Buy my house? PLEASE!

I was a bit miffed as it meant they were in our house, but had all the monies.
Bit miffed indeed. I don't think I could have done this. No - definitely not let anyone in without full payment.

In retrospect - would you handle this differently?
 
Bit miffed indeed. I don't think I could have done this. No - definitely not let anyone in without full payment.

In retrospect - would you handle this differently?

I retrospect, if I'd known the settlement was miles away I'd have called on the morning to ensure the docs arrived, and if they hadn't I'd have high-tailed it down there in time to settle with a fresh set.

It did go against every grain to let them in prior to settlement, how many times have I heard that you should never hand the keys over until it's all official.

At the end of the day though, they had nowhere to go. They were sat in their car outside the house mid afternoon with all their worldly goods loaded onto a removal truck parked up behind them and a monster storm heading over early evening. As much as I really did not want to instruct the agent to hand the keys over, I couldn't have seen someone out on the street all weekend, not to mention the hassle they would have had with their stuff.

Our conveyancer assured me that the license was sufficient to cover us legally, and the likelihood of anything good pear shaped was extremely small, so we decided to take the risk and help them out. I'd like to think someone would do the same for us in that situation, (but not sure how many actually would).
 
good to hear it went well - i felt for you!

so a 7% discount on asking price, but only a 3% discount on what you were realistically expecting.

not too bad - figures stack up. good job.

Thanks. Yeah, it's not too bad when you look at it in those percentage figures.

The upside is that we still managed to walk away with 'effectively' a $50k profit, which amazed me as we had totally overcapitalized with the fit-out of the place and we'd only been in it a year and a month when we settled.

'IF' the development wasn't going ahead...

'IF' we'd have stayed in the house for the 3-4 years we planned, then 'POTENTIALLY' we could have come out with more capital gain...

...but at the end of the day, the learning experience was priceless. We moved to Australia from the UK just over 3 years ago and after a short reccy trip before that, thought that the area we built in would fit the bill on cost & proximity to potential work for both of us. We always wanted to build a house in the UK but it's practically impossible unless you are loaded.

So, we bought the block and spent 12 months designing & almost 12 months building.

By the time we had been in the place 6 months, we kind of realized that estate living wasn't for us. We'd have stuck to the original plan though of 3-4 years, had it not been for the development proposals cropping up.

So, although it was very stressful trying to sell, at the end of the day, we had a great build experience from which we have learned a great deal about what to and what not to do when building your own home, it was the first house we have sold so that was an learning experience in itself, we've ended up living in an area we'd never have thought of before as the year spent in that house gave us time to really think about where we wanted to live etc, and we've ended up in a house that is a million miles away from what we imagined our dream house would be, but actually suits us better and we're stoked with it. All this, plus $50k in the pocket, (which was effectively canceled out by agents fees to sell and stamp duty on the new place), basically means financially we are exactly where we were at the start of the house build, but in a different house and area with a lot more experience and lessons learned under the belt, and arguably a house that has much more future potential for capital gain.

All up, it may not have been the greatest financial 'win' ever, but the experience of the whole build & sell process was priceless in terms of what Emma and I took from it.

So, from a brand new glass & stainless steel uber-modern 'box', we're now in a 108 year old leaky weatherboard with more character than you can shake a stick at, and absolutely loving it!

Cheers.
 
I'd like to think someone would do the same for us in that situation, (but not sure how many actually would).

I would have done the same. I think many others would too.

We were so thankful when our son's bank, and then our bank both held up his settlement because they couldn't get their acts together, that the vendor allowed the extension with no penalty at all. Pay it forward.....

And you don't need to feel like you have to make money on everything or feel like you didn't get it "right" first time. Having not "lost" is a good result. You sound very balanced, and I'm glad you are loving where you have ended up. When my mother was selling houses in Coorparoo, she had several families who sold their old character filled queenslanders to move a few kilometres to either brick and tile houses with more facilities or onto acreage. There was more than one family who didn't like the lack of character and being further out and certainly once their kids were wanting to go to uni or into the city at night, several of those families came back to mum to buy back into their old area.
 
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