Recently Tower was asked to help a family sell a charming 1920’s home in a leafy eastern suburb of Melbourne. The owner had lived in the family home since the early 70’s, and had just moved into an Aged Care Facility.
This was a familiar story. Although the family members had experience in buying and selling real estate, they couldn’t agree on what to do to the property prior to sale, or which agent to use to sell it.
One member thought that a major renovation should be done to the property, and the other two were not convinced.
“The house was full of furniture and held many memories for the family. They found it hard to ‘make a start’ on deciding what should be kept and what should go.”
They did however agree that the property should be sold, and were concerned that property prices were falling.
Because the house was in such a great location and with a Heritage Overlay, it was likely that the purchaser would undertake a major renovation to the house. Any money spent on improving the house would likely to have been wasted.
We were able to show that the best sale result would be achieved with just a garden make-over and for the house to be de-cluttered and cleaned. This only cost $5,000.
The garden clean-up resulted in the garden appearing much larger and more appealing to buyers.
Tower was able to assist in having some of the household goods sold at auction, some donated to charity and the remainder disposed of.
We obtained two marketing proposals from local agents, and when each was compared, the choice of agent was easy for the family. Tower completely managed the selected agent and just reported back to the family as needed.
Mike was able to arrange for all work to be done to the property and to get it on the market in only two weeks.
Given the softening market and the approach of the Christmas season, this was very much appreciated by the family.
When the property was auctioned, the market was experiencing very low clearance rates, (just above 40%), decreased buyer demand and downward pressure on prices. However even with these headwinds, the property was sold on the day of the auction.
We had provided an ‘auction day strategy’ which de-stressed the auction process for the family and made negotiating after the auction that much easier.
The family were very happy that the sale was managed in such a short time. Having an independent third party assist with the sale meant that family harmony was preserved, and saying goodbye to the family home was made a lot easier.
