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August 2012 Moms
WhimsyGirl14
member
NBR: Anyone buy a house recently?
WhimsyGirl14
member
Subject: Anyone buy a house recently?
When you went to view the houses, was there anything that stood out to you as making that house seem way worse than it is? Our house has been on the market for almost two months, and considering the holiday, we've had quite a few showings. We have one today, and I'll admit I'm completely exhausted. I am hoping this is our buyer, because my DH and I literally clean the entire house top to bottom, remove EVERY-SINGLE-PERSONAL-ITEM from everything. We have no pictures up that aren't landscapes of some sort, toothbrush gets put away, everything. I'm just trying to do everything possible to take away focus from our stuff and put the focus back on the house itself. Was there anything that stood out to you that looking back wasn't a big deal, but it kind of turned you off?
Thanks, everyone.
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Re: NBR: Anyone buy a house recently?
It was the personal items for me, but if you got all those you should be good. When we sold our last house the realtor always told us to have freshly baked cookies out for anyone who came through. Not only are house hunters usually hungry and tired, but it makes your house smell nice and cozy. Just something to make you stand out.
Also, if anything (even closets, etc) looks over crowded or cluttered it makes the house took like it's too small or doesn't have enough storage. I noticed that a lot too.
Proud Mama to cleft cutie
We did some renos on our old house to make it look updated and seriously I fell in live with it all over again but we couldn't stay since there were only 2 bedrooms and we needed atleast 3.
The big thing we did was change the kitchen counter tops but they were still only laminate. Then I hid most of the small appliances from the countertops except the microwave. It made it look like there was more space. Oh! We also changes the main floors toilet. I don't know if you'd consider that a major change.
The master bedroom was TINY. Like, we could only fit a doublebed and no other furniture. So we put the mattress/boxspring on the floor (no frame) and a big wall hanging above the bed.
We removed all the little furniture in the house to make it look as if there was more room. I put 2 white candles on one side of the fireplace mantle. I put yellow flowers in a white vase in the middle of the dining room table. I think I read that white and yellow make a place look clean. Before every showing and the open house I would clean everything, like sweep and swifer the floors, vacuum the basement, clean the bathrooms, wipe down all surfaces, clean windows, mowed lawn etc. I'd only put a plug in air freshner on the main floor, never sprayed anything else cause too much can be a turn off and overwhelming.
In the basement DH painted all doors white so they looked clean and all matched. We tidied up the laundry room. Never had laundry going or hanging. I bought a white serving tray and put tealight candles in small glass holders on it. I also got small fake yellow flowers in a small clear glass vase and put that in the center on the tray. I put that on the center of the coffee table down there.
For the outside, I planted flowers and DH kept the grass mowed. He also repainted the window frames, fence and patio.
Theres other things we fixed in the house as soon as we moved in that probably helped sell it in the end but we did those for us, didn't think we'd be moving 3 years later. We made a shed and put down some patio blocks (is that what they're called? Lol.) We also put laminate floors in the living room.
TBH, I watched a lot of those HGTV shows and read stuff on the net and copied some staging ideas.
As for the house we bought, it was just clean. It didn't seem like they did anything big. It just had the space we needed. Oh and its infront of an elementary school so that helped lol.
GL!!
We bought our house in May.
I don't know if I'm much help; my husband and I were pretty utilitarian in our hunt. We only looked at one house that was still being lived in and had it been just a bit larger, we would have bought it.
They did a number of little things like you did - the house was pretty much cleaned out except for a few personal items. What would have been the clincher if size wasn't such a factor was the ultrasound picture on the fridge. It tugged at my already pregnant heart-strings
This doesn't have to do with the houses. But the one thing that turned me off was when the owners insisted on being present for the viewing. I want to look at the house without the owner being over my shoulder or being within earshot. I want to really look and not just feel like I'm on a tour. It's hard to house hunt if you can't discuss things with your spouse if you are worried about the seller's thoughts/feelings. This doesn't necessarily mean bad things, but stuff that I would want to do to a room to make it mine (painting, layout, what this room would be, etc.). There was only one time I felt comfortable with the owner being there and that's because he made me feel comfortable and the house had a history. He didn't care what we did to the house if we bought it, and he took the time to point out flaws, so I felt at ease.
So if you are there for viewings, I would consider leaving.
As for the house - you want it to look spacious, but you want the buyer to also imagine living there. Clean off the kitchen counters...keep the stuff you use in a bin and put the other stuff in storage outside of the house. My biggest regret is storage space, so if your house looks cluttered then your potentials buyers may think there isn't enough storage. I also wanted a lot of natural light. Put sheer curtains up instead of dark curtains. It will also make the place feel bigger. Use neutral colors on the wall.
We just put in an offer on a house that had renters living in it and it was FILLED with their stuff. But we were able to imagine what it would look like with our stuff and our arrangements. For us the thing that caused us to turn houses down were not having a big enough front and back yard. Also, we have some shady neighborhoods around here, so we wanted to make sure that we weren't close to apartments with renters (if we could avoid it) -- not that all renters are bad (I mean, duh, we are renting right now while we wait for the offer to be accepted), but there are some apartment complexes near where we were looking that have a bad reputation.
I will say this though, we looked at a house that had the smell of fresh cookies and even though it didn't have everything we were looking for we did really like it and talked about it for a bit
The cookies help!