Open house
You don’t have to be addicted to HGTV to sell your
house:
but it helps.
Our first open house went well on Sunday: at least, people came to see it and a couple of the groups showed some interest. It makes the process seem less pointless.
That sounds dreadfully pessimistic. But babies and open houses don’t mix too well. The strain is starting to tell. You’d imagine that family homebuyers would expect evidence of family life, maybe even welcome it.
Only, they don’t. Toys and books, hastily-washed dishes and cooking smells, even too many coats and shoes in the closet, all are potential turnoffs.
Buyers have to be sold a story. They want to see a clean, tidy, neutral home, not quite sterile but certainly spotless. Candles and fire burning. A dinner table set for phantom guests. Fresh fruit and wine arranged just so, as if a casually alcoholic vegetarian has just vacated the kitchen.
Most of all, a Marie Celeste of a home: they don’t want you to be there, so they can gossip about your lousy taste. Real life has no place in a house that’s presented for buyers.
Unfortunately, life doesn’t get much realler than when you have a not-quite-one-year-old making his little mark on the place. Our house is very much Jasper’s territory – he has gradually taken over, filling storage space, generating clutter in walkways and living areas.
Like a magnet beneath a sheet of paper covered in iron filings, Carolina and I begin arranging our life, and Jasper’s, into the picture of a buyer’s perfect home.
Gradually, like weeds in a landscaped garden, real life invades again. Dishes no longer get washed and put away. Appliances stay out of the cupboards, concealing that valuable kitchen counter space. Books lie open on their spines, Stephen King and Maurice Sendak characters facing their various Wild Things, paused in mid-battle as diaper changes, meals and naps intervene.
It’s true, all this house selling stuff can be both trying and tiring. But on Monday, as the three of us read books after lunch and relaxed in a space that was no longer quite spotless, we realised we have succeeded at turning a seventies shocker into a bright, cheerful, modern family home.
And if no other bright, cheerful, modern family wants to buy it, ours will continue to enjoy the fruits of its labours. Sleep well.
