Breaking up with my garden of love

Nothing quite puts you in your place than having an estate agent look over your house.

You get to see what your pride and joy really looks like – at least through the eyes of an outsider.

We’ve always been pretty happy with where we live.

We paid R250 000 for the house, back in 1994, managing to come in R25 000 under the original asking price.

Since then, we’ve done a fair bit of improving – swimming pool, large carports, enlarged study, palisade fencing, new kitchen and bathrooms and, most recently, a modest solar array and inverter.

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The house spoke to us immediately when we viewed it – and it was about the 30th place we had looked at – because it had a charm.

Sunken lounge with stone fireplace and terracotta tiles in the dining room were among its nicest features.

They still are… at least we believe so.

Agent’s summation: pretty old-fashioned. Good thing you’ve got a reasonably new kitchen and bathrooms.

Then she walked from room to room, nit-picking I suppose you would call it. Terracotta might just survive, she said.

The carpets – pretty old and stained by now – were not a problem, she said… because most people these days wanted an entirely tiled house.

And, as we have seen with various building projects in our area, many new owners decide to radically change the way the property looks.

My sister and brother-in-law discovered that the hard way, after spending many months and much money starting up their house and garden only to see their family home gutted and rebuilt to a much more “modern” standard.

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The agent was clear: don’t waste your money fixing things up because you won’t get it back in an increased price for your house.

She was also frank that, if we decide to sell, now is not the time. The market is way down.

Nobody can say it is at rock bottom because our politicians have a way of sending things – like the rand and business confidence – into freefall.

On the other hand, if you set your price low, the house will sell quicker – and the agent will get their commission that much quicker.

So, whether this sort of advice is unbiased is debatable.

These days, property is not an investment – especially when you consider that, in our case, buying something smaller (kids have long since left) will probably cost more.

Then the estate agent walked around and said: Wow! What a lovely garden. Exactly.

It may be a bit “old-fashioned”, but sitting there with a glass of wine at sunset on a Joburg spring evening is why we love the place…

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