How not to sell your house: Open House anecdotes

In My Humble Opinion
1

So, with the SoCal housing market as stupid as it is, DeathLlama and I have taken to dropping in on various open houses to see what’s out there, what it’s going for, and how our place compares. (We kick around the idea of selling, but thus far have decided against it.)

Okay, folks. For an Open House, lots and lots of people come trudging through your house. You’d think you’d want to have the best possible presentation. But stunningly, that is not the case. Really, how badly do these people want to sell their place?!

How not to sell your house, all based on observations at real Open House walk-throughs:

  1. Don’t bother cleaning. Have dishes in the sink, giant piles of paper in the office, mildew in the shower, dust collecting everywhere, big stains in the carpet, etc. No one really cares about that, right? I mean, they can clean it themselves.

  2. Don’t bother finishing projects. Instead, leave lots of half-finished stuff around to make the place look extra uninviting. Rip off sections of baseboard for new wall-mounted bookshelves, and don’t replace it–a little raw wood splintering in the corners is fine for presenting your house at its best. Paint half the baseboard, finish half the molding, cover an entire exterior wall in drywall but don’t have it finished before presenting it, and if you must repaint, do it sloppily.

  3. Put a scented Plug-In in every room, and maybe they won’t notice That Smell.

  4. Stick around. That’s right–kick back, have some fast food, watch a movie on TV, and yell at the dog while the house-shoppers tiptoe around you.

  5. Speaking of dogs–leave him/her to wander around, sniff shoes and other parts, and escape constantly inside/outside (wherever they’re not supposed to be) due to all the folks trying to check out the back yard. Then, whine about people letting the dog in/out.

  6. Lock rooms. Hey, if they buy the place, they can look at it then, right?

  7. Leave your severely handicapped teen/early 20s son in his room to play with his toys and stare unblinking at the visitors. If people are uncomfortable and don’t want to walk into his room to check out the floorplan and closet space, that’s THEIR intolerance problem.

  8. Have as much crap as possible shoved in as many places as possible. Boxes, magazines, books, and God Knows What obstruct views, but people can still figure it out on their own.

  9. Don’t bother with a colorfully illustrated, detailed flyer. Make it a crappy xerox of a xerox, preferably sans photos, listing the basic info one can get from the online listing. As an added bonus–leave off the price; it’s good to keep them guessing.

  10. Make sure your realtor is as annoying as possible. Have them follow people all around the house, asking questions about if they have a house, do they want to sell their house, what is their price range, where are you looking, can I sell your house, can I email you houses for sale, what do you think–want me to run some numbers for you, etc. Now, these are all fine and dandy questions–the trick to making it work against selling your house is the annoyance factor. The realtor should shadow the visitors wherever they go, even after they’ve said they’re just looking and getting ideas.

Those are my top 10 worst Open House offenses. Any of you seen others I’ve missed?

2

Make that stucco, not drywall. Der.

3

Heh. Our neighbors put their house up for sale, and the wife’s nephew (? young brother?) moved in to help sell it.

He kept a pit bull in the back yard. The yard was overgrown, but I never knew the possums lived there till the dog had killed seven of them (the bodies were left strewn around, making it easy to count).

One realtor told me that Ray trailed him and the prospects around the house, talking about bums coming through the neighborhood from the railroad right-of-way and other heartening material.

Then he rented out a bedroom to a couple. Maybe he spoke to his sister first and paid her the money, and maybe he didn’t.

And a couple of old mattresses showed up against the fence across the street. I didn’t suspect he had anything to do with it until I was getting them cleared out, and he questioned why I would do that. After that I thought he put them there.

The house was for sale for months and months. They backed down off the original price 20% or 25%, no sale. Eventually, no sale, they gave up and rented the place out.

4

How about having your unemployed mid-20s son in his room, smoking pot? We did eventually buy the house (and at a really good price for the size, oddly enough), but I didn’t have to wonder what the smell in the carpet was - it had to be bongwater.

After we painted and replaced the carpet in all the bedrooms, they were quite livable. And you sure couldn’t beat the price we got!

5

The worse house I ever looked at, the dog had been allowed to use the basement as a “dog run.” Including dog shit. And they hadn’t cleaned it up. In a long time.

The backyard was filled with it as well.

6

Not an Open House story exactly…

When you allow a realtor to bring prospective buyers over, make sure your grown children (early 20s) who still live with you are there. Have your daughter cry and wail about how you’re selling her childhood memories, the family homestead, and about you’re selling her poor dead mother’s house and she isn’t even cold in her grave yet (even thought she died a year ago). The shrieking segue into how she has no place to live and will end up on the streets when you sell the house was especially nice.

Have your surly stoned son alternately threaten you, your wailing daughter, the realtor, and the prospective buyers. That bit about coming back and burning the house down with the new buyers in it (in the middle of the night when they’re sleeping) is a really nice touch.