It’s a familiar story - a family with ageing parents, children living busy lives and the prospect of a great deal of paperwork ahead. But it is rare to find a family with such a strong connection to their community.
And when we first met this family in July this year, we discovered just how deep their roots were.
Despite having sold several properties before, this couple was planning a move into aged care and their children were naturally worried about the pressure of selling their home. So, the family asked us to get involved, to help manage and streamline the process for them.
The couple lived in a lovely unit in Blackburn North, just 14km east of Melbourne CBD. A few years earlier, they’d decided to subdivide their block, sell the original house and downsize by building a new unit to live in at the rear. Amazingly, they’d lived in the original house since the 1960’s and before that in the house next door, so not much happened in this street they didn’t know about!
The family asked Tower to provide them with some independent guidance about preparing the property for sale to ensure the best price and achieve a timely outcome. In aged care situations, the faster a property can be taken to market and sold, the less interest is typically paid on the Refundable Accommodation Deposit (RAD) for the aged care facility. So, in this particular case, the family were obviously keen to move quickly and save money on their interest payments.
However, as the children had full and demanding lives, they knew they wouldn’t be able to dedicate enough time to organising a sale, but they were still keen to ensure all parties involved were working to achieve the best possible outcome for their parents.
So, we stepped in to expedite things. Once the family had removed all their parent’s possessions from the property, it was time for us to take control. Out team worked tirelessly to organise transferring all the unwanted furniture to a local charity and ensuring the property was spotlessly clean, before the stylists polished the property’s overall presentation and the photographer captured the property’s best selling points.
All this in just 11 days, and the home was ready to be listed on the market.
After a successful four-week marketing campaign auction day arrived and the property was sold under the hammer above the reserve price. The vendors were thrilled with the outcome and the new owners equally as delighted about their new home.
We thoroughly enjoyed helping such a nice family move on to the next stage in their lives after they had played such a strong role in the local community for several decades.