Elephants, Peanuts, and Buried Saints

Our house was a total wreck for the showings over the holiday weekend. It was our last weekend to pack and with so much of it left to do, we just kept at it, as agent after agent strolled through with buyers.

My in-laws were in town helping us as well, and my mother-in-law instituted a maddening, but effective system of emptying every drawer and cupboard onto the counters, then packing everything all at once. Previously, we were trying to be neat and just pack one little area at at time, which was NOT working...

So with everything we own not only OUT, but also covering every surface, each couple had to step over our boxes and piles of packing peanuts to "admire" the house. I say (air quotes) admire, because the feedback that was given to our agent and passed along to us was not good...

Until this weekend, we hardly got any feedback. Mostly that "the house was nice and showed well, but the buyers were still looking". This time, we got "the house is too small and dark", "hated the neighborhood", or "hated the built-ins and other decorative upgrades"...

I know I shouldn't obsess over the random comments of random strangers who lack imagination, but I've been bitter about it ever since. Obviously, circumstances were not ideal, but again, it's hard not to take this sort of stuff personally.

However, I'm not sure what is the "best circumstance" when it comes to selling a house, but you better believe that everyone has an opinion on the matter... and is dying to share it with me.

My mother-in-law insists that a properly staged home sells the quickest. On the other hand, I have friends who insist that an empty house allows buyers to better visualize their stuff in each room. More importantly, buyers avoid getting distracted by something you own and plan to take with you and has nothing to do with the house itself...

I tend to agree with that latter advice. When we were house hunting, we walked into a home where the owners were obsessed with elephants. Uhhhb-sessed! There were tables, chairs, and planters shaped like elephants. They had elephant throw pillows, elephant artwork, soap carved into teeny tiny elephants, and even two large plush elephants posed as if they were kissing...

Hubby and I (and even our real estate agent) got so caught up in making fun of them, that we totally didn't take the house seriously... AT ALL.

There was also the time when we walked into a house where the owners had just cooked bacon. I'm sure the house could have been aired out and been fine, but it just smelled (and thereby looked) entirely too greasy and gross to us that we never even looked at the house. The smell was so overpowering that we simply turned around and walked out immediately.

Our house does not smell like bacon.

One person who recently sold a house in one of the priciest and worst housing markets in the country told me that buyers really go for perfectly aligned vacuum tracks on carpet. I guess I know I'll be doing every other day until my son and I leave to London...

Of course, there is also the myth/urban legend about burying a saint in your front yard, which all of my Catholic friends swear by. Being a practicing Catholic myself, I did a little research on the matter (Google) and discovered that there's a whole spell-casting, candle-burning, dousing of magic oils aspect to it, as well...

I even found a "St. Joseph House Selling Kit" on Amazon for $19.95. Oh, baby! Yeah!