This house we are renting has been listed for sale. They offered us two weeks rent free if we wanted to break our lease and move out but we politely declined the offer. Waaaaayyyy too much hassle to move and we have a lease until November so they can't make us, so ner.
Last week was the first open house. I spent hours cleaning the place as if it was my own house for sale. The owners are a nice young couple and I wanted to do the right thing for them. We put all the kitchen bench things away in cupboards so it was clutter-free and looked un-lived in. Same with bathrooms, same with laundry. Not even clean folded clothes were in view. We put Annabelle's bikes around the side of the house out of sight. We vacuumed, mopped and scrubbed. Well... that stuff needed to be done anyway but still - we could have done it on Sunday, right? But we made sure the place was spotless for the open house. We then had to vacate our home for an hour while they opened it up. Who has 45 minute open houses?? Not in Sydney that's for sure. And it was a rainy Saturday afternoon and we had nowhere we needed to go - no friends to just drop in on - and as I already mentioned, Annabelle was in top form last weekend so husband was up to his eyeballs by the end of it. In short, it was all hugely inconvenient and it sucked.
As I might also have mentioned, we will probably list our house for sale in Sydney and we also have a tenant and she also has a lease until the end of the year. We have already decided in advance that if/when we list the house, we will offer her a substantial rent reduction in exchange for the inconvenience of people traipsing through every week, and with the hope that she will go to the same kind of effort in the way of tidying the place up for "show". We don't have to offer her cheap rent of course, but the thing is she's a bit of a whingey pain in the butt type so we'd like to head off any potential problems up front. So I guess part of my making all the effort with this place is because I know I'd appreciate it as an owner so maybe I'm hoping I'll get some karma points or something. But more to the point I'm just trying to be nice.
What all this is leading to is after our efforts last week, we left a note for the agent telling her that we will offer our tenant a discount on her rent when we sell and asking her if she would put to the owners that maybe they'd do the same for us. Mel pointed out that he travels a lot and gets not much time home with his family and that this is quite an imposition and we're happy to do it but really we don't have much incentive to go to so much trouble. She left a note in return saying something along the lines of "Same time next week for the open house. After that, I'll check with the owners re: rent". Ummm.. HELLO! It's not up to you to decide when to check with the owners, love. So Mel phoned her on Monday and told her he'd like her to ask them NOW. We got a formal letter in the mail saying that while they appreciate our efforts, we are obligated to make the property available for prospective buyers and right now they are working around us in regards to our baby's sleep times (whatever..) and that they can actually open twice a week and they're only opening once and for now, the owners choose to "exercise their rights" and won't be giving us any rent reduction. But if it goes on beyond what is a reasonable time, they'll consider it. Oh and if they get someone wanting to inspect during the week, they expect our full cooperation to let them in with 24hrs notice. She pointed us to our tenancy agreement. So we checked it. Turns out that what she said in her letter is wrong and the guidelines (not law) say that for a property for sale what is "reasonable" (subjective term and up to tenant and landlord to agree on, depending on individual circumstances) is one open house per fortnight OR two inspections by appointment per week. Not two open houses per week.. in fact not even one open house per week. There are different guidelines if the property is being auctioned, in which case one open house per week is considered reasonable. This house is NOT being auctioned. Not that we've got any issue with one open house per week, mind you. But sheesh, don't point us to the tenancy agreement and then misquote it, you stupid woman.
Mel and I worked together on a draft response pointing these thing out to her, but chose not to send it. You know.. karma points etc.
So the second open house was yesterday and as annoyed as we both were, we went to same trouble again. It didn't take so long this time after the major clean-up last week but still, we were nice. Another note on the bench when we got home to say "Same time next week."
Hmmm..... I can't be sure there won't be some folded washing in the laundry next week, or even some dirty washing for that matter.. perhaps some plates draining on the dishrack and toys scattered across the lounge-room floor...
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