"She says people who are buying homes in our price range want to see those things"

Sounds like an air head. If the people aren't aware enough to evaluate your home, they aren't going to buy it. Nobody cares about stuff hanging on the walls.

Pictures would be very helpful. What does your tidy, neutral space look like?

Yes, people are often blind to their own surroundings, so your own description may not quite be what others see. So, provide some pics for feedback!

YOUR personal style isn't the issue. You need to get that out of your head. Erase YOU from the selling equation both visually and emotionally.

Yes, please provide pics. I posted some when I was readying my house for sale and the feedback was ever so helpful. It also helped me to look at things with more of a critical eye by seeing it in a photo vs. my day to day viewing. I can't even stress enough how valuable the exercise was.

From a buyer's viewpoint, I can tell you that I have been looking at houses online nonstop over the past couple of months. I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on what a house that is appealing from the photos looks like. The purpase of the photos is to get people IN THE HOUSE. So you want them to look as good as they can from that standpoint. In fact the house that I am strongly considering on making an offer I almost didn't go look at because the pics weren't appealing.

I have found people here to be so very helpful, and it is a FREE and UNBIASED resource. So while you may not follow every piece of advice given, it certainly can give you some insight into how other people are seeing things.

Good luck, this process isn't very fun.

Thanks for your feedback

This post was edited by natashak on Tue, Jan 15, 13 at 15:22

Your house reminds me of my house in some ways. I have the yellow walls with the white trim and hardwood floors and carpet in the bedrooms. I have some of the same decorating issues. I like decorated, but not just random metal junk hanging on the walls. Having said that, I think you probably need to do a little more decorating just to make the house seem friendlier. Assuming you have touch up paint, I don't think nail holes in the wall would be that hard to fix. Your green dining room and office could use something on the wall. The other eating area could use a pretty centerpiece or something. Your house looks good overall. A little added back in would make it better.

I'm not a professional by any means but.... I am about to enter the house hunting phase and if I saw your pics I'd be attracted to your house. I thought the idea of staging was to remove the personality - both yours AND your real estate agent's - so that the potential buyer could visualize their stuff in the house?

I wouldn't want to see other people's tacky items on the walls - I'll be going around thinking about where I would be wanting to put MY art and cherished belongings.

You have a very pretty house. If you want to sell quickly, listen to your agent. It really doesn't matter what you like, you want to attract buyers.

Your family room looks perfect, get a few more prints or paintings for the dining room, and some large candle sticks for the sideboard. A few plants would help too.

A very large bowl of apples or lemons would look great on the kitchen table.

In the bathroom there should be no sign anyone lives there or ever used the bathroom. I know it is insane, but you will sell faster. Towels should be fluffy, new and unused.

I repainted some rooms, put antiques in storage and even replaced an expensive painting with a print from Target of all places. However, it is about creating an impression. Look at websites designers have of model homes. They know what they are doing.

Selling a house is a royal pain, staging will make the process go faster.

It is not about "your style" it is about what appeals to the largest number of buyers.

Gee, never thought the new edit feature could so completely render a thread useless to future readers.
No fair!

Yeah... that really should not be allowed.

Why do people post if they don't want opinions?

My thoughts exactly. They should time-limit the editing so you don't lose complete context.

Or else we should all start quoting the entire OP so it won't disappear. ???

I didn't feel comfortable with pictures of my home on the net. Thanks for understanding.

"I didn't feel comfortable with pictures of my home on the net."

Well, if you want your home to sell, the more exposure the better. And I hope you are on the MLS. In which case, your pics are certainly on the net. And you really should have a website and tour of your home. If you want to sell it.

And STAGE the home. You have to mentally move out.

Then why not just delete the pics?

When a home is listed, as live wire mentioned it is all over the net, with your address. Additionally, you should have brochures with pictures in front of your house.

"Or else we should all start quoting the entire OP so it won't disappear. ???"

Might not be a bad idea....

Yeah, at least the first post in the thread.
I come here and use the search feature very often and the thrill of actually finding a pertinent thread and then seeing it ruined by overactive editing is a bummer.
So... not understanding.

My Mom is like this- she wants to talk about selling her house but she doesn't want to do what it takes to actually accomplish it.
That's what I'm getting from the truncated thread anyway.
Hard to tell because it has been so... truncated :)