The LEASE has been signed!

Today we hit a milestone – we found a tenant for our home and the lease has been signed!

I came home from work and the FOR LEASE sign had been pasted over with a LEASED sticker – sending me into a split-second “What have we done??” moment. Of course, this was no surprise as the agent had texted me as soon as the contract had been signed, not to mention the numerous texts and conversations in the days prior about approving this particular tenant. Nevertheless, seeing it on our front lawn was a bit of a reality slap in the face. I can’t imagine how I would have felt if it was a SOLD sign!

The tenants look like a nice young family – mum, dad and a small child. They reminded me of how we were when we moved in 17 years ago. The Universe has a funny way of working. When we had the first (and only) Open Home, there was a group of 10-12 people waiting to come in as we were leaving. In front of the group I spotted a young family with mum carrying a young girl in her arms. We got in the car to leave and I turned to Hubby - “I want them”, I said referring to the young family. I then forgot about them and we went about our weekend wondering how on earth we would keep our house spotless until the next Open Home the following week – until I got an email with all the details for an application from the agent late Sunday night. It was them!

In the days following there were other applicants from that Open Home but the agent and I ruled them out in favour of this one.

Tenant selection is an interesting process, one which I thought would be way harder for our beloved family home. While the usual boxes need to be ticked, I tend to rely heavily on gut. Luckily we had a strong candidate that ticked all the boxes AND felt right so we didn’t want to lose them to another home.

I’ve since stalked them on FB (they really should improve their security settings) and they seem just like the people I’d be happy to entrust our home to while we’re away…so I’m relieved to have that uncertainty resolved. The real estate agent has done all the other background checks to make sure they’re good tenants as it will be his problem to deal with if they aren’t.

SO…we will officially be homeless a few days before we fly out and start our journey on December 3.