It's been seven years since the "almost-sale" of Riverbend. I'd been watching a couple standing by the gate, and so I walked onto the verandah as they cautiously made their way down the driveway. "Sorry so much to disturb you, but is this property still for sale?" "Sure is", I replied which set off this strange sequence of events.
"We don't want to intrude too much but could we just walk around the grounds?" they asked. "I can do even better than that. Come inside the house", I replied and took them on a tour. They oohed and aahed and even got excited over the still unrenovated retro-1960s-look bathroom.
Next day I received their email, "Thank you so much for the time you took to show us around your lovely property yesterday. We will discuss our options with our accountant and contact you early next week", which was swiftly followed by another, "We’ve made some preliminary arrangements with our bank with a view to the purchase. We’d like to arrange for their valuer to come by and appraise the property."
Within days the 'valuer', a pimply-faced youngster, sat across from me in the living-room drinking tea and taking notes, including my mention of a previous offer of $1.64 million which we refused. Which is also what he did when I invited him to fully inspect the house and walk the grounds.
A short time later another email arrived, "My company has been involved in negotiations regarding a major new contract. Although the new contract is good news, I’ve also been hit with some unexpected expenses that have upset our original plans for the remainder of the year. Accordingly, I regret to tell you that we won’t be in a position to pursue the purchase, as much as we’d love to. Incidentally, you may be interested to know that the valuation came back at $1.64 mill." Some valuation! I hope it didn't cost him too much.
Shortly afterwards, when the neighbour's humble coppers-log cabin on 1887 square metres came on the market, I sent them this tongue-in-cheek email, "Riverbend may have been a little too ambitious for you! # 33 Sproxton Lane has only been listed yesterday. Having us as neigh-bours across the lane would add thousands of dollars to the property!!!"
Almost as soon as I had emailed them, the SOLD sign went up! Yes, they had bought this (nicely) converted fishing shack for $950,000! Which is where this '... and-they-lived-happily-ever-after' story should've ended.
However, they must've remembered that they had told me "We want land!" because, when within a couple of months of their arrival their neighbouring 1720 square metre vacant block - the last in the lane! - came up for sale, they bought that, too - for another $750,000! So they now had paid $1,700,000 for a humble coppers-log cabin on 3607 square metres of land! Had the same pimply-faced valuer done the valuations?
Again, this '... and-they-lived-happily-ever-after' story should've ended there but in less than twelve months they went away and the FOR SALE-signs up again. After a long marketing campaign by many different agents, the log cabin finally resold in May 2015 for $799,000 and the vacant block of land in August 2017 for $525,000. You do the math!
Maybe they would've been happier had they bought Riverbend and may-be this story should've been called "How not to buy and sell real estate"?
P.S. Whatever it is they were taking I want none of it because they also bought # 31 Beach Road, Batemans Bay for $1.3 million in 2008 and sold it again in 2017 for $930,000. Shouldn't that be the other way round?
