Ugly House Photos

Let’s review what we’ve learned this year from UglyHousePhotos:

1) Remove pets from real estate promotional photos.  And make sure your house doesn’t smell like dirty dog or smelly cat.

2) Please complete all necessary home repairs before selling.  Buyers get scared when they see holes in walls and bad drywall patch jobs.  Appropriate flooring would be nice too; cardboard does not qualify.

3) Clean up the back yard and clear off the patio.  A few hours spent on landscaping will be well worth it.

4) Keep your kids out of the real estate photos unless they stay with the house.

5) Review all real estate photos before they are shown to the public.  Stay focused on the big picture: getting buyers excited about your house and getting buyers to write offers at the highest dollar amount.

Happy New Year!  Best wishes in 2010!!

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What have we learned about home staging from this blog this year?

1) Sponge painting is ugly.  Remove it before any potential buyer sees it.

2) Neutralize bright paint colors & cutesy murals & designs.

3) Remove unnecessary personal items & clutter.

4) Remove family photos before selling.

5) Remove refrigerator magnets & other clutter from kitchens.  Buyers like to see clean counters.

6) Remove the knives & ugly pot rack.  No buyer wants to see your dusty old pots & pans.  Knives are dangerous; what if a buyer brought their kids?

7) Either empty out a room completely or arrange the furniture in a pleasing manner.  Consult a professional home stager if you have questions.

8) By all means, please clean the carpet and pick up the animal poop first.  $100 could save you $3,000 (buyers will assume total carpet replacement is necessary and will discount their offer significantly).

Happy New Year! Best wishes in 2010!!

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Graffiti on a bedroom wall.  The house was foreclosed.  It’s all the bank’s fault.

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Four different homes that present rooms to buyers other than intended.  This confuses buyers.

Gilbert, Arizona home’s living room used as a day care center and home office.  This is the first thing buyers see when entering this house.  First impressions?

Phoenix home’s dining room used as a music studio.  Buy this home and you can pick out a guitar to keep.

Phoenix home’s dining room slash office.  You can update your Facebook page while the kids eat.

Phoenix home’s living room, supposedly.  Even the little dog’s not sure where to sit.  And, yes, that’s the front door.

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If you’re gonna go big, go big and put black & white checkerboard tile in every room, then use different colors in every room.  But don’t expect buyers to jump up and down with joy.

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Here’s a home that would greatly benefit from a professional home stager, a painter, and a photographer.  First up, a blurry picture of a pink room filled with family photos.

Next we have a kitchen with a lot of visual distractions (wall hangings, cereal boxes, missing drawers, busy wallpaper, cluttered counters, pink paint, etc.

Opposite view of the kitchen.  Not much better.

The master bedroom features a cozy fireplace, but you’d never know due to the gigantic armoire, the bicycle, the big painting, and the bad ceiling drywall repair.

This bedroom tells us several things:  someone holds that belt in high esteem, there isn’t enough closet space so they added a portable closet, and they love pink paint and gaudy window drapes.

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What a clever idea.  Put a table cloth on a folding table and call it a coffee table.

Proof that there is enough counter space to hold all of your junk & clutter.

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The seller, Tim Burr, is giving away the tree trunks to the buyers of his home.  He also figures that if the fence leans then buyers can’t sit on the fence about buying or not.

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Goodyear, Arizona.  Site of the world’s best fire pit ever.  The photo’s caption reads, “Fire pit.”  No lie.

The world’s largest marble sits on the dining table.  Why?  Family photos complete the picture.

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If you thought the fire pit in the previous post was awesome, you’re sure to love this one at a Mesa, Arizona home.  You can sit down on the camper shell and throw your beer cans wherever you like.  Hopefully hot coals from the fire won’t escape and catch the dead grass on fire.

Lots of pine needles and more beer cans on the side yard out front.  Ever heard of a rake?

Sparkling clean swimming pool.  Are you getting a sense of how much the sellers care about their home?

A close-up of the cluttered kitchen counter.

It takes too much energy to wash dishes and put them away.  The faucet’s getting rusty.

Close-up of the stove that’s not turned on.  Putting plastic on top of the stove burner is a safety hazard.

A close-up of the front door.  Folks, these are actual photos of this home.  They have not been cropped.  The photographer chose to take close-up photos, thinking it would excite buyers.

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