2.28.2011

Type A

After deciding to put our house on the market, I immediately sprang into "Holy crap! This house is a mess!" mode. This resulted in marathon cleaning sprees which drove The Husband to near monumental frustration levels.

The first night we met with our realtor to sign some papers and ask her some general questions. (the first of which being- how clean does the house need to be, exactly?) Our realtor, whom I really do like, told me she thought my house looked "immaculate." (actual quote: immaculate) On this subject, the realtor and I disagree. But we forged through signing papers, and I expected she would leave. No, she snapped some pictures for the MLS listing. Right then and there. I almost had a coronary. The house was nowhere near ready to be photographed! I protested, but Ms. Realtor laughed me off and breezed out of the door. The next day I pulled up our listing on the MLS to find these:
 Gasp!
 Cry!
Shriek!
Seriously, people. I would never post such cluttered, messy, generally terrible pictures of my house in this condition- ever! I had a panic attack as soon as the page came up! I am still in shock that these images are floating around the internet. Aren't those just completely and utterly unappealing?! I'm ashamed to admit my house looks like this! Especially after scrubbing the floors! Do you notice the clean floors? NO! You see all the stuff!

I quickly shot off an email to Ms. Realtor and gave her some decent pictures: (after shifting all the stuff from one room to another)




Really. Aren't those 100x better? Am I just watching too much HGTV? Surely the pictures make a difference- they have to! 

But wait: It gets even better! 
Ms. Realtor's picture of the outside:



Mine: 


Loads better. Perhaps Ms. Realtor should hire me as her photographer/staging agent. 

5 comments:

  1. oh my!!! Ok well I have to agree your pics are amazing!! but the clutter- well it really isnt bad I promise!! anyhow I hope she uses the outside pic at least- it looks so nice!! good luck selling the house!!! youve' got this:)

    ReplyDelete
  2. WOW! I totally agree that the pictures should be changed. Seems like all she'd have to do is forward your photo's to an assistant to upload to MLS. No biggie on her part. Your staging and the angles of your photo's are MUCH better and really show of the space very nicely. As an HGTV-junkie, we all know it's staging that sells property! LOL.

    ReplyDelete
  3. LOL! Well first off they were not THAT bad BUT...I agree to showcase a house your pictures were FAR better and she should have warned you first that she planned to take pictures...I would want my house to look like your second pictures too on a website AND if I was a realtor I would have warned a client that I was taking pictures and when so that I could have the house SPOTLESS for them...we once upon a time had a realtor who used the word emaculate too...I was like WHAT? I think it is a term that is drilled into their heads to make us feel confident in them to sell our house but on the contrary if they told me that my house looked emaculate (looking like yours did and yours was not that bad and about how mine looks on a daily basis) I would have probably laughed in her face and said be honest with me or you are fired! LOL! Good luck with the sell of your home! Your house did look emaculate in the second set of pictures however (but I agree not the first);-D

    ReplyDelete
  4. You did a great job with your set of pictures! I agree that your clutter wasn't that bad in the first ones, but with the housing market the way it is, you want to make the very best first impression possible. I can't believe the difference in the outside pictures! The first one looks a little shady (literally)... like there's something to hide about the house.

    ReplyDelete
  5. You have a point there, Deanna. The dark pic totally looks like it's haunted... Or has a large hole on the side that we covered up with creepy tree branches... Or is home to a couple drifters and a large bird of prey... Oh the things we could be hiding in that picture. I emailed the realtor to make sure she's fixing the picture situation. She thinks I'm funny for all the work I'm putting into this, but no showings in a week kind of makes my case, no?

    ReplyDelete