One of the tasks that real estate agents face is explaining to sellers the need to keep their houses ready to show, especially when it’s not normal for them to live that way.
My wife once showed me a house that looked as if it’d been burglarized. All of the drawers in every room were open, and clothes were hanging out of them and scattered on the floor everywhere. Even the kitchen drawers were open. It was so bad that she called the listing agent only to be reassured, “Oh, they just live that way.”
At another house, the owner greeted her and her buyers at the door. The owner helpfully suggested that they watch their step while pointing at a massive pile of dog poop on the tile right in the middle of the foyer. They skirted the mess and looked at the home while the owner returned to watching TV in the family room. The dog was out on the back porch, staring hopefully through the glass doors, undoubtedly planning his next atrocity. When they were ready to go, they said their goodbyes to the owner and headed back to the foyer.
Guess what? You probably saw this coming, right? The poop was still on the floor!
Needless to say, they crossed this house off their list of possibles under the assumption that if the owner was so lax as not to remove the mess, he was probably also negligent in other, more critical aspects of home maintenance.
On the other hand, we’ve also had owners who overdid it. Here’s a news story I found on the Internet that illustrates the point and left me laughing.
Owner of Perfect House Lives in Car
September 18, 2002 – Baltimore, USA
“In fear of possibly disturbing the perfection that is his house, Donald Manison has been forced to live in his 1998 Dodge Caravan. “I became obsessive, everything in the house was so photo-perfect that I was eventually scared of walking on the carpet in fear that I might disturb the direction of the carpet threads.” Magazines wanting a glimpse and photos of the perfect house were limited to viewing through opened ground floor windows. When asked how long he will continue his present lifestyle, he replied, “If living in my mini-van is payment for a perfect house, I’m willing to pay.””
The take-home here is that even show-readiness can be overdone!
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