To Burn or Not To Burn: Will Your Incense Interfere With Your Selling?

Wow, lots of opinions here; seems like odor or the lack there of gets a strong response. I always tell my sellers thata home shopuld smell clean or be void of odors altogether. Even if a home is visually in tip-top shape a bad smell can turn off a buyer

I don't think a home that is being listed should have ANY strong odors -- no perfume, incense, smoke, pet odor, cleaning supplies, air fresheners.  The first thought a potential buyer might have is, what are they trying to cover up? 

Dee, I like the smell on occasion but it also depends on the fragrance. On top of not being used to the smell, there are incenses that just don't smell as good as people think they do, just like perfume or cologne, to each their own. Your suggestions are helpful though and homeowners should suspend all burning practices, just to be on the safe side, and light some candles instead.

A clean home can smell good without the fragrance.  Think they would hurt more than help.

Agents normally advise their clients to depersonalize the home during the selling process, this should be included. I would not go far into the home as a buyer if the smells/fragrances are wrong. I have sensitive sinuses and can get headaches very quickly from some fragrances, this includes perfumes, colognes, deodorants, etc.

You made an excellent point, Dee. How a home smells will become one of the talking point and an action item to be agreed upon with the Seller on my future listing appointments. Bread baking in the oven, pinesol, and those fake air fresheners all create an impression in the mind of the person who is sencing the smell.

Nora Sims

Northern Shadows Realty, Inc., Sedona, AZ

I love scents and always have.  My mother the preacher's wife used to burn incense back in the 1950's, and it was considered a positive in a home.   It breaks my heart that suddenly we've become a society that can't have scents because all of a sudden everyone is "allergic".   But as agents we do have to take that into consideration, our own preferences notwithstanding. 

 Fragrance is a slippery slope--you'll always have people  attracted to and repelled by certain ones. My best advice would be to apply whatever scent you choose lightly and rely most heavily on good, old fashioned fresh air.

Dee - I'm sorry to be so firm but to burn or not to burn answer is NO NO NO! Whether or not the seller, or the agent likes the smell just is not relevant. The home must present like a model home and we all know there is no smoke of any kind there. There are people with allergies, people with crazy assumptions, people who will be distracted by any fragrance at all, people who make the assumption that it will take many $$$$ to remove the smell. Their home is now a 'product' and has to be viewed in that light.

I gotta agree, you can not burn incense when you sell a home-scents are very very personal and it looks like you are trying to hide something.  When you sell a home and smoke, you need to smoke outdoors.  If you burn incense for religious reasons, transfer the altar to an outdoor space.

I've never been a fan of incense. Maybe I just never got a good kind but they always just smell like "burning" to me. So I can understand how a buyer might interpret the smell as a bad one.

Not to burn!

Though incense may be rising on the popularity charts, perhaps the risk factor is just too high for using them during a sale because even if just one set of buyers is allergic, that could have been the one that got away.

It is best to get all foreign smells out of the home before showings begin. People feel you are hiding something with insense or that it could be ciagarette smoke being hidden. Clean air always wins and does not distract from the sale.

I went on a listing presentation to a home where the owners had five altars and all burning incense at the same time. My first thought was this would be a turnoff to buyers, unless the buyer so happened to be of the same religious practice, which is uncommon in my market area. How to tell the home owner without offending them is a sensitive topic. Sometimes we have to be truthful if we want to help the homeowner sell their home. The homeowner decided not to sell, so I was let off the hook so to speak, but the question remains in my mind for the next home seller. Burning incense would be a distraction in home buyers' minds, IMO. 

As most people burn incense as an offering to God (or idols), it's understandable that people selling homes want to "lift up their offered prayers like incense" to help with the sale.

Those Febreeze car commercials hold some water. Even when the car is dirty, the people sitting blindfolded in it think it's clean and new. I'm not saying have a dirty house and just spray it with febreeze, but when a house smells clean, buyers think it's even better.