We’ve loved renovating our little coastal cottage. But anyone who knows us well won’t be surprised to hear that it’s time to move on. Crazy, I know. After all that work……yes it would have been nice to enjoy the fruits of our labour for a few years yet – but the time feels right to be selling now. The markets good, and we’re finding that even though the house and garden aren’t big, it’s big enough to be a commitment that interferes with extended caravan trips. That definitely wasn’t in the plan when we made the decision to give up the life we were living as full time Grey Nomads.

We chose our agent and had an appraisal on our house prior to leaving for our Exmouth trip, and we had a look at a house in a Lifestyle village that appealed to us. With a favourable appraisal coming back, and finding the Lifestyle village, and the house available there to our liking, the decision to market our little cottage on our return was easy. We scheduled the house photography for the Tuesday after our return – which gave us two days to whip the house and garden into shape. Arrangements where made to store the caravan elsewhere whilst marketing the house, the idea being to show off the available parking for visitors. Arriving home around lunch time on Sunday, we emptied what needed to be emptied from the caravan, gave it quick clean, and quickly went through the house and cupboards removing and stowing in the caravan as much as we could so as to give the house as much of an airy, uncluttered appearance as possible. The next morning we delivered the caravan into storage.

Monday and Tuesday morning we busied ourselves moving a few bigger pieces of unnecessary furniture into the shed, dressing the beds nicely with pillows, cushions and throws, arranging potted plants both outside and in, and sorting fresh flowers into vases. The deep clean, and big garden tidy could wait until after the photographs. The photographer arrived, and expressed delight at our presentation saying it made his job much easier. We were very much impressed with the results he produced. Here are a few of the photos that went on the net.

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The three bathrooms

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Wednesday was spent giving the house and windows a thorough clean, and the garden a quick weed and tidy. The photos went on the net on Wednesday afternoon. By Thursday morning the agent had two interested parties, and by Friday morning, less than 48 hours from the house being listed for market we had found our buyer.

I’d like to make a special mention here of our real agent who handled the sale. Our agent, Chris Rigoll, from Busselton Agency, has been outstanding throughout the process. We’ve bought and sold more than our fair share of real estate in our lifetime, and we’ve had good (and some not so good) selling agents over the years. One agent in Perth, David Brewer, who handled a number of sales for us was in our humble opinion, ‘a bloody good agent’, in fact, we thought he couldn’t be bettered. After Chris Rigoll’s positive enthusiasm for getting the job done, his rapid success, and his attention to detail even after the contract was signed, I think David Brewer may just have lost his place in our hearts as the ‘top agent’. Both agents worked hard for us, the seller (nothing makes me madder than an agent who forgets from whom he/she gets payment, the seller.) On this occasion though, Chris has continued to work on our behalf long after the contract was signed. He’s been present for all home inspections too, (follow up from clients, pest, and building inspections), and that’s a first for us. The inspections never bothered us in the past, but after going through the horrendous experience of all of the post contract inspections in the UK when selling Paul’s dad’s house, it was really comforting to have an agent present who had our interests at heart for these inspections. So a big, big thank you to Chris.

All of the necessary inspections have now successfully been completed, and settlement is scheduled for 19 July. On to the next stage of our lives, living in a lifestyle village. I wonder how that’ll turn out…..