Property point

I’ve never heard anyone say: “I’m so sad about selling my Commonwealth Bank shares. They’ve been there while the kids grew up, they’ve been part of the family. We didn’t want to sell them but we just couldn’t look after them anymore. I just hope they go to another family that’s going to love them and get as much joy from them as they have given us.”
I have heard something along the lines of: “Oh, I sold the Commonwealth Bank shares today … can you pass the salt and pepper please.”
It’s different when people sell a house.
I don’t mean an investment unit in Brisbane, I mean the properties we sell in Mackay … most of those are family homes.
They are not just rectangular boxes made out of bricks and mortar or timber and fibro but the places where people have raised families, created memories. Where kids learned to walk and parents laughed and cried as the walking turned into a journey that bonds a family together.
Part of being an agent is to understand what it is you are selling. I don’t get emotional about it because my job is to stay detached and create a process that achieves the best price for the seller.
But that doesn’t mean you should be cold and heartless. You do need to have empathy, to understand the history people have with the property and connect at that level with the sellers.
Last year I sold an inner Mackay cottage for a woman who now lives in another state. She grew up in the house and her parents continued to live there until they passed away around 10 years earlier.
The lady inherited the property, a little unrenovated cottage. She held on to it for a decade because she couldn’t bring herself to sell it. So many of her memories played out in the house.
She didn’t have the money or ability to renovate the property and, living so far away, she couldn’t be here to arrange maintenance. So, in the end, she decided to sell it after getting me to do an appraisal on the property.
I sold the place quickly for the price she was hoping to achieve to a nice bloke who was buying it for his adult daughter to live in with her young child.
The dad was a handy bloke who was going to renovate it and bring the house back to life and turn it into a beautiful, classic cottage that his daughter and grandchild would love living in.
The daughter loved the property and could see its potential. When she looked at this broken-down old thing with horrible carpet and peeling paint and rusty roof, all she could see was the tongue and groove walls, the polished timber floorboards under the carpet and lino, the high ceilings and the classic casement windows.
I told the owner about the buyers, what the dad was planning to do and how much the daughter loved the house.
When the sale went unconditional and the property was effectively sold, the lady and her husband face-timed me.
It was a tearful conversation where the lady told me how happy she was that the property had gone to people who love the house and who will bring it back to life and create new memories for another family.
“I’m so pleased, David. And I know my parents would be happy with this.”
At that point, the money wasn’t the main thing. It was family, memories and a continuing journey worthy of the property.

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