I sold my Edinburgh property in three weeks and I'm feeling smug

Nonetheless, my luck changed rather quickly a week or so ago.

I felt like I’d never sell my Edinburgh property, then, boom, after getting four unexpected notes of interest and another informal one, we decided to go to closing. In the end, we received an offer we couldn’t refuse, from buyers who aren’t in a chain and are a perfect fit for our flat.

They’re having a baby, and this is a very family-friendly area. They’re going to love it.

It took a while for the news to sink in. I kept waiting for the catch, but it didn’t come.

On the day itself, I felt a bit dazed and frazzled. It didn’t help that the estate agent read the offers out, lowest first, so I expended about a year’s worth of adrenaline in one three-minute phone call.

However, though selling a house is largely dependent on chance, I have started to feel pretty chuffed with myself.

After all, we weren’t passive sellers. Instead, we tap-danced to within an inch of our lives.

There aren’t many circumstances in life, where you can say you put in the work, and actually reaped the benefits. It certainly doesn’t usually happen to me.

We were like a pair of dung beetles, heaving those stinky boulders up the hill, for three weeks. I thought they’d come rolling down again and crush us flat, but they didn’t.

We tidied, cleaned, lit the candles, bought pretty marguerite daisies and primulas, and filled a windowbox, which was formerly a pansy graveyard, with sweet-faced and joie de vivre-filled violas. That’s as well as investing in a new garden bench - THAT is the secret, my friends - and placing tulips in vases on windowsills. I was only one step away from putting crisps in bowls, or pushing a tea trolley around, like Mrs Overall in Acorn Antiques.

We hosted viewers with total flexibility, let them test the toilet, and poke about in cupboards, did all the things, and it paid off.

I’ve never experienced childbirth, but they say that you forget the trauma relatively quickly.

Otherwise, you’d never have any more offspring and the species would die out.

I think moving house is a bit like that. At one point, I did say, I’m NEVER doing this again. Now, I think, yeah, that was actually quite fun.

As our house begins to slide into being comfortably messy again and the petals fall off our last batch of tulips, I’ve already put the scariest bits behind me.

I put the lid on the memory box that is marked The Weeks When I Thought We’d Never Sell Because Our Flat is a Dump, and taped it firmly shut. Sure, I’m already slightly fed up with the de-cluttering process and am dreading the stress of the actual moving day, but I think that will pale into insignificance against the buying and selling elements.

As the process rolls onwards, we’ve even agreed a move-in date for our property, and for the new owners to get into our flat.

I’m so excited that it’s going to be in mid-July. Earlier this month, I was resigned to it being autumn or beyond. Summer was always my dream.

That’s when you can fall in love with a house. When you can see how the light falls.

I’ve got a big birthday looming then, too, so I feel like a house move will distract me from feeling depressed about that, but I might also combine a house warming/birthday shindig.

Anyway, though I am always prepared for disaster to strike, everything is looking positive.

I did have a small blip, when they took a few days to confirm our preferred date, and, always a catastrophiser, I managed to convince myself that they’d changed their mind. Because, you can, at this stage. It’s not legally binding yet. But, it was fine. Another hurdle jumped, as neatly as Eilidh Doyle.

I don’t want to get too full of myself, but our current success has also made me feel giddily deluded, as if I could actually be an estate agent when I grow up.

I’d be up for the viewings, no bother. I love doing the tour - starting with the best rooms, and working your way round to the worst. If they look at broken or dusty things, distract them, by pretending to fall over.

I’m sure I’d be able to write excellent schedules, now that I’ve pored over so many.

I’d remember that you always have to say, in an oleaginous fashion, that you’re ‘delighted’ to bring the property to the market.

Also, I know that you upgrade areas, when they’re not in the exact postcode. For example, in Edinburgh, Haymarket becomes the West End, and Slateford is suddenly Polwarth. The Grange and the New Town seem to grow bigger every day. Wherever the property is situated, it is essential to use the phrases ‘sought after’ and ‘highly regarded’ in reference to the area.

There are also words like ‘charming’, which are code for raggle-taggle and needs a lot of work - we had that on our schedule - or phrases like ‘well proportioned’, when one can’t think of anything better to say.

You can never simply say ‘spectacular’, it must be preceded by ‘truly’, and viewing is always ‘essential’. Every cul-de-sac is ‘peaceful’.

Yeah, I could really get into this house-selling malarkey. I know it all now. It’s easy-peasy.

See, I’ve already forgotten the bad stuff. Just like childbirth.

Read more: “I’ve had my Edinburgh property on the market for three weeks, and it’s aged me 20 years”