Janet Guilbault gave me a writing assignment. She said in a comment that she wanted to hear more from people about how they fell in love with their own house. So maybe that wasn’t an assignment, but I took it that way. Give me a topic and stand back, I’ll write!
I’ve shown these pictures before, but we have so many new people and I don’t expect that any of you have read that far back anyway. (Blog time is so different from real life, this was AGES ago! You know, like from February!) The first photo is straight from the MLS, and was supposed to show the kitchen.
I told my agents, Duck and Georgeann Underwood (now two of my team mates) that I did NOT want to see this house. I mean, UGH. I “knew” from the pictures online that it was dark, dreary and way too small, regardless of what the square footage might be. That was NOT my house.
Georgeann insisted. She said go look, then I could move on to the houses I wanted to see. Duck took us over there, and the minute I walked in the front door, I told my husband, “I like this!”
Yes, as I walked through the rooms, I knew I was seeing my house for the first time. This is how a girl falls in love.
Thankfully my house was in contract, and all I had to do was wait. I got into the habit of driving by “my” house in the mornings on my way to the gym. (Hey, it was on the way!) I just needed to see it. My husband called me “House Stalker”. Yes, the name fit. Each morning I'd see an older man out walking the neighborhood, and soon he'd smile and wave, he already knew me. I knew I'd love it there. I was right.
Just so you can see what a difference a picture makes, here’s the kitchen pretty much as it looks now. (It’s a tad messier right now and I have fighting fish lined up at the back of the counter trying to keep them out of my kitten’s reach – we’ve already had issues and tears over this, but this is pretty much how it really looks.) All I've done is strip wallpaper, paint the walls and those little colored tiles in the backsplash. Somehow the difference in pictures changes the room so much more than anything I could have done to it.
I can see potential in a house where a lot of people can’t. I didn’t know this was a special gift until I got into real estate and realized that many people can’t “unsee” what’s in front of them. It matters so much the pictures we use to list houses, and the way a house looks when buyers walk through. Work with stagers and if you are terrible at pictures, have someone else take them or hire out. It matters!
Price and condition are the two main things that will get a house sold or NOT. Price it well and make sure people are seeing the house through the eyes of someone who loves it, not just someone who wanted the listing.
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