When the auctioneer’s hammer fell at $1.8 million on 11 Gregory Cres, Beverly Hills, the sale represented a lot more than just another deal done.
For Ray White Sutherland Shire agent, Alyssa Earley, and her Grandmother, Josephine Camilleri, it represented the end of the family’s six decade connection at the property.
“Nan owned the home for 62 years and, as she’s Maltese, and being one of the oldest in the family, she would host massive Boxing Day lunches there and we’d have more than 100 people there,” Ms Earley recalls.
“She also had these two massive, beautiful orange trees there and my siblings and I would always go there and pick oranges.
“We’d eat them or squeeze them into orange juice.
“There’s lots of happy memories there.”
Ms Earley said when her grandmother, 98, decided to move into retirement accommodation, she was the natural choice to sell the home.
And while she wasn’t nervous about getting a good result from the four week auction campaign, she did have a couple of hurdles to overcome.
“I don’t (normally) sell in the St George area, I’m a Sutherland Shire agent,” she said.
“What I found out during the campaign is that the St George market is very different to the Sutherland Shire market.
“What I found was, the buyers in the St George area are not very forthcoming with their feedback.
“In the Sutherland Shire, if someone is interested in a property they will ring you, hound you, constantly want to be in contact with you, but in the St George market, the buyers were very reserved.”
To overcome that challenge, Ms Earley zeroed in on an auction campaign that overserviced every likely buyer.
She said she also focused on clear, consistent communication, following up when she said she would and being transparent around price.
The end result was having about 100 email enquiries on the property, roughly 70 buyer inspections, six registered bidders and four active bidders.
The property sold to a family, which Ms Earley said pleased her grandmother, who has three children, nine grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.
“It was nice for my Nan, knowing that she sold to a family who is going to move in there and raise their kids like she did,” Ms Earley said.
For agents selling a family member’s home, Ms Earley has simple, straightforward advice.
“You’ve got to remove your emotions from the sale,” she said.
“Obviously the family was emotional, as was Nan, and I had to be empathetic to them, but I looked at it as though I had a job to do.
“The way I ran the campaign was the same way I would run a campaign for a normal client, so constant communication, weekly updates and watching the St George market.
“Because I’m not from that market, I really watched what was happening there – what was selling, what was being listed and I spoke to some agents, friends of mine, who work in the St George area.”
Despite not feeling nervous about the sale, Ms Earley said she still definitely felt a sense of relief when the hammer fell.
“I looked over at my grandmother and I lost it,” she said.
“I started crying because I looked at her and I thought, ‘Oh my God, we did it’.
“For me, it’s probably my proudest sale.”
