If you know me, you know that I love looking at real estate. I am fascinated by the market, what the home values around me are, and how homes are staged and marketed. I always check local homes for sale when I travel.
Lately, though, it feels like I’m flipping through dating apps, judging pics of houses, rooms, yards, neighborhoods and decor.
In the last eleven months I have looked at hundreds of homes online. Sometimes the pics miss the real beauty of the home. Sometimes the images on my screen make the home look far better than in person.
And sometimes, the photographer/agent chooses to focus on decor and staging rather than the home itself.
I am in complete support of live and virtual staging because it is helpful to see how a home could be furnished. I do see some logic in the photographer bringing some artistic flair to the listing, but mostly I don’t care how that plant looks on that table or in front of that window. Maybe I am growing cynical because I am frustrated. Scrolling through pictures of furniture or decor that are not my style is also difficult.
to buy this house?
But I have to ask, even in a seller’s market, why wouldn’t an attempt be made to clean or tidy the space before posting pictures online?
to store clean clothes.
That means I wouldn’t either.
but not the tubs.
The lack of honesty in descriptions, such as “over-sized bedrooms” to describe a room that is less than 8′ by 8′ is frustrating. There is a code of words and phrases used in property descriptions that are meant to be honest, but they are not so honest as to push potential buyers away. Hyperbole apparently will encourage buyers to take a look?
One bright spot, I am incredibly grateful for the real estate agents we are working with. Because we are selling in one county and moving to another, we have two wonderful people helping us make this life change. They are both supportive, have great insights, and are great partners in this journey.
I’ve met some pretty awful agents in the years we have bought and sold homes. There was the selling agent who pulled me aside to tell me how I shouldn’t use the agent I brought with me as they were too inexperienced (they had never met before that day). Or the ones who told outright falsehoods to make a sale. I once told a sales rep for a home being built that I was concerned about cracks around the windows of a model home in a neighborhood that was less than two years old. He tried to say that any “used” house on the market would also have cracks from settling. I have higher expectations for a brand new build than a house with decades of time to settle and move around a bit.
For those of you keeping score, we have not yet met a new buyer for our current home, so we are only able to move forward at a snail’s pace towards a new one. I know, I know, our house will sell and everything will turn out okay. I do believe this, but living in limbo for months at a time is hard.
Vent over. I’ll leave you with pictures of the lovely kitchen in my current house. Wanna make an offer?
Visceral Musings 