I am moving for a new job. Totally excited about the new house and new job..... but...

Now I must sell my house. Had a horrible experience with one realtor so I fired her... then researched and found a wonderful "group" that sells homes quickly.

They had a professional stager come into my home and gave me a list of things to do before we put it on the market.

Repaint the yellow bathroom... tear down wall paper, texture and paint the secondary bath (tan), cover up my custom painted cement floors (with beige carpet), and finally since "no body likes Grandma's kitchen" I am tearing down the wonderful flowery wall paper and painting it white.

Now I have literally painted every room in my home, recarpeted the place, and turned it into a plain subtle lack luster thing....

Sure hope it appeals to the masses.... because it is depressing me...

We watch HGTV all the time and they have a show, "Designed to Sell," where they redo a house to sell it. They never do it in beige or white. They usually go for soft sage green or soft yellows, but sometimes they use very vivid colors. My house is painted in vivid colors and everyone who comes in here says how pretty it is. I plan to either move to the nursing home or die in this house, but if I were going to sell it, I might tone down some of the colors since so many people are afraid of color on the walls. Weird, isn't it? I hope you sell that house and then you can paint the new one any color you want. But I think it's a major mistake to paint a house white to appeal to buyers. They actually like color as long as they can imagine their stuff in there.

The last house I sold was a nightmare. My realtor didn't sell the house for ages and ages and then he committed suicide! I had to pay to have all sorts of stuff fixed which wasn't actually broken when I moved out, but my realtor's sister sold that house in 3 weeks. I think a good realtor and a good price can't be beat.

I also like "Sell this House" on A&E...VERY GOOD info and tips for staging and planning....

Pretty cool that your realtor helped you by giving you tips!! Great ideas!! Just keep telling yourself the white is "clean"! HA!!!

We are buying a home and the design center lady said "It's operating room white"....not exactly something to make us excited....but we know where Walmart paint is...

Hope you sell quickly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GOd Bless,

Melody

Banded 3/20/06 -75lbs

We just bought our home and it was all white. We looked at several places that were exactly the same but I was able to picture my colors and my stuff in this place. I was turned off by one place where everything was painted blue. (I like blue but everything was blue) We also walked away from a place that had a small dog there while we were looking. The dog barked the entire time we were there and we left without even looking in the bedrooms. I can tell you from experience that a clean good smelling home will sell faster and for more money. The first place that we made an offer on wasn't clean and it smelled funny, we made a really low offer and they accepted it, but it didn't pass our inspection. (a bathroom needed major repair that we knew about but were willing to do the work) it changed our financing options. My point is the smell and dirty dishes in the sink made us offer lower than the place was worth. I would suggest a clean cotton or mountain fresh type plug-in or if you are home a candle. It is clean not too sweet not to fruity or perfumy. The white paint can be a great seller. Good luck I hope you get every penny you are asking for. ~Mandy

I'm selling my house too!!! We just had an open house yesterday. Our agent suggested a lot of changes as well. My beautiful olive kitchen is now a pale yellow, (She said white, but I just couldn't) And all the bedrooms are now "antique white" It is depressing because I love color. We bought an old restored victorian...very colorful.

Shows how regional this stuff is, because here houses with white/beige sell slower than houses with colors. When I walk into a white house, I think, "Holy crap, look at all the deep primer I'm going to have to use..."

Worst case scenario, I would have told them to stuff it & just offered the buyer a painting allowance. There's no need for you to go through all that work.

And if I could choose between a house w/ stained concrete floors, or carpet, I'd take the concrete any day. *shrug*

But again, a lot of it is driven by the demographics of your area, the cost, what the other houses in the neighborhood are like, etc. Realtors *should* (IMO) consider things like -- is it likely that the buyers have exhausted their $$$ buying the house, or have they bought mid-line, so that there are reserve funds for customizing.

Guess making my house bland worked because, I am moving. Will be posting this message in a few threads, but wanted you to know that I will be off line for a while after the 1st. Will get back on to the board as soon as possible, but as I am a closet bandster will not get on from work. So have to wait until everything is turned on at my new home. I will be in a half way house so to speak as my real new home is being built. :confused:

Will check in again before the first though...

Good deal Poodles. I guess the realtors suggestions DID work! Wow. I was gonna say how it important to neutralize things in a house. Many folks do have a hard time imagining their stuff in your house, especially if it is a "busy" home.

Congrats. Shawn

Congratulations on selling your home. I was going to say that though my taste is kinda of ideosyncratic my former houses sold to other women. The issue is always the target group of course. If you are selling to people who are similar to yourself and your place is pretty, well maintained and clean then you should be okay. In my city yuppies like houses that use lots of colour even though real estate agents always advise sellers to stick with neutrals. This is because colour is in if it is done right and if the colours are the ones that are in this season. Selling a house is difficult, that's for sure.

CONGRATULATIONS Poodles....WONDERFUL!!!!

God bless,

Melody

Banded 3/20/06 -88lbs :confused: