The first question I ask a potential seller when going to appraise their property is… “Why are you thinking of selling?” There’s always a number of common answers including Death, Divorce, Debt, Doubt, Dissatisfaction or possibly an upcoming ‘Delivery’.

Now in a lot of those cases the decision to sell is a ‘knee jerk’ reaction to whatever is happening at the time and proper consideration has not been given to other alternatives. I like to explore those other alternatives before moving on to selling methods because, when it comes to property – I’m a keeper. I don’t sell (well just once I had to, but then again I didn’t really have to).

People who jump in and out of property tear up a lot of money along the way and most people who are wanting to buy a new home just assume they have to sell the old one. Not necessarily so. For instance, take the young single guy who buys his bachelor pad, then meets a girl, gets married, plans a family and starts looking for a bigger home. They go to sell the bachelor pad, to help buy the new home then 2 or 3 years later come back to me looking for an investment property and I say to them “But you had one!” Now you have to pay stamp duty all over again and probably buy the same thing at a higher price (though not at the moment).

The moral of the story is make sure you have a very good reason to sell, because property is about the only asset you can buy and get a total stranger to pay it off for you.