…A tough, and last-minute choice….

What do you do when you are set to bid at auction on Saturday, but find a house on Tuesday which catches your interest? Easy – you just try your luck at auction and keep the house as your Plan B.

But what do you do if the house has competing buyers who are also interested, and likely to make an offer within the week?

A exciting and recent adventure we shared with a wonderful young family brought home the importance of being decisive when it really counts.

We were set to pursue a family-sized townhouse we’d found in Kensington. The home wasn’t a perfect match for our clients, but it was a sensible capital growth option for them and they’d decided that inner-ring location, low-maintenance yard and easy-to-rent longer term was the right option for them, despite the fact that their five year plan would mean that they’d be giving up a period-styled, family house.

With building inspection planned, contract review done and a firm budget set, we decided to explore whether the vendor would allow us to pounce before the auction and make an offer. The agent was sensitive about our plan and agreed to discuss this option with his vendor.

However they chose to continue through to auction day.

Determined not to place all of our eggs in the one basket, we continued the property search through the auction campaign and into the last week, only to notice a family home in Coburg which met the budget, met the brief, and would potentially hold period-home appeal for our clients. Just 8km from CBD and offering a traditional backyard and facade, we were not surprised that they let this house steal their attention.

We took their excited call on Tuesday and realised that our adventure was about to take a sharp turn.

The property was advertised as a private sale and the agent was quite busy facilitating multiple inspections for the various interested buyers.

We knew that we didn’t have much time.

And we certainly couldn’t wait until the Kensington auction day. We had to act quickly.

This cute three bedroom, period home in one of Coburg’s leafy, residential streets was a great find, but given its age we recommended a building inspection. We negotiated with the agent and incorporated a 2-day building inspection clause in an effort to move quickly enough to secure it, yet enable our buyers to have the final say if the building inspection turned up any nasty surprises.

Happily, the inspection went well and our proud buyers can look forward to moving into their new family home in January 2016.