Sep 10, 2021

Why this Brisbane grandmother refused higher offers to ensure young couple bought her home

Brisbane grandmother refused higher offers to ensure young couple bought her home

A widow who lived in the same home for 50 years and raised her four children there, has refused offers from buyers who intended to demolish the house. Instead, she accepted a lower offer from a young couple who promised to maintain the home and look after the garden.

Rosemary Bartlam decided to sell her Brisbane home after her husband, Edward, died last year, according to The Daily Mail.

But every potential buyer who came to inspect the property said they intended to demolish the house and build something more modern.

So Bartlam requested her real estate agent ask every prospective buyer what they plan to do with the home. 

She finally accepted an offer of $705,000 from a young couple who intend to live in the home as it is, with some minor renovations, some of which have been suggested by Bartlam.

The young couple have also promised to look after the well-tended garden, in particular a camellia tree that was transplanted from Edward’s parents’ garden, and is estimated to be 70 years old.

“The price I got was enough for what I needed,” the widow said.

The young couple, Madeline Pyke-Moran and Josh Cawse, had been searching for a home for months and were on the verge of giving up.

“I did not expect this at all,” Pyke-Moran said.

From the generous act, a friendship has bloomed.

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  1. What a beautiful story!! Wonderful all around, and so different from our experience of selling our beloved Queenslander with its 70-year-old garden. The buyer purported to be buying it to live in, and promptly blitzed the entire, beautiful old garden to move that house up near the fence and subdivide to fit another – modern – house alongside. Our former neighbours were all devastated. As were we.

  2. PS to our Queenslander real estate experience: the developer (since that is what, in fact, he was) then – of course – sold both houses.

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