I would be more inclined to buy a house from someone who showed it “real as is” than someone who posed it unrealistically. Maybe this is an attempt to reach out to people like me.
I’m betting this is either utterly uncooperative tenants and the homeowner is trying to sell out from under them, or else the real estate agent is part of a flipping operation. Advertise it badly, tell the owner "It won’t sell, but I’ll be willing to take it off your hands for $[not much]. Then the agent, or someone in cahoots with the agent, buys it and flips it.
Frankly I’m amazed at how much importance is put on staging with the market as hot as it is. That just feels like a cash grab. The house next door to me sold last year for $180K on a $160K listing with worse photos than this, and they only entertained offers for four days. It then took nine months to close because of probate issues, but three months after closing and a new roof, the new owners put it up for sale again (no photos or listing this time, just a hand-written for-sale sign on the front lawn) for $250K and they already had offers for $260K. So they bought it for 13% over asking and resold it for at least a 40% profit, and the only photos were full of 60 years of grandma’s junk.
A nearly identical house across the street was renovated in 2018 and sold for $220K, and it just re-sold for $348K. That’s a 58% increase in 5 1/2 years, and it was photographed completely empty. There could be murdered corpses in the photos and it’ll probably just start a bidding war. All this is in Cincinnati, historically a very cheap market, not California or New York. Is there really evidence that staging provides an actual benefit when there are multiple offers before the listing even drops?
That is a good point. When I do look at listings, it seems nearly every one says “pending” or “contingent.” But that might not apply in this instance, in which it is priced 2.5-3x the average home, and it’s sole price-point competition is new construction.
I’ve seen more appealing crime scene photos. That basement.
If that’s the same realtor, he (or she) has really outdone themselves this time. The only saving grace of the pictures is that they’re so blurred you can barely make anything out, though I must say that the huge garbage bag in the kitchen and the thing beside it that’s either a broom or a shovel is a fine touch! And then there’s the basement.
There’s a difference between “real” and “lived in by bug-infested slobs”. Those places might appeal to someone looking for a low-priced deal that they could either flip or use as a cheap rental, but I would worry about even going in to one of those places for fear of cooties, and I certainly wouldn’t live in one without having it first fumigated and then renovated. And I believe @Dinsdale mentioned that street as being one of the worst areas of Chicago.
By way of anecdote, when I sold my last house I had some minor renovations in mind, notably brightening the place up by replacing some dark paneling with drywall. My real estate agent – who is really excellent and deservedly successful – recommended a contractor who did a terrific job (a pair of brothers who introduced me to the wonders of Greek fast-food lunches). Then at her own expense she hired a cleaning crew to scrub the place from top to bottom.
I remember her walking in on the final day just before the place went on the market. The sunshine was beaming in through the windows and the freshly painted and freshly cleaned place was shining like a new dime.
When it was officially listed, it sold the same day for full asking price – literally within hours. Those who don’t like words like “staging” could substitute a phrase like “cosy hominess”, but it really does work. This realtor is apparently catering to an entirely different and presumably less reputable market.
I’d just like to thank the OP for posting this. One of my guilty pleasures is house hunting (either on line or visiting open houses, I’m careful not to create work for real estate agents when I’m not serious) thanks to idle curiosity. My parents loved that kind of house hunting, and it is one of the few attitudes/behaviors that I completely and with great alacrity absorbed from them.
It’s always a marvel to look at the staging - that’s an art unto itself.
By coincidence, I was thinking today about the ton or two of work it would take to stage my house properly. It would look like shit if you just walked through it today and took “as is” photos, even though it is a lovely place.
So, kinda fun to see other “as is” photos. But it does suggest an incompetent RE agent.
I didn’t read all of the posts but I’ll tell you the story of the house that I bought in 1993.
A couple bought it in 1972 or so, did a very tacky remodel and never touched the decor again. Twenty years later the wife left the husband and it was his job to sell the place and split the profits. He was in no hurry to sell so the place was a disgusting mess. He was following the letter of the divorce agreement and was fine if he could stretch things out. The realtor told me over and over to look past the mess because it was a great house and she was right.
So maybe the seller doesn’t really want to sell. By the way, in my case the previous owner couldn’t have been nicer and more helpful once the deal was done. He even hired a cleaning service once his stuff was out which wasn’t required by the contract.
Those of you who are on Reddit should check out r/zillowgonewild. Some of those things have to be seen to be believed.
The first rule of advertising is to get people to look at what you’re offering.
This guy is doing an awesome job. Random strangers are looking at that house,
The first price listed in Zillow is 2003 but it can’t be much older than that. Where’d you get the '05?
I can’t even tell whether the animal in the fourth picture is a cat or a dog. Does not look like a happy place.
There was a guy on Twitter who looked at pictures of his neighbours house which was for sale. One of the bedroom photos clearly showed his cat fast asleep in there!
When I was looking for a place to rent I saw a photo of a bedroom with somebody asleep under the duvet. I’m guessing it was a teenager and it was easier to just pull the duvet over their head than to get them to move.
I don’t think there’s anything particualy bad in thos phostos, there’s no dirt or filth. Just an indication that the owners don’t care about pointlesss nicetys like making a bed, and are happy to leave items around awhile doing no harm. I can tell you I’ve never made a bed in my entire adult life and I would appeciate the honesty here if I was house hunting.
Cluttered for sure. I’d like to see a floor plan too.
The kitchen cabinets looked like custom marquetry and interior doors solid wood.
Not filthy yes messy and proof that no matter how large your bathroom counters are it’s still not big enough to hold all manner of grooming aids potions and pomades.
I have single sinks in my house. Enough room for a soap dispenser and a comb.
Yeah, the photos are surprising from a real estate listing, because usually folks remove all the clutter before taking those photos. I mean, how much work is it to remove the jacket hanging on the chair? But otherwise, the interior looks unremarkable to me.
Fwiw, i don’t really enjoy being in extremely tidy houses. It’s okay to walk in and get a tour, but i don’t feel comfortable hanging out. I’m afraid I’m disrupting the place, and i don’t belong there. When i was a kid, my house was cluttered and untidy, and my grandmother’s house was perfectly put together. And when my grandparents babysat me, i felt like i was messing up their house. (No doubt they felt that, too.)
No, my house isn’t tidy.
Not necessarily that street, but that portion of the west side between Garfield Park and Austin. Pretty rough.
That was my wife’s reaction. She said the realtor must’ve come in, seen the state it was in, and just said, “What the heck!”
The main page says built in 05. My assumption is that the 03 sale for ~$185k was the teardown/lot this house was built on.
When we bought our previous house, it showed well in the pics. As we understood it, the owners had divorced and the husband was living there. When we did our final walk through the day before close, he had moved out and trashed the place. A broken window, tons of junk left, drawers apparently just emptied on the floor. Our realtor got on the phone and called some “Got Junk” guy with a truck who came and hauled everything away. It was still a far cry from “broom clean”, but we wanted the house, so we closed and just did a deep cleaning.
The photos don’t look that bad to me…I guess that means I’m a slob.
As a slight hijack, I’m currently looking at properties to buy and it’s surprisingly hard to ignore the personal stuff. I don’t mean the tidyness, I mean things like big star wars posters or fancy chess sets. And at one property, I had to verbally nudge the estate agent because he was fascinated by a record collection.
If you were selling your house, you wouldn’t make your bed?
I often hear the advice that sellers ought to remove most personal items - like photos of the family - so that prospective buyers can better envision themselves and their stuff in the house.
I’ve got to think most people would.