Where do I start?
It's pretty much the standard dream. A girl wistfully dreams of growing up and meeting Prince Rambler and hopefully owning a castle with a 2 car garage and a white picket fence.
Am I right?
Paradise is an expensive place to live.
So when I found a place that seemed to good to be true.
It was.
This is the short story of my first visit to a home to possibly purchase. EVER. Where I want to put a pretty serious amount of moola in front of you to let me take YOUR home away from you. So it can be MINE. (When I say serious. I just mean my serious. More than I've ever spent. Some of you may scoff at it's littleness. BUT HEY. Rant over.)
Shall we begin?
Can I just say that when the Realtor shows up AFTER you for their open house, this may not lead to a good start. We weren't even early? Strike one.
And then you walk in and the first steps you smell is a house that might have not seen fresh air in days. Maybe weeks. Strike two.
The carpets could HAVE been vacuumed at least for goodness sakes. It would have slightly helped the fact that the carpet was stained every color of the rainbow throughout the home. Strike three.
The place was obviously home to a family with small children. But would it have hurt to wipe the crayon/pen marks EVERYWHERE. I mean, I have a kid but I think if I really NEEDED to sell my house I'd have tried to repaint over it or gave it a courtesy wipe. An attempt. Something. Strike Four.
Did I mention it was HOT in there?
Are you asking WHY I made it that far and didn't walk out?
I became curious how much more the people didn't do and that this place needed to be sold?? How do you convince someone to purchase this home if you show it like this?
The garage was packed with crap. You couldn't put a motorcycle in it if you tried. This 'area' always was the laundry room area. You could open the dryer but what good is it if you can't even get to the washer?
How the hell do these people live like that?
My uncle/realtor, husband and I thanked the realtor for his time and walked quietly to the car. As soon as the car door was closed I said I'd rather drive 2 hours further then live in that craphole.
Isn't the concept. I sell, I make product pretty for sale, you come, you like, you buy? Or at least give them visuals for potential?
Wow. Pictures can be deceiving when your looking at them on a website.
Sigh.
Off to hunting, again.
Waiting for prices to go down, fingers crossed.
Hoping seven dwarfs will come my way and ask me and the rest of Team Rambler to move in to their spare 3 bedroom/2 bath townhouse for free and all we gotta do is clean the main house while they heigh ho to work?
Sigh again.
A girl can dream.
2 days ago
25 ramblings of your own:
I can never understand why people with a house for sale don't do more to make is saleable!! Hope you have better luck next time!
I'm prepping my house for sale. I'll think of this story every time I have it in my head that I don't really need to fix this or that, or paint the other thing.
Makes me wonder if they really want to sale that house. If you see the seven little dwarfs, send them my way too.
househunting was beyond stressful for me. no fun. Good luck!
If it is cheap enough, can you picture what it would be like if you had their stuff out, your stuff in and new carpet and paint? If you have a good eye you can remodel in your head.
A couple of summers ago, my sister was moving back to Tx. because her husband was transferred here from N.M. I had to go house hunting with my brother-in-law to find a house with all of my sister's specifications....(she had to stay back and work..) it was very stressful picking out a house for my sis...but we got the job done..but let me tell you, I couldn't believe the number of houses which were "staged" in the shape as the one you described. Happy house hunting!!
WOW...I'm usually open minded about SOME things when it comes to shopping for a new home. Like the colors of the walls, etc. Things that I can see past with my touch...but I'll never understand those like THAT!!
Good luck with the house hunting
I was going to say you could bargain the price of the house for a much, much lower price... because it would obviously be a fixer-upper? But then I thought... nah. Who knows what condition the house itself may have been in... the roof, foundation etc. Happy hunting!!
House hunting can be fun...it can be discouraging. Just work your way through and you'll find exactly what you WANT and NEED. :) Good luck!
oh the things i have to look forward to. hooray. haha
It's not a seller's market - what were they thinking?
Wishing you the best on your house hunt, the right one will come along, you'll see.
I've seen some disturbing houses when we looked, but that was in a sellers market. What were they thinking?
Those kinds of houses often equal awesome deals. You can lowball the SOBs and they'll bite because lets face it, no one will pay the asking price on a house like that! Our house was kinda nast when we bought it which is why we got an awesome deal. It looks killer now and the previous owner parks accross the street and stares. Fun times.
Seven dwarfs just walked by, maybe you're in luck?
I hate house hunting, would rather be crammed in a tiny flat than move again!
Dang it... like for reals, right?? Waste time, waste money... Almost in the same hunting mode...
Hey,I gave you an award! You can pick it up on my blog! I love reading you! ;p
House hunting is so hard.
Good luck.
I hate shopping for houses and cars. Best of luck to you, though. I hope you find something wonderful--with a view, to boot!
Maybe you can low-ball them and get it for a bargain price. You'd have to fix it up, but it might be worth it? It's surely not the way to get top dollar, that's for sure!
oh lord...I have so been there...hang in there...the right place will come around...
Oh give it time. After the 20th house, you'll get just into the hallway before turning around to the next one :)
On the plus side, forecast is for housing to decrease significantly yet for the rest of this year. I'm so glad I'm not moving for 20 years.
I'm surprised they didn't clean. I know if I was trying to sell a place that I'd make sure it was spotless.
Good luck with finding a clean house.
I can't understand why people don't prep the house for a sale. NOW, maybe if it is structurally sound and the price is wwaayyy below the market, they may not feel the need to make it presentable - but then the buyer really needs to have 'vision' when viewing. Something my mom has tons of and me, none. Good Luck!!
Can I be your dwarf?
I know.. I'm about a month away from looking at houses seriously ( paper work is SUPER fun) and some of the stuff you get for what seems to be a significant amount of money is INSANE.
This reminds me of my own house hunting adventures. My favorite is when the people have not only done nothing to make the house saleable, but they're sitting in it, going about their business and not even willing to leave long enough for you to walk through the house. Crazy!
You'd be surprised how frustrating it was for me to get sellers to clean their stuff up when I was trying to do a showing -- and trying to sell a place that had tenants instead of the owner was even worse b/c the tenants didn't give a crap what the place looked like.
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