was actually a bit of a muddle and I wasn't impressed.  I've got work to do at home now and had planned on doing that Saturday while Mick was up the road working on the other house.  Friday the agent rang and said there were people wanting to inspect 10am Saturday.  We got up bright and early to do housework and tidy everything up.  We like to have the house spotless when people are coming to look - a bit of a rod for our own backs.  We spend two hours making sure nothing is out of place before every inspection.

Just 25 minutes before they were due to come, the agent rang to say the people had called saying they hadn't even left Melbourne yet!  I thought that was a bit selfish.  It's at the very least 1 1/2hrs away so they'd known for more than an hour that they weren't going to be able to get here for 10am.  So now they'd come at 11.30.  I'd packed away all traces of my work - paperwork, printer, laptop.  It wasn't worth getting it all out for an hours work to then have to pack it all away again.  I wasn't impressed. 

At 11am I took Coco and we went up the street to scrape wallpaper at the other house and have coffee with Mick.  He needed something from the shops so I drove down just before 12 and there was the agent still waiting outside the house.  It was after 1pm before he called to say they'd finished their inspection.  A good half day gone over one house inspection and as it turned out they weren't even serious buyers.

Two weeks before we had another couple make an appointment and after waiting half an hour for them the agent had to leave.  I headed home to see them wandering around our yard!

Today we did it all again, the big housework thing.  The people turned up on time but weren't here for very long.  A bit of a disappointment - the serious ones have been here for an hour or more.  We're thinking today's visit wasn't a serious buyer either, or they just didn't like the place.

Eventually we'll get the right buyer.  We just have to be patient.  At this stage we're not overly worried about selling just now.  There's so much to be done up the road so if it takes another month we'll be happy with that. 

Our house appeals to Melbourne buyers but we need someone ready to retire and move up here.  So far they've all been people wanting a weekend place.  It's an awful lot of garden and maintenance for just weekending..... we know because we've done it!

2 comments:

Peter Berry said...

There is a saying - the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Here you are hoping to visit the UK on your own narrowboat. Here I am sat on my narrowboat, unusually the sun is shining and the temperature is around 30, but I would give it all up, including the boat, to live where you live. To compensate, we have now booked our 2nd world cruise over our winter. We visit Darwin, Whitsundays, Brisbane and Sydney, around February next year.

Elly and Mick said...

Isn't that true! I don't think we'd ever want to live in England - although never say never. We like the Aussie lifestyle and I really don't think the English Winters are going to be very appealing. Here we are on a crisp Winter morning (it's 5.4 degrees at 8am) and the sun is shining through the gums at the back of our property. For the first time in 11 years we have kookaburras nesting in those trees and it's the most glorious sound to wake up to. Hmm.. think I should do a blog entry about the kookas so I remember this morning when I'm complaining about the English Winters!
The cruise sounds wonderful.
Elly