How the Ramsays scored their family home in the middle of a pandemic

Brisbane-born Sarah Ramsay spent five years in London and when she returned to Australia, it made sense to head to Sydney where there were plenty of work opportunities for an ambitious interior designer.

Over the next 10 years she worked for Thomas Hamel and Interni, met her husband Mike – a Brisbane boy – and rented a beautiful Paddington terrace with every amenity in walking distance.

Then along came Nina, now three, and Will, 12 months. Like many couples who have lived and worked overseas and interstate, the Ramsays decided it was time to return to the neighbourhood where they grew up to raise their own children.

The promise of family support and the pull of familiar schools and streets has been behind many first-home purchases.

A University of Melbourne study that tracked the residential mobility of 139 Melbourne residents between 1991 (when they were 17) and 2017 found that 32 per cent lived in the same suburb and 75 per cent lived within 10 kilometres of the place where they grew up.

The study’s authors reported that a person’s level of comfort in an area was directly related to their feeling of belonging, and Ramsay reports it’s lovely to be “home”, especially when home is a character-filled Queenslander with a big backyard in Kelvin Grove.

Just three kilometres north of the Brisbane CBD, Kelvin Grove wasn’t even on the Ramsays’ radar when they first started looking for property in 2019.

“Initially we were looking in Wilston and Grange, we were quite taken by that pocket,” says Ramsay, who was trawling listings from Sydney and flying up to Brisbane when a standout property called for an in-person inspection.

Then over Christmas a friend who had successfully used the services of buyers’ agent Jayne Robbins recommended she consider doing the same.

“We engaged Jayne in January and she went hunting for us,” Ramsay says.

“She basically held our hand through the whole process. She showed us different houses and if I couldn’t get there, she would send really thorough videos of the house, pointing out the positives and negatives – she didn’t sugarcoat anything. She would find properties that were off-market, and we’d get a one or two-day jump on the rest of the crowd.”

The Ramsays were looking for a home with character on a wide block of 600 to 800 square metres. Their wish list included three or more bedrooms, two or more bathrooms and the potential for open-plan living.

They found a good match in Wilston in February and asked Robbins to put in an offer.

“We saw the property prior to it being released to the market and we made a fair, genuine offer,” says Robbins. “They said no and wanted to take it to market and we didn’t chase it because we’d taken it to where we were comfortable.”

The Ramsays had decided to move from Sydney to Brisbane in March, with plans to rent and continue house hunting.

As luck would have it, the Ramsays’ removalist truck was booked for March 25 – the same day the Queensland government had chosen to close the border. Luckily they made it across the border before the midnight deadline and weren’t required to quarantine.

But the COVID-19 crisis meant new listings were thin on the ground.

“Supply really dropped off and it was slim pickings for a while,” says Ramsay, who opted to lower her budget in light of potential negative fall-out from the pandemic. 

It was about this time that Robbins introduced the Ramsays to Kelvin Grove.

“It was a suburb that hadn’t really boomed yet,” says Ramsay. “But it had the character homes and was quite close to the city with parks nearby.”

In June, Robbins found “a bit of an ugly duckling” in Bally Street. Set on an 810-square-metre block with a north-east facing backyard, the property was dated but met most of the Ramsays’ requirements.

“It was a private treaty listing with an agent who was prominent in the area, so I knew a little about how she operated,” says Robbins. “They had about 40 parties through on the first weekend and multiple offers after 10 days on the market.”

Robbins let the agent know she wanted to be kept in the loop but held back on making an offer until she was certain the property was going to be sold. The Ramsays secured the property on their second offer.

“It was quite exciting,” says Ramsay. “We were second-guessing ourselves a bit, wondering if we had paid too much!”

But Robbins believes they paid fair market value for a property that has all the elements for a good investment.

“They ended up getting a better home than they would have in their first choice of suburbs without sacrificing anything,” she says. “That little bit of local knowledge that I was able to share with them really helped.”

Before moving in, Ramsay co-ordinated a “quick tart-up”, including a fresh coat of paint, new flooring, benchtops, light fittings and fans.

“I put my own stamp on it,” she says. “Now that we’re in it feels like a happy home and we’re only a 10-minute drive from family in Teneriffe.”

Ramsay says engaging Robbins was “a nice luxury”, but it also offered a sense of security for a first-home investment.

“We got some insight into the way the market was headed, and how it had performed in the past,” she says. 

While Ramsay thinks she would probably “go it alone” the second time around, she says if first-home buyers can find a buyers’ agent they have a good rapport with, it’s well worth the cost.

“If you’re happy to outsource it, having someone to take the reins on that side of things was quite comforting.”

This is part of a series looking at how Australians bought their homes. For more advice, read Domain’s ultimate guide to buying your first home.