Thursday, September 26, 2013

To stage or not to stage. That is the question

A little while ago my wife and I had a real estate agent give us an appraisal on our house.  We've been toying with the idea of taking up residence with one of our kids and wanted some ideas.

We asked a lady who we knew and trusted so we were confident in her opinion.  Among other things, one of the things she noted was that if we were to put our house on the market we would need to remove most if not all of the family pictures we have hanging throughout.

A short time after that my daughter put her house on the market and she was given the same advice which she followed.

Finally, in this morning's paper there's an article by a so-called expert who offers the opinion that staging a house is absolutely imperative if you want to sell it.  I would assume she means an empty house or condo because how on earth are you supposed to stage a house you're still living in?

My knee-jerk reaction to this whole issue is that people must be awfully stupid.  Don't they know that when you're looking at a house, you're not going to be getting the pictures on the wall?  Are they that so easily distracted that they can't overlook things that aren't going to be staying in the house?  Is there a mass epidemic of ADHD afflicting our society?

I could easily imagine myself saying to a prospective buyer who complains or comments negatively about something on the wall that they need to get out.  They're too dumb to live in my house!

Not very helpful, I guess, but I'd definitely feel better.

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