!SOLD!SOLD!SOLD!
We have just sold our house and are about to begin an amazing adventure. Let me tell you how it all came about.
At the beginning of 2014, we started seriously talking about selling our townhouse. We were located in a complex and the body corp was just getting ridiculous. Also, we were starting to feel unsafe with a number of incidents happening that included police with search warrants, fireworks exploding in our driveway, detectives arresting a man, people jumping over our fences and parties that went all night, among other things.
So, we started thinking about what to do after we sold our townhouse. Buy a house? Buy a block of land? Go back to renting?
While talking to the boys one afternoon, they asked when we would be going camping again. This gave us the idea of travelling. Why not sell the house, buy a caravan and drive around Australia? So we started researching how to do it.
We attended the Caravan/Camping Show in Brisbane in June 2014 and we quite surprised at what we saw. There weren’t that many vans that catered for families and when they did, they had a lot of bells and whistles that we didn’t want. They have none of the things that we would need to free camp either. When speaking to the sales staff, most of them were like, “but you are going to spend most of your time in caravan parks, so you won’t need more batteries, solar panels, grey water tank etc.” We didn’t agree with this and as we plan to free camp lots, we do need these things.
After looking at more caravans around the Gold Coast/Brisbane area and online, we found a place that could build us what we wanted. In September, we put our name down in the line and started designing the layout and planning our van. At this time, we also started, very slowly, cleaning and decluttering our house.
After spending Christmas with family, we arrived home in January 2015, with the mindset to get the house cleaned and ready for sale within the next couple of months. But!! An incident late one Saturday night, that involved shooting, happened mid way through January and really freaked us, and especially the boys, out. It took them a month before they would go into the backyard again! They didn’t want to go to bed or sleep and were scared of noises in the dark. We decided we had to move a lot faster and within a few weeks the house was on the market.
After being on the market for a couple of weeks, Rockhampton/Yeppoon was hit by a cyclone. Hubby was sent up there to help restore the electricity network. Originally, he was only supposed to be away for a week, but it ended up being 12 days. The boys really struggled during this time. They were having lots of trouble sleeping and our routine was constantly being interrupted with people coming to look through the house.
Three days after he arrived home, we received an offer for the property which we accepted. Then it was a long wait for the next 14 days waiting for the house to go unconditional. The day after this happened, we started selling all our furniture and things we didn’t want/need anymore.
Finally, in the early afternoon on the 1st May, our house settled. Now we are finished that chapter of our lives and have moved onto the next, exciting stage.
Stay tuned for the next instalment: Purchasing our Caravan.