Last week I was invited to give a presentation at the annual Nambour High School Awards night.

It was great to be invited to speak and deliver an inspirational message to so many young people and budding school leavers with their lives ahead of them.

So many of them wanted to know the secrets to success and how to decide on their career.

From their questions, it became clear that breaking down the big things into small next steps can make the process really easy.

This was a major component in the speech and it got me thinking about the buying and selling process.

Effectively, there are five key steps to completing a successful move:

1. Look for what you want. Often you make the decision that your existing home doesn’t suit your requirements. The best way to make this step easy is to contact your local agent and register your information with them, including essentials such as number of bedrooms, bathrooms and car accommodation.

2. Find out the market price of your home. If you have a property that you would need to sell in order to complete the move, then have a professional agent view your home to give you a neutral opinion on the market price. The market price should be based on comparable homes that have sold in the area.

3. Set up a meeting with your agent to run through the change-over costs. Many buyers and sellers are unaware of all the costs such as stamp duty on establishing a new mortgage and the associated costs with pest and building inspections. We have a sample change-over costs calculator. If you would like a copy email amber.werchon@raywhite.com

4. Go out searching for the ideal home. Keep your fingers on the pulse and review plenty of homes in the market. If you see the one you want don’t be afraid to jump in, but make sure you’re in a position to do so.

5. Engage your agent to sell your existing property. This is often before and after step four, as most buyers and sellers like to be at ease that they know where they are moving to. Again, if you don’t have your own home sold, it may prevent you from purchasing.

An effective agent will run through your situation when working out the change-over costs and set about making a simple step-by-step plan to get you moved.