Creating an Illusion

Meanwhile, back at the old house, work continues in earnest to get it ready to put on the market. We were supposed to pull that trigger yesterday, but alas we aren't ready yet. Just haven't had the time or the resources to get everything done. We did finally get our friend Jim out to take care of several items that needed to be repaired or otherwise addressed. There's been lots of painting, and LOTS of just getting stuff out of the house.

"You're creating an illusion," is what our friend Felicia tells us about this. She's an expert stager. A stager is someone who makes houses ready to put on the market. It's like being an interior decorator, but with a specific eye toward making a house look most sellable. Most things about this process I understand: get all of the clutter out and work to make it look roomy. Get really ugly things out. Get overly personal items out (family pics, etc.). Get anything too unusual or quirky out and replace with more traditional items. These are the basics, and we're doing all of that. But it goes so far...  After doing most of this we step back to look at our house and parts of it look almost barren, and much of it looks kind of boring. What's worse, however, is that we've removed so much (admittedly ugly) furniture that we no longer have any place to keep our clothes. We're probably going to go with some boxes under the bed and stuff like that.

It's no way to live. I don't feel any need to rush to sell this house. I like it. It's in a convenient location (for me at least), and with all of the remodeling in front of us on the new house there's just no hurry. But living out of boxes under the bed is going to put some stress on that situation.

What's really weird for me....is just how manipulative it all seems. I am in sales. I've been doing sales in some capacity for the past 30 years. I've seen it all in that time. While I've bought several homes over the years, I've never sold a home on the market before. It's mildly shocking to me how much thought and effort goes into "creating an illusion." It's no wonder buyers are so circumspect. They should be.