It's no longer a case of: get out of bed, have breakfast, get ready, and leave for work.Now it's: get out of bed and make it (ensuring all pillows are plumped and doona is straight). Have breakfast, then wash up dishes (making sure benches are tidy and clutter-free). Get ready for work, putting away any clothes / shoes / other such offending items to potential buyers. Leave for work...late.
This actually takes time and effort to live in such a ready-for-inspection state. We've had around 8 people through (we're not having any open homes) and a couple of contracts taken. The most difficult part is slowing down after such a hectic 9 months of repairs, additions and council inspections.
Some friends have commented that the house looks so good (it honestly does - we're not just saying it) that we won't want to let it go. We will, we do. We've emotionally detached. We had to let go in order to get this project finished. Otherwise we couldn't have maintained such fevered pace, we would have renovated like most people do - over a couple of years. Besides, we have bills to pay and need the house sale to cover the reno costs.
We did consider a few options, like selling the house and the vacant block but a capital gains tax of $100,000 on the vacant block put an end to that idea. We even considered selling both blocks to one purchaser - subdivided through council but not through the lands title office (emitting capital gains tax) but it seemed 1 big block would sell for less than 2 individual blocks - making our return on investment pretty low.
We're happy to sell this house now. It seems a shame in some ways - so much love and attention has gone into it - it looks better than we've ever seen it, but we know that we'll eventually grow out of it and we'd like to make an even better investment for the future.
Must get back to cleaning up the smallest of messes and filling the house with flowers. Still, it's better than laying turf, washing endless loads of muddy washing or waiting for council decisions.
