25/09/2026
🚛 Buying Interstate Was Only Part of the Challenge
There is a particular ache that comes from loving people you don't get to see.
Not the dramatic kind. The quiet kind.
Holding up a phone so your grandchild can show you a drawing instead of handing it to you.
“Hi, we are Jenny and Simon. Here is our story.”
Our daughter Sarah and her family were on the Gold Coast. We were still in Canberra. After years of feeling that distance, we decided enough was enough.
So we sold our house.
No slow transition. No waiting until every piece was perfectly in place. We packed away the life we knew, climbed into the motorhome and started making our way north.
For a while, that was home. Exciting. Freeing. And, if we are honest, slightly terrifying.
We had left one home behind before we knew exactly where the next one would be.
Thankfully, we already knew who we wanted by our side.
Empire had previously represented Sarah when she bought her home. We had watched that journey from the outside, the communication, the trust, the way they worked together. So when it became our turn, the decision felt easy.
Then Empire found a property that immediately felt different.
Single level. Flat block. Enough room for the motorhome, the freedom we'd worked years to create, and weren't prepared to give up just to make a house work.
We wanted it. Properly.
Empire put forward a pre-auction offer on our behalf.
The seller declined. They wanted to take it all the way. Our property was one of 101 properties going under the hammer that day for Ray Whites biggest auction campaign.
Before auction day, we sat down with Empire and worked through everything what the property was genuinely worth, what we were comfortable paying, our absolute maximum, and the number where we would stop. That conversation mattered. Once you walk into a room like that, emotion can take over very quickly.
Then we walked in.
People everywhere. Agents on phones. Buyers waiting. Numbers being called. Noise from every direction. It felt less like a property auction and more like the trading floor of a stock exchange.
Then it was time for our property.
And suddenly all that noise disappeared.
This was it.
The bidding started fast. Another buyer came in. Then another. The numbers climbed so quickly that at one point we almost stopped hearing them as numbers. All we could think about was the house, the motorhome, the life we had already started picturing there.
It is an incredibly vulnerable feeling. Wanting something that badly, while knowing that wanting it too much is exactly how people lose their heads at auction.
So we trusted the plan. Andrew stayed calm. While everything around us felt frantic, Empire were watching the room, tracking the bidding, knowing when to hold back and when to move.
They weren't just bidding for us. They were managing the room around us.
Then another bid was called. The auctioneer looked around.
Going once.
Nothing.
My hand found Simon's.
Going twice.
Still nothing.
Then—
BANG.
The hammer came down.
SOLD.
For a second, neither of us moved. I think our brains were still waiting for another bid. Another voice. Something.
Then we looked at Andrew.
“Did we actually get it?"
He smiled.
We had.
Everything we had been holding onto just let go. We grabbed each other and kept saying the same thing.
“We got it."
“We actually got it."
And suddenly it wasn't a property we were trying to buy anymore.
It was home. Somewhere the motorhome could come back to. Somewhere Sarah and the family could simply drop in. Somewhere the grandkids could stay over.
The ache that had followed us for years finally had somewhere to rest.
This was never just about buying a house. It was about closing the distance between the people we loved and the life we wanted to be living.
Together. Finally.
Sometimes you know exactly what you want. You have simply reached the point where getting there is taking more out of you than it should.
We are just grateful we didn't have to get there alone. 💜
