Life should be easier than this…

A couple of years ago, I made a decision. Funds were running low, so maybe it was time to sell my house in Olhão. This had always been my plan. Put my money into property, rent it out and let it appreciate, then sell it when it was necessary.

The rental didn’t go so well, so appreciation it was then, and yes, that went well. I’ve pretty much doubled my money – supposedly.

I had it valued and it looked good. A friend had also sold a very similar property a few months before and achieved the price I was looking for. So yes, things were looking good.

Eighteen months later, I wasn’t so sure. After a number of estate agents had given it a go, after I had marketed it myself, after numerous viewings, it still hadn’t sold. Mmmm… now money really was getting scarce.

I’d had offers, of course I had, but these offers had been derisory, offered by chancers. I wasn’t going to take a €50k hit. I wasn’t going to give it away.

So, why hadn’t it sold? To be honest, I’m not sure. The feedback from everyone who viewed it was that they liked it, but that it wasn’t quite right: there was no window in the second bedroom (welcome to Portugal…); there was no parking (the house is pre-1951 and situated in the baixo area of Olhão… don’t be surprised if it doesn’t have a garage); the outside area wasn’t big enough for their dogs… you get the gist? Everyone wants their perfect property. Compromise is not the friend of the modern house-buyer.

I took it off the market, ended dealings with various estate agents, then put it back on – with just one particular estate agent, exclusively. He investigated the market and told me that the market had dropped in the last two years, and therefore he had valued the property at €10k less than I had been asking.

‘Fair enough,’ I thought, though I found it strange that he believed that the market had dropped, whereas every month, the media (The Portugal News in particular) was espousing how buoyant the market was and how prices were climbing month on month.

Bloody hell, if only…

Anyway, it was back on the market.

And six months later, it was still on the market.

Bollocks.

Then I received an offer €45k lower than my original asking price. Bloody hell, was I going to have to accept that?! We bartered for a bit, and I eventually got them to offer €12.5k more. This was still a lot less than I’d hoped for, and a lot less than the estate agent had suggested I could get (although, to be fair, he had told me that his valuation was the top price and that I should expect people to come in lower). But I suppose that beggars can’t be choosers, and so I accepted the offer.

The next step was the buyers wanting to have the property surveyed. My fingers were crossed. Fortunately, the house was found to be sound, although he did raise a couple of issues: the sink in the kitchen and the main shower didn’t drain particularly quickly, and the down-pipe from the roof above the kitchen was blocked.

I managed to sort the down-pipe, but God knows what to do about the slow drainage. This is Portugal and according to my friend who stayed there for a while, the neighbour mentioned blockages in the drains outside in the road. So, all I can do is get a plumber in to confirm if there is in fact a problem, an expense that I really don’t want.

There was also an electrical issue. The fridge and the extractor fan didn’t work, apparently. Bloody hell… But when I went in to check, everything worked fine. Weird. Still, it was one less thing to worry about.

The buyer then mentioned that he didn’t want any of the furniture, and that he wanted the house empty and professionally cleaned. He also wanted the washing machine, and the ladder, and the plants… blimey, talk about being picky. So, more expense and hassle. C’est la vie, I suppose.

And that’s where we are at the moment.

The furniture is to be extracted over the next couple of weeks, with most of it going to charity, the estate agent says that he knows a cleaner (God knows how much that will cost) and a plumber (ditto), so hopefully everything will be sorted and the house will be sold and out of my hair by the end of May, a date agreed when we signed the promissory note.

Then the estate agent called yesterday:

‘Are you OK to complete next week?’

Next week is still April. What the…? Why agree a date and then try and bring it forward a month?! The answer was obviously ‘no’.

By the end of the phone call, he was sounding a little disgruntled, but seemed to understand that ‘No’ means ‘No’. But I feel that he will continue to push for an early resolution.

I’m sure that life should be easier than this.