Richard Strahm wrote No Nudes is Good Nudes. It is about a showing where the whole wall was covered in nudes, which were “Reproductions of old masters, contemporaries, abstracts.” His advice is “When selling, Nudes out, Neutralize in!”
183 comments down you see that 99.9% of agents are united that anything “distracting” from the home should go. “DEPERSONALIZE DEPERSONALIZE DEPERSONALIZE”.
I have no problem with nudes. I am about metaphorical nude, which is everything “distracting” from the house. I am about depersonalizing.
The idea is to make houses appeal to as many people as possible. What is staging? Isn’t it an attempt to fake personalization suitable for the broadest audience?
So, if a home is in mess, clean it. It is not depersonalization, it is cleaning. But if it has character, personality, if it is a home, why “neutralize”? Why try to make something which is alive, look alive? Because there may be unhappy buyers? Tell them that they can do whatever they want with the house when they buy it. And that is exactly what people do when they buy, they make it their own.
But art… When I read that agents are uncomfortable looking at old master’s reproductions, I am shaking my head. Are they feeling ashamed in the museum? Why react to art as porno?
So many are stunned with nudes in the bedrooms. What art do people expect in the bedroom? Construction drawings? Nightmarish Albrecht DÜRER’s lithography of Hell? Surrealist war paintings of Slavador Dali?
I have seen beautiful homes and condos with nude art and just good art. T
he homes and condos were very personal, and very much alive. They have that vibe about them, that sense of a home, which is, yes, very personal. I would not recommend turning a beautiful home into a neutralized house. This is what the stagers do IMO, trying to present a house as a home.
Have you ever had a showing when the buyers would walk in, and then stop in awe in front of a statuette, a porcelain doll, or something else, and start talking about it? There may be a story behind the piece… How many times I have seen people engaging in a friendly talk, and they warm up to each other, and yes, to the place, because of that small very personal thing. We are people, leave people something to connect besides neutral color walls, 18’ standard tile, granite countertops, brushed nickel faucets…
How often lately I regret that Sellers have taken stuff out, and while I keep saying “Gorgeous Penthouse Condo”, it is not gorgeous any more. It is depersonalized. It is neutered. It was beautiful with those vases and chandeliers, that nude sculpture, all those small pieces…
Depersonalizing in it logical pursuit will end you in a place, which has walls, floor, ceiling… and no soul. Where am I? In Alaska? In Florida? On the moon?
Oh, I am in a depersonalized place called a house… Neutralized home, affectionate as a castrated lover…
If you have a home with a personality, a soul, would you come to the Seller and say that buyers are jackasses, and do not understand art, and that Sellers need to downgrade it to what everyone else has to sell? Are you sure that everybody is a jackass?
There are tons of depersonalized, neutered neutralized homes there… they can’t be sold… Do you want to de-compete? Take something unique and make it something indistinguishable from others? Is that how you suggest the Seller home should stand out? How?
Would you also recommend them to take out bidet to avoid questions about its purpose or just tell buyers to store bear there for the party until they figure it out?
I don’t like the word “house”. I like the word “home”.
I am not arguing with many good points stated in the post and in the comments. I am arguing against generalization. And I dare argue against being ashamed of the beauty of the human body. After all, what is there more beautiful for the Homo Sapiens?
Hey, where are my nudes?
* Image courtesy of Janine Curry via Flickr.com
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