Out with the old... in with the new?

Just 7 short days until Open House Day, when our place will be put on the market. It's exciting, but at the same time we are fairly nervous about the whole thing. Almost everything is ready, but we still have a bit of packing etc left to do before next week.

As you can see, we have had the photographers through, along with the floorplanners and the writestuffabouters to get all the marketing side of things ready to go. You can see the full fruits of their labours here, although I have no idea how long that will stay up.

Meanwhile, Suzy and I went out today and had a look at a few places. We revisited a nice house in Dulwich Hill, that we first saw about 6 weeks ago during our first foray into the 2006 house market. We could really see ourselves living there, its a great house and doesn't need anything done to it, we could move straight in.

The reason it is still there six weeks later, after being passed in at auction, is that they expected to do much better than the market dictates. When we first saw it, the agent quoted mid to high 500s, but that was obviously well short of their expectations. Suzy caught it with a price at one point (635k), but the adverts have returned to pricelessness. When we spoke to the agent today, she 'confided' in us that they would settle for 620k, having bought for 610k a year ago, and since putting in about 50k of work. God knows how accurate that is, but I can say that the kitchen is clearly new, it has ducted air con and generally appears to be in excellent condition.

Anyway, it is certainly tempting, and while that is right up the top of our price range, it isn't beyond the realms of possibility and for a house like this that really doesn't need anything beyond a coat of paint, we can seriously think about making an offer. If we go down that route, the risk lies in getting a bridging loan, and hoping that our place sells quickly. Fingers crossed!