Sam and I bought our first home around 2.5 years ago. We'd been looking for about four months and had missed out on 3 homes prior to securing ours. We'd reached that point where you truly put in more than you want to spend on an offer, which allows you to actually win something.
The place was "perfect"; it literally hit every one of our "must haves" and "nice to haves". We were thrilled.
A year later we realised that we had no idea what we were really after in a house. Having a baby changed some crucial things dramatically, like layout, warmth, section and we realised that this house that was meant to be skipping us to the "second house" wasn't really what we wanted after all.
Once Sam and I had both made up our minds that we wanted OUT, it was all hands on deck to get the place ready to sell again. After that we were tired, but confident that we were going to be able to sell it easily with the current housing market, and its appeal with a water view, four decent bedrooms, a large renovated kitchen and two bathrooms.
The things that I wish I knew about selling before were:
It takes WAY longer to get it ready for market than you think.
It took every weekend (and every nap time for me) for at least 3 months to have the section looking mint again and the house touched up to perfection.
Choosing a real estate agent and getting the house on the market takes quite some time and is a decent ordeal.
I turned to local facebook groups for recommendations in the end.
Open homes are the worst.
Well, it's more the state of being on the market, as you don't want to mess anything up, or cook anything with a strong smell, and you've gotta be ready to get out of there, should someone want to come back and take a second look. Couple that with being a routine-based mama with a 1 year old...
In buying again we knew exactly what we wanted, so that narrowed things down a lot. We flirted with the slightly mad idea of moving further away from the city to get a really great house by the beach, moving over to the Hutt, but ended up staying in Whitby - at least we got that part right the first time!
After everything, we were somewhat disappointed by the price we sold the house for, and spent more than we'd hoped on our new place (which still needs a few things doing to get it just right), but we don't regret the whole process. It was a necessary ordeal for us. The main thing that frustrates me is that I wish we'd just done it right the first time.
My main piece of advice to people who are looking to buy their first home is to spend a bit more to get it right the first time, especially if you have young kids. Selling and moving with little ones just plain SUCKS.
