Almost exactly four years to the day, a husband-and-wife couple walked down the driveway, salivating at their mouths and asking, "Is this place still for sale?"
It was - and still is; see www.realestate.com.au - and I gave them the 'Royal Tour'.
Within days their email came back, "Hello Peter, we’ve made some preliminary arrangements with our bank, with a view to purchasing. We’d like to arrange for their valuer to appraise the property".
A young man with a bad case of acne showed up a few days later, said he was a valuer, had a cuppa and a bickie, jotted down that our last offer received had been for $1.64million, and left.
A month later, the couple emailed again, "Hello Peter, please accept our apologies for not having corresponded with you in so many weeks ... our time of late has been very heavily focussed on our business ... which has been hit with some unexpected expenses that have upset our original plans for the remainder of the year. Accordingly, we regret to tell you that we won’t be in a position to pursue the purchase of Riverbend, as much as we’d love to.
P.S. You may be interested to know that the independent valuation on your property came back at $1.64million". What an amazing coincidence!!! (believe me, I am not making this up!)
Half-expecting such a reply, I had already emailed them, tongue firmly in cheek, about a much cheaper (and much smaller) property across the lane, suggesting that, with neighbours like us, $950,000 for a small wooden house on a 1,887 square metre block would be a bargain. Wait for it: within days THEY BOUGHT IT - FOR $950,000!
My gob was wide open but not yet smacked. That happened a few months later when the adjoining 1,719 square metre vacant block came up for sale and THEY BOUGHT IT, TOO - FOR $750,000.
That's a total of $1.7million for a small wooden house on 3,606 square metres of land (outlined in red in the photo above) vs $1.95million for Riverbend's substantial two-storey brick house plus many additions and improvements on some 30,000 square metres of land (outlined in yellow)! SMACK!
And this is where the story should end, but it doesn't: less than a year after they had bought the two properties, the couple abandoned them and they have been for sale ever since - at $799,000 and $529,000 respectively!
Perhaps we were both inept: I at selling and they at buying ☺
