<p>Busdriver11…we had orange walls…and dark green walls too, when we moved into the house in 1985.</p>
<p>And my oldest daughter’s bedroom has stickers all over her room. You can see her aging process. Similar to looking at the inside of a redwood tree. Stickers a 3 year old would like on the bottom of the walls. Teenage boy photos at the top.</p>
<p>And on the ceiling…glow in the dark stickers. It is going to be really sad when we strip those stickers off the walls and ceiling.</p>
<p>Well, you know, wine colored carpets are pretty ugly. Then again, when you spill a glass of red wine all over it, nobody notices. Coffee blends, too.</p>
<p>It is really hard to paint over part of your life, the history in that house made by your family. But people don’t want to see other peoples lives there, they want to envision their own. I recommend when you’re ready to do it, you hire a painter to take care of it, and never look at it. It is far too sad. In fact, maybe you shouldn’t move at all.</p>
<p>There are definitely pluses and minuses with moving. </p>
<p>“Well, you know, wine colored carpets are pretty ugly. Then again, when you spill a glass of red wine all over it, nobody notices. Coffee blends, too.”</p>
<p>Based on our experience I have to agree with much of the above. I forgot to add we washed windows (huge difference), made sure all doors ran smoothly, recalled bathrooms, vacuumed tops of cabinetry (you never know where people look), fixed nail pops in drywall, powerwashed the deck, stained, and sealed, trimmed bushes, mulched, planted seasonal flowersand added hanging baskets. You name it, we did it! We priced slightly under market and had a contract over asking price in less than a month.
People don’t mind a fixer-upper or work to be done, but then want a price that reflects that.
My inlaws refused to remove their personal items…they took it as an insult that anyone else wouldn’t love their style. There was enough furniture for three homes, and the carpet needed to be replaced. They lost over 20% in the height of the market when the house went to a relocation company. My SIL and I tried to help but it was a very negative situation.
Not all stagers work with new/rented furniture if yours is neutral and clean. Ask as this can bring the price down considerably. There are also cleaning companies that specialize in move in/move out deep cleaning if you are unable or don’t have time.
There are many ways to do this without handing over thousands. Talk to your agent about possible combination of options best suited to you.
Best of luck!!</p>
<p>I’m the process of looking for a new house – the vacation/retirement house. Thought we were building, but having issues with the right lot in the right location, so we may have to buy an existing house. </p>
<p>Apparently the advice people are getting is to have it all fresh and clean. Even if the real estate agent, who owns the property, even if she knows in her heart it’s a probable knockdown or serious renovation – there’s a new updated stove, they’ve put on a new roof, repaved the driveway, OMG I don’t care about <em>any</em> of that. (What I might care about, the condition of the window frames on the north side of the part of the house that might stay, hasn’t been touched in YEARS.)</p>
<p>We used a staging company called Show Homes. They have a unique business plan. They have home managers come live in your house, with their own furnishings. They also supplement the furnishings the home manager uses. They charge the home managers rent- which they keep, but the price to stage is less than typical because the rent covers part of the staging fee. We sold an upscale home in a difficult market in 4 months. Our neighbors with similar homes took 10 months to sell. Show homes has been featured on shows like Good Morning America. They screen the home managers well, and do surprise inspections to make sure the house always is open house ready. We were pleased with the service. They operate in several different parts of the country.</p>
<p>Apparently they find home managers when people relocate to a new place. The home managers get to try out a neighborhood, live in a nice place with reduced rent. On the minus side, they have to move when the house sells. And they have to be prepared all the time for open houses. It is good for the sellers if they have already moved- it gives the house a lived in look without the desperation that might be there if the house were empty.</p>
<p>Thankfully when we bought our house in 1994 there were no stagers, which resulted in us getting a great deal. It’s hard to say what was the biggest turnoff: the 2 large iguanas in the aquarium on the kitchen table, the stained indoor/outdoor carpeting in the kitchen, the hardwood floors waterstained by the overwatering of several nearly dead 5’ ficus trees in the living room & landing, or the 3rd floor ‘cave’ inhabited by the 20yo son. The walls of the ‘cave’ were covered in sharpied grafitti (my personal favorite was ‘Fighting for Peace is like ****ing for virginity’) and the ceiling was adorned with a 3’ diameter pot leaf encircled in black & red enamel paint by the words ‘Speed Ludicrous’. </p>
<p>And they wondered why the place sat on the market for 6+ months in good market. The pluses we saw were good floor plan, updated wiring & heating and no wall paper to strip. It was decorators dream in a great neighorhood.</p>
<p>House was inhabitied by 40yo single mom and her 2 sons, but belonged to her parents’ estate (both died in the past year). We really did’t understand why she didn’t spend $5-10,000 to paint the entire interior (I didn’t mention the cigarette smoke stains) or why the realtor did force her to. After we moved in, we talked to neighbors and heard that it was a fairly dysfunctional family & she was reluctant to change anything of her parents. </p>
<p>The first floor was so bad that we overlooked the Looney Tunes wall paper & disgusting condition of the only 2nd floor bath. We had it gutted and redone within 2 months of closing.</p>