I was once at a party talking tattoos when someone cut in to let us know her “all grown up” crowd talks marriage and homes instead.

It’s been over 10 years, we’ve just sold our flat and I can finally tell you what “valuation,” “COV” and “OTP” mean. Of course I’d still rather talk tattoos and am not averse to telling someone what she can do with her mouth someplace else, so I don’t think I’ve grown up very much after all.

Grown up I may not be, but useful — now that I can do! Read on to see how we got our flat sold:

Check the stats. HDB’s resale search engine gives you a year’s worth of transactions in your neighbourhood, but note that if someone makes a sale now, it may take months before their sale price is reflected on the site. What this means is that if you see a sale that was “approved” in June 2010, the initial Offer To Purchase was probably signed in January or February. My neighbours sold early in the year and their price isn’t even up yet. Keep checking it every month because things can change very quickly once someone makes a good sale and everyone follows suit.

Talk to the neighbours. The playground’s great for gossip on who’s coming and going, and if you’re friendly with your neighbours and your kids play together, it’s OK to ask them invasive questions like when they sold their unit and how much they sold it for. The info you get on the ground will be much more current than what’s logged on the HDB database.

Choose an honest agent. Our agent was open to co-brokering deals from the start, i.e. splitting his profit with another agent to get more viewers for our flat. Now that we’ve sold it, he’s encouraged us to call and arrange our own viewings when a particular flat we’re interested in is being represented by someone who doesn’t want to deal with other agents. By doing this he potentially forfeits his 1% commission but gains our trust.

Prepare for show time! We cleaned up our flat real good before our valuation appointment, our housekeeper did some extra time at our home, and we kept away every single thing that was a potential eyesore. We held viewings over the weekends, which is when our house looks and smells the best because our housekeeper comes by on Fridays. We did viewings with about five parties before our flat was sold, and just before each viewing I would:

• Keep all odds and ends out of sight
• Take out the trash
• Dry the bathroom
• Leash our dog Love
• Turn on all the lights, fans, open all the windows

When viewers arrived with their agents, Alf and I would excuse ourselves and wait outside or head over to the neighbour’s home. At only 85 sqm, it’s easy for our place to look and feel small — the fewer people in there, the better!

Stick to your guns, if you have time. Alf and I were very clear from the start what price we wanted to sell at, and since we were already in our dream location we weren’t going to budge for anything less.

Note: Interracial families enjoy greater flexibility. If you and your partner are of different races, just write in to HDB to get permission to use whichever race is to your advantage when buying/selling. I was listed as the primary owner when we bought our flat because the Indian quota was full, and we’ve reversed that in order to sell.

That’s the sale bit. Now we’re at the buying stage and we’re still looking — will write about that soon!